Most people only use about 1/4 of what their computer is capable of. What does this translate into? You may be spending a lot more on a computer than you actually need.
Hard drive - this is storage. Think of it like a filing cabinet. The bigger the more things you can fit in it. Hard drive space. Just about every new computer comes with at least 500gb of hard drive space. Any sales rep will try and tell you that for just a little more money you can upgrade to 1tb or higher. I personally have never seen a regular user come into my shop with over 200gb worth of data on their hard drive. I will get a user that has more every once in a while but not that often. You can store lots of movies/mp3s/pictures on a hard drive with 500gb of storage.
RAM - or Memory. Your computer can only use information stored in RAM. Your hard drive is too slow to use for this. EVERY program takes up RAM. Windows XP uses about 75-100mb of RAM to boot up. Vista - around 500. Then every program will need more and more. The more you have the better. There is overkill though. MOST normal users for XP 1gb of RAM is plenty. VISTA you need about 2-3gb of RAM. Windows 7 is about the same as VISTA although windows 7 can run faster than VISTA with less RAM. 2-3gb is where you should be.
Processor - This is the brain of your computer. Just like the animal kingdom has many types of brains so do computers. There are 2 major players in the Processor field. Intel and AMD. AMD is pretty easy to figure out. A 3200 processor is slower than a 5000 processor. Intel is a little more difficult to figure out so I am going to take some time here.
Intel has several different lines of processors. I am going to jump back in time just a little to fill in some blanks you would have if I just skipped to today. Intel released the Pentium processor. I am sure you have heard of it. What you probably don't know is that the same time the Pentium was released they also had out the Celeron processor. Now a 2.4 Ghz Celeron processor is NOT as fast as a 2.4 Ghz Pentium processor. The Celeron is a lower end processor. It's like buying a car that comes with either the 4cyl engine and a 6cyl engine. There is a big difference. As far as I can remember I have never seen a commercial for Intel advertising the Celeron processor. With that in mind I see about 50% of the computers that come into my shop with Celeron processors. Why you ask? Celerons were cheaper to buy. Most people would go into a store and see 2 comptuers both 2.4 Ghz and 1 of them was $100 cheaper. So they buy it.
In todays market Intel has once again mixed things up. They now have the I3, I5, I7 and the I9 is on the way. Again if you think about it like a car. You can go buy the exact same car with different engines in them. The I3 is the 4cyl and the I7, I9 is the 12cyl Lambourgini version.
So what does all this have to do with buying a new computer? A quick (very quick) look on bestbuy.com shows the following.
Toshiba Satellite Intel® Celeron® processor 900; 3GB DDR3 memory; 6-cell lithium-ion battery; DL DVD±RW/CD-RW drive; 15.6" widescreen; 250GB hard drive; Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Cost - $349.99
New! Toshiba - Satellite Laptop / Intel® Core™ i5 Processor / 15.6" Display / 4GB Memory / 640GB Hard Drive - Slate
Cost - 1,149.99
See the difference here? 1 more gb of RAM .. not that big of a deal RAM is VERY inexpensive. Hard drive is bigger.. but do you REALLY need that space? Heres the biggest difference.. we jumped from a celeron processor to an I5. That is the only differences listed on the site. I would hope the more expensive one would have a better warranty but I would not hold my breath.
So when purchasing a new computer keep these things in mind. Also keep in mind that when you got your current computer. You were amazed at how fast it was. Did your computer needs change since then? Probably not. You are more than likely doing the exact same things now as you were 5 years ago. So why dump a ton of money into that new computer??? Maybe just a little cleaning and tune up for $40 - $75 would get you by for a while.
If you have any questions and you are in the Canton Ohio area stop in and ask. I don't sell computers so I have no reason to try and talk you into the $1200 computer with $400 in extras.
Check us out http://insta-tek.com
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