After answering a recent post, I figured I'd write an interesting post on something I've thought about for so long.

I've worked retail in computers, in places like bestbuy, before, and we've sold pc's for $99 and great deals for sub $200. I've heard that old terminology "you get what you pay for". And most of the time it's used once you've bought something and it broke a week later. but with computers it's not always so.

You get what you pay for.
Most users use their pc's for, surfing the net. Checking/writing email, sending some pics, and writing some letters. Pretty much what we'd call basic computing.
Honestly forgive for saying so, but all most people need is some type of advanced typewriter :) with internet access. And for these users, I'd guess to say 60% of pc users. A $200 pc with a big and cheap hard drive, moderate ram, cheap integrated video card, sound, motherboard, NIC, etc.. slap in a cdrw and you're good. Is perfect for them. Most of the cost they will usually incur is licensing from XP Home edition or whichever O/S they use.

What happens though is these users eventually start wanting to do more with their pc. such as Photo Editing, or playing with Home Movies, or maybe even some heavy Graphics Entensive Gaming, (Halo, Doom, C&C, Advanced War Fighter etc..)
All of a sudden they have to get all these upgrades, such as a $100 Video Card, more ram, etc.. Sometimes these upgrades can cost more than their PC originally did.

If you try to do these things without upgrading your machine, you'll wind up with poor performance, and oftentimes will end up cursing the machine, or just getting another one. But honestly, it's not often the pc's fault :)
Anyone with experience with Photoshop, and graphics, know's that Photoshop, eats as much memory as you will let it. And everytime you add a new layer, or a new filter, or a more colors, your 5MB images of your grandkids can quickly eat up 100MB ram or more. leaving a machine that originally has 256mb ram with 156mb to run the rest of your machine (hopefully you're not surfing myspace, and playing quake at the same time). Not to mention that PS likes scratch disk space, and prefers to not share the same HD as it's install on.

Ever wander why people still pay $1200 for a pc, when you have a similar in speed machine for $500? Oftentimes it's performance. SCSI is faster than Serial, which is faster than IDE. Dual Core is faster than Single Core, 256MB of Video Ram, is much faster than 64mb of Shared ram etc..

So there's absolutely nothing wrong with catching a great deal, and getting your brand new pc with all in one printer, lcd screen, for $100 after your rebate if you're going to be doing normal, everyday internet, pc things.

But remember if you're wanting to really get advanced you may wanna put some money into savings for upgrades that cost more than your pc. Or save for a higher end PC in the future.

Well, FWIW, it's all in the art of marketing and commoditization.

I think you're right in that lots of people really just want to swap emails and write letters, and to that end the true, core needs of most users haven't increased much since the old 640K PC that Gates swore was all most people would ever need. But think about it; we've actually got companies trying to convince people they need an Internet-and-TV-enabled refrigerator, which is positively the most preposterous thing I've come across in years.

The real point is something I've found holds true throughout the software development industry, even down to the personal computer industry, and that's this one axiom: People don't know what they want.

Computing is one of the very worst slippery-slope markets around, and most people fall off that slippery slope because of the marketing that things are "upgradeable" and "expandable." That's hogwash. Yes, if something has a USB interface you can attach it to your machine and go on your merry way, but people get suckered into buying the low end under the "expandable" mantra, and then realize that expandable to them doesn't mean the same thing as expandable to the manufacturer.

When people come to me for advice, I try to tell them a few basic things:

1. Stop trying to time the technology merry go round. Accept the fact that whatever you buy, whenever you buy, will be obsolete the moment you crunch the credit card. Pick a time and jump in.

2. Stop trying to guess everything you want to do with a computer before you buy it, because you'll fail. You won't appreciate the full breadth of the cool, interesting things you might want to do with your computer until you have it, but if you base your purchase on such a guess, you're much more likely to find you've "underbought."

3. When you decide to jump on the merry-go-round, go as whole-hog as you can possibly afford. Buy as much as you possibly can. Don't scrimp on, in order, memory, hard drive space, or video card. Though you might be in for a bit of a sticker shock, you *greatly* reduce the probability of "underbuying." (see #2 above). There is no such thing as too much of either memory or hard drive space.

4. After you buy, don't start watching the sales flyers for your machine or your memory for $100 or $200 or $300 less than when you bought. Don't worry - it WILL get cheaper. See #1 above.

I believe those axioms have served the people I have advised pretty well over the years, because they work against the very thing you describe above; buying lowball, wanting more, but unable to because they bought lowball to begin with...

-soonerdave

Great advice!

(btw.. Ibda12u .. as you can see, we finally ordered our computer and the 32" Viewsonic..we'll have to hook up soon - no server though )

Excellent Karrie, if you got the external drive, I think you'll be okay!

:)

I did.. just like you told me to ... I'll call you soon so you can come back and we can get it all networked and installed..

Anyone in need of computer expertise - Ibda12u knows his stuff!

SoonerDave,

You mentioned an Internet and TV_enabled refrigerator? What the heck am I supposed to do with that? I'm beginning to be glad I retired from the insanity of the yearly upgrade mentality, and trying to keep up with all things tech.

Let's see, a Java-programmable refrigerator...maybe it would download recipes from the web, based on what food I had in the fridge. Maybe I could write programs for it and "run them on the fridge". Do I have to upgrade the damned OS every two years too?

Of course, what happens if my "fridge freezes up?" Do I get a blue screen of death? " ;-)

I did.. just like you told me to ... I'll call you soon so you can come back and we can get it all networked and installed..

Anyone in need of computer expertise - Ibda12u knows his stuff!

One of the coolest things about OKCTalk is finding the depth and breadth of knowledge, all in one place.

Not only do we have professionals in key fields, we even have "unprofessionals" who have all sorts of "expertese" :sofa:

Most of the cost they will usually incur is licensing from XP Home edition or whichever O/S they use.

Yea, verily. Unless you're buying superdeluxe hardware, the most expensive component in your PC is going to be some version of Windows.

Which might be an argument for Apple or some flavor of Linux, to some. (Not that Mac OS X is all that cheap.)

I have always built my own PCs but now it is a lot cheaper to buy them already built. One rule I have always used was to look for the price point where you get the most for your buck. There always seems to be a point where the cost jumps up a lot for what you get.

As an example with the last mother board I bought, They started at about $65 and up to $125 the speeds jumped drastically but then they would go to $200 but not get much extra speed for the extra $75. (the numbers are made up) I always bought the best of the old technology because I knew the new technology would be old next week anyway. :)

I also look to get a slower speed CPU on a motherboard that will accept a much faster one rather than get a faster CPU on a motherboard that will not take a faster CPU.

I am cheap. hahha And by this post at 4:17 AM I am also an insomniac and writing goofy posts that rattle on and on.

Russ

Yeah, its always your best value to stay slightly behind the curve with PCs. If you can afford cutting-edge stuff, fine, but for those of us who want the best bang for the buck, three to six months behind new release products are the sweet spot.