Buying a Good Computer on a Budget

Practically the entire computer industry is built around the idea that computers must be as fast as possible and further, must be replaced every 15 minutes. Most computer purchasing decisions are the technology equivalent of buying a Corvette, then buying a replacement for it the following week in order to get the new radio.

Fortunately for people who need a good computer, some of the "replace replace replace" frenzy has subsided to a great degree recently, mainly because computers have been categorized into budgets based on what they are going to be used to accomplish.

The basic rule of budgeting for a computer purchase is "inexpensive, but good enough." Basic everyday computer use does not require a quad-processor liquid-cooled server with a double-failover power supply and dual SATA terabyte RAID arrays, but by the time the average person gets past all of the jargon and technobabble and grinning salespeople, they find themselves with way too much computer with way too much price tag attached.

Basic everyday computer use can be categorized into four things: e-mail, word processing, web and most recently, organization of vacation photos and home movies. The only activity on that list with even the remotest need for an over-powerful system is the home movies part, and that's only if the computer's users plan on editing movies.

Otherwise, a basic computer will suffice for 99% of what is required by e-mail, web and word processing, so people shopping for computers should consider the following guidelines:

Just about every processor on the market now is more than capable of handling basic computer use. Find the least expensive CPU.

On a price to performance basis, there is no way to increase the speed of a computer less expensively than to add more RAM. 256MB is enough if the system won't be used for more than e-mail and web. 512MB is a good minimum for everything. 1GB is ideal.