3 Tips on Choosing the Right Computer For Your Needs

Are you in the market for a new computer? Don’t know where to start or what you should be looking for?

If you have ever been searching for a new gadget, then sales people who do not really help you choose are familiar to you. You must realize that the clerks are there to sell a product and they will tell you anything whether they are on commission or not. You also have store personnel who have no clue at all. They just work there.

Here are a few tips or questions that you need to have answered before you go in any store. Once you have these answered and settled in your mind you will be able to go to the store with confidence and more importantly – knowledge. You will certainly come home with what you need and nothing more.

1. Choose a computer line that fits your needs now and in the future; don’t buy just any computer! If it’s an expensive computer, optimized for something such as video editing, and you’re not going to use it for editing videos, then don’t buy it!

Here are the 3 classifications to choose from:

a)    “Value” line computers. These PCs are good for checking emails, surfing the web, and word processing, but they are not geared towards much else. Large-volume retail computers offer excellent values for a complete value series package.

b)    “Enthusiast” line computers. Computers of this category are suitable for most power-user tasks, multimedia, and casual gaming. Again, Dell and other major brands will be a good choice.

c)    “Gaming” line computers. These are best for media creation, workstation publishing, and intensive gaming. Typical tasks that require a fast computer include recording music and making Flash movies. Larger computer builders may not be the best choice, but a few of them, might be good choices. Most users with need in this category typically build their own PCs, purchasing individual parts from a computer component retailer.

 2.    What programs will you need?

All computers come with what is known as bloat wear. This is extra software loaded onto the computer that you didn’t even ask for. With that being said, you need to figure out what programs you will need that don’t come with the computer and are extra costs. The most important piece of software that you need is virus protection software. Do not skip this. Because it only takes one bad virus to ruin your new investment beyond repair.

After that you will probably need a PDF reader which is free from Adobe and some type of Office Software like Microsoft Word, Powerpoint, Excel, etc. But if you do not want to pay an arm and a leg for Microsoft’s offerings you can go the open source route and get Open Office for free that will let you read and save Microsoft Office file types. After you get the basics you can figure out what other software programs you will need depending on what you will be using your computer for.

3.    How computer savvy are you?

This is an important one. You don’t want to get a computer with a ton of bells and whistles when you have only mastered turning it on. Remember the sales person will make everything sound easy to you but once you get home you are on your own. So you need to make sure that the computer you get is not bloated down with a lot of programs and other shiny tricks to the point where you get frustrated and don’t even use the thing because it is too over your head. It happens everyday.

Or if you aren’t all that computer savvy think about getting some training either free or paid that can get you up to speed on what you need to know in order to operate your machine.