On Computer Buying

Posted on: August 13th, 2008

Should I buy a new computer?

If you have an old computer and thinking whether you should get it fixed, or just throw it out and get a new one then I have good news for you that will save you hundreds of dollars.

The reason people want new computers mainly because it seems to run slow.

From my experience over 90% of the time it’s not necessary to get a whole new computer in order to increase speed and performance. Optimization of software and some hardware updates will get almost any computer to the required level of speed.

The fact is that computers are not increasing in speed and performance at such rate as they used to. The current computers reached the level necessary to comfortably handle multimedia content. Only gamers need computers that go beyond that. I have worked with many, many computers that were several years old and I didn’t find them slow unless they were burdened with bloated software, or viruses.

Even in the most complicated case – when replacement of motherboard, CPU and memory needed the cost of doing such upgrade is still under $300. But in most cases it’s not more than $100.

Let’s see the advantages and disadvantages of buying and new computer versus getting it upgraded

	Buying New	Upgrading
Advantages	You will have a shiny, new hardware with warranty on it	You will have the same system, setting, applications, etc that you are used to. No learning curve Costs much less All of your hardware (eg older printers) and software will work. Your system will be optimized for maximum performance, clean of any unwanted software.
Disadvantages	You will need to transfer your data, install all the applications that you want to use (in some cases have to buy them). You will need to learn the new system. It most likely comes with Vista. Some software and/or hardware (eg older printers) might not work with it. The computer will come loaded with trial software that clutter it up from the beginning and slow it down.	Your computer will have old parts in it and will not be as shiny as a new one.

Well, clearly upgrading is a better option. It’s easy to see that by buying a new computer you can easily run up the bill to $1,000 while upgrading will rarely cost more than $300.

So we are offering the following service:

COMPUTER REVITALIZATION: If you bring your computer in to our shop (see contact information for address ) we will give an estimate on how much it will cost to get your computer up to the speed that you expect from the computer. Once we reach an agreement the necessary parts will be purchased and installed as soon as possible. If you find the cost too much to worth it then we only charge our minimum diagnostic fee of $30. But if you agree with the plan the diagnostic fee will not be charged.

Note 1: This program is directed mainly for standard size desktop computers because they have more or less standardized components that can be switched out. We will take a look at other computers too, including laptops, but in those cases the hardware improvements we can make are limited.

Note 2: computers running Windows 98, Windows ME or earlier Windows versions will only be upgraded if the operating system is also upgraded to Windows XP – an additional cost of about $100.

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