Friday, 5 October 2018

October 05, 2018 - , No comments

10 Things to Consider in Buying Out Computers

1.    Purpose or Use of computer
Planning to purchase computer needs to be clear in its purpose or use of computer so as not to waste your money. Meeting the purpose must be the top priority in purchasing computer. Purchasing computers which not have been planned, evaluated, and reviewed is a waste of money.

Some say that there is still room for improvement, technically yes, but the question is what will you do to the components replaced due to change of plan? It’s good if the component itself is damaged or noted for replacement. What if the unit itself is for total replacement because it does meet the purpose?

Having computer in an early stage (budget) does not guarantee total satisfaction of the purpose. It is even better to purchase computer late that meets its purpose than purchasing one for later waste.

The question now, is the computer will be used in the office, laboratory class, multimedia creation purposes, programming services or an internet access facility?

The answer is
for you take the other consideration in purchasing computers.

2.    Laptop vs Desktop
If the intend purpose of the computers are for laboratory students, you can then decide to be desktop computers. But some university are already migrating their standard to use laptop even in laboratory classes.

A user can also asked himself, what will be the working environment of the soon purchased computer? Am I going to travel from one station to the other, will my client require the stations to be movable or fixed?

In terms of power consumption, which one is better than the other? Technically the answer is laptop for it has standby power that the user can use for a number of hours over desktop computers and it has low power consumption in electricity.

3.    Operating System to use
Selecting which Operating System to install on your computer is a vital consideration on purchasing computer. As either you are going to join the group of Mac, Linux or the dominant Windows Operating System. Each operating system has its own unique features that a user may consider to.  

Establishing the computer platform allows the user to select which software are to be installed as either proprietary or free and open source software’s.

4.    Technical Specifications
The better specifications your computer have the better performance you can expect from its end. Able to know and identify the best specifications of your computer is an ideal step in purchasing computer.

Investing the best components of your computer allows your targeted clients or computer purpose fit is total satisfaction.

Meeting the purpose of your computer is the ultimate goal of your computer specifications, than having best component installed and never be use.

The Motherboard: Selecting your computer motherboard is a vital choice that one needs to take, the ability to support bios update, its built-in components, the more the user friendly BIOS settings has and its room for improvement for storage devices, computer accessories, and computer upgrades.

The Processor:  Having the best processor on your computer allow the computer to performs its purpose.

Memory:  Setting the best memory to support your processor speed allow computer to perform its purpose.

Storage Device: Selecting the appropriate type of Hard Disk Drive, as either to be PATA or SATA is the best consideration to take in storage device. Storage capacity should be determine as well based on the user planned activity or the purpose the computer to be purchase.

Having a secondary storage device is also an important consideration to take in backing up important files of the computer. It allows the user to prevent loss of data as well in case the computer crashes.

Having cloud storage account as well is a vital aspect in storage device, you can try google drive or mediafire which offer file storage for free at 50gb depending on the user account.

Video Card: Considering the purpose of your computer, you can set what specifications your video card should have. If you are into gaming, graphics design and multimedia presentations you should consider that video card is able to support high graphics display so as not to have pixilated screen or hanging up during the game.

Having the built-in video card is good for office and personal use.

Optical Drive: Why you need an Optical Drive? Is the computer will be placed on laboratory room or for personal, business and office use? If you are able to determine the purpose of your computer you can then decide if you are going to have an optical drive or not.

Having an optical drive in the laboratory class only led your computer system to be more fragile.

Sound Card: Other user would want to have their system to be loud during multi-media presentation or entertainment activity even without the aid of speaker. 
Sound card are associated to its specific sound driver that is required to be installed in the computer.

Sound card are replaceable in case of failure or defective component. Please contact your technical administrator to administer the service.

Network Card: The ability of computer to communicate over network devices as either to be wireless or local connection.  Ensuring you have the network driver installed in order for it to perform properly.

Network card are replaceable in case of failure or defective component. Please contact your technical administrator to administer the service.

Bluetooth: It has been an important consideration in purchasing computer as well. It’s ability to send and receive file through Bluetooth connections. Bluetooth also allow user to play its content from Bluetooth connected device while having the computer to be the speaker of it.


5.    Accessories
Some computer accessories are optional during the computer purchase as it can be purchased separately from the computer unit.

Monitor: Size of monitor also let the user sets its look and feel in its computer use. Some would prefer to use the standard size of the computer 15.6” while other for purposes of multimedia, gaming and graphics design would love to purchase large monitor.
Types of monitor such as LED, LCD and VGA differ on its size, quality of rendering images on-screen and the power consumption.

Printers: Selecting the appropriate printer is quite a good choice. Some would prefer printer that is capable to customization like converting the printer into Continuous-Ink-System (it will void it printer warranty).
Some would purchase printer to be genuine in its purpose and safekeeping its company warranty service. Using only genuine ink assigned to specific model of printer.

Right now we do have all-in-one printer that is capable of printing, copying, scanning, and sending fax documents.

Flash Drive: Also considered to be secondary storage device.


6.    Software
After selecting the operating system for your computer you can then now decide on which of the following common software’s you need to install. Some software require proprietary license that you need to purchase while some can be installed for free such as free and open source software’s(FOSS).

Processing Documents:      Microsoft Office, LibreOffice, QuickOffice
Image Processing:               Adobe Photoshop,  Xara Designer, GIMPShop, Corel Softwares
Anti-Virus:                              Avast, AVG,
Programming Languages: Visual Studio, PHP, C, Java
Web Browsers:                      Mozilla, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer
Video Editing:                       Ulead, After Effects, ProShow, Adobe Captivate
Audio Editing:                       Audacity, Vogone,
Databases:                           XAMPP, MAMPP, LAMPP
Entertainment:                      VLC Player, Flash Player, MPC Player, Cyberlink,
PDF:                                         Adobe Reader, Nitro Pro
Multimedia:                          MAYA

You can contact service technician to have other required software installed on your computer.

7.    Brand vs model
Brand does not guarantee computer performance on its usage. Brand only signifies the amount of royalty tax that the user is able to pay to its company. Instead of focusing on the brand, check the technical specifications of the computer on how it will perform on its specific use. You can also check its computer model review.

8.    Price
After taking into consideration the previous items, you are now ready to evaluate if it match your budget.  Other company set the standard, best money can buy but other organization set the standard the lowest price bid. It is your personal choice what standard are you adapting to in purchasing a computer. Otherwise if you are in an organization, you just need to follow the standard being set in purchasing computers.

9.    Warranty
One of the best services a company could provide aside from its after sales support is its service warranty and unit warranty. You can check the computer warranty based on the company issued receipt and the product information as you unbox the item.
Power user always secures the item to be fully functional in a span of warranty period.
Note: Warranty seal must not be broken within the warranty period for it will void the warranty and cause the user to pay for a certain amount of service.


10. Computer Review
Before setting the GO signal in purchasing the computer, make sure you are able to check its computer review. Try to analyze the feedbacks of different users based on the model you are about going to purchase. Purchasing a computer is a vital decision to take, it is not about the budget you are going to let go but the quality of the product you are going to purchase.

If planning to purchase assembled computer, checks computer parts review as well, how does its components perform to be compatible with the other components. Computer architecture are then need to be considered in the assemble computer as either to be an open architecture or to be of closed architecture.


Computer Upgrades will depend on the computer architecture your computer have.

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