Buying a new computer can be a daunting task. It’s expensive, and it’s going to be something you are going to use every day. With the amount of options available, knowing where and how to start looking could be overwhelming and stressful.  If you need to buy a computer, and don’t know what you’re looking for, look no further.  

When choosing a computer, there are 3 basic things that you are looking for, speed, cost, and reliability. Finding the one suitable for your needs is easier than you think.

Before you start looking at looking at computers, you have to know what you are going to be using it for. If you are just going to be checking email and working on spreadsheets then you don’t need a computer that’s meant for gaming or intensive video rendering.

Next, you have to choose between a desktop and a laptop. Getting a desktop is the right choice if you know you will always be in the same place when you use your computer, in an office for instance. Furthermore, desktops are great for troubleshooting and upgrading, as they are very easy to open up and replace components and check for problems. You should buy a laptop if you know you will be transporting your computer and using it in different locations. Laptops are small, and have all the necessary peripherals: a monitor, keyboard and mouse.

To continue, the choice you have to make next is the one you have probably been thinking to yourself this whole time. PC or Mac. Macs runs the OS X operating system, and uses a collection of proprietary and commercially available hardware and connections, these computers are made exclusively by Apple, Inc. A PC usually runs the Windows operating system, and can be built or bought. Many different companies sell PC’s. For this how-to, we will just focus on PC’s.

Inside of a PC, there are a lot of different components that factor into your computer’s speed and reliability. There are 4 main components that have the biggest factors in speed. You may have heard the term processor or maybe the acronym CPU, these are the same thing, and are the brains of your computer. CPU’s usually have weird names with a lot of numbers in them. As a general rule of thumb, the higher the numbers, the faster the CPU. Unless you are going to be using highly intensive applications, you will be perfectly fine with a lower end model. Next is RAM; RAM is what software uses when it has data that needs to be accessed often. The more applications you have open, the more RAM you will use. You will never need more than 8gb unless you are going to be gaming, video editing, or other intensive software. To continue, some computers come with a dedicated graphics card, some come with graphics integrated in the CPU, If you are just going to be doing office work, checking email, and watching netflix, you will not need a computer with a dedicated graphics card. Lastly, the hard drive. There are two types of hard drives, hard disk-drives(HDD) and solid state drives(SSD). SSD’s are faster than HDD’s because there are no moving components, however, the difference is negligible when doing small tasks, such as opening a word document. Unless are going to be working with really big files, a standard HDD will be cheaper and do the job perfectly.

You can always find the components list somewhere on the webpage by going to the “specifications” section. Hopefully now you know what to look for, and are confident in your choice of computer.