Shut Up Iris

Last time we looked at why you did not need a laptop but were going to pay for one anyway. Today we talk about the sensible option: A desktop. Desktop computers are generally less portable than laptops, mainly because of the separate keyboard, mouse and monitor, however they are often lighter and smaller, take for instance Acer's line of ultra slim desktops:



Or even Asus's eee PC's, including their all in one, which only requires keyboard and mouse:



The Asus would certainly fit in as a computer, for your home, that you may want to move from room to room and at $499.00 is only matched in price by Asus's eee PC laptops. The Acer on the other hand is $590.00 on average or sometimes you can find them bundled with an ergonomic monitor stand and 19" LCD monitor for $600.00 to 700.00. That price isn't an anemic stripped down desktop either, it comes generally with 2GB memory (the same amount of memory I said you should insist on last time), 160GB hard drive, DVD-RW drive and a 2.8GHZ processor. The comparable laptops start at $899.00 and go up from there if you want larger than a 14" monitor and an actual DVD-RW drive built in.

So, small , ultra light and ultra portable will save you considerable amounts of money AND space. That's right. Space, most laptops make it to someone's house and then sit open on a desk for the rest of their lives. A small desktop can be stashed under the desk or on a book shelf. You only need have the mouse and keyboard on the desk and just about every desk you buy today will have a separate mouse/keyboard drawer so you don't even have to have them on the desk. Basically if you buy a desktop and plan out your desk ahead of time you will have a totally free desktop except when you want to use the computer.

So, you've finally seen the wisdom of saving money and space but you still want a Dell? Fine. Dell desktops unlike their laptops are perfectly serviceable and comparable to other manufacturers. EXCEPT in price, you know that $700.00 bundled Acer we just talked about? The comparable Dell model starts at $759.00 before you add a monitor, and a DVD-RW drive, so expect to pay about $250.00 more for the Dell badge.



Oh, and contrary to the press releases and popular belief, Dell's are not manufactured in the USA, some are but odds are you'll be buying the cheap and small one that is made in Taiwan, or you'll be getting a Dell laptop which will be made in Singapore.

Now, you're thinking this is all fine for people who just want e-mail and the interwebs and LOLcatz, but I am an artiste! or I am a hardcore gamer! I need to master my music, or digitally create art and photo shop images of my roommate having gay sex or play WoW for hours on end. Fine, go ahead. I would recommend a good HP or Dell workstation. Workstations are just desktops, but they generally have balls things like full tower with plenty of expansion ports, dual processors, slots for up to 16GB of memory and usually come with those nice nVidia video cards. Remember for game you want the GeForce, for other applications you want the Quadro.



The HP with the good Quadro video card (at least 512MB onboard memory) will start at $1,000.00 and the Dell that starts the same as the HP starts at $999.00, they knocked a dollar off to make it seem cheap.



Now the last thing to remember is that all the desktops I touched on today can be upgraded. Even the Asus eee PC can have it's memory upgraded, any desktop with a slim tower on up can have additional memory, multiple DVD drives and multiple hard drives. Buy a desktop and find out it's lower than you need? Double the memory. Running out of storage? Add a 1TB hard drive and download the library of Congress. With a desktop you save money, space and gain the ability to add additional memory and storage space or even swap in and out newer and ballsier video and sound cards.

So there you have it. Buying computers is easy so long as you simply remember to know why you want a computer in the first place. Buy a computer to fill a specific need, don't buy a computer and then try and find out what it can do for you. It can't do anything for you.

Now, don't ask me about computers ever again. Assholes.