The best way to spend  your money! 

RAM, Speed, Drive Space?

These are some of the things some buyer's look at when purchasing a new computer.  Make sure that you get what you need and not what a sales person wants you to have. Follow the below steps to make sure that your next computer purchase fits your business needs, not only on the hardware end but the software too. The retail prices for Adobe, MS Office, DVD software, Antivirus can be well over a thousand dollars!! So much for the $400 dollar department store box, or the $3500 ultimate! You can save a lot of money if the computer has the software pre-load (OEM).
 
There are a few more important factors we try to advise new buyers.

1) Come up with software list you need.  Do you need MS Office Basic, Standard or Professional? Do you need Adobe Acrobat? How about the current edition of Quicken?  Will you need to burn CD's or DVD's?  Some companies package this together or give a discount for these products.  When we know what software you need, we can then estimate the best computer for you that will fit your budget. 

2) How much do we spend? What to get, the latest and greatest, or the 6 month old budget buster?  Getting the right computer for the right job is crucial! Let business be the motivator for how much to spend. Are you going to be reading e-mails or are you going to be using Photoshop and 3D graphics? It's all relative to the kind of work you do, all the speed in the world is not going to make Microsoft Word any faster! So, the price of computer should fit the job the computer is going to perform.

3) What are you really going to do with your computer?  For example you want a laptop to take around with you.  Will you be plugged in?  Using WiFi for internet?  Or just using email?  Well, the fastest laptops with the biggest screens have about 20 minutes of battery life. The smallest ones that last 5 hours on their battery can cost $4000, but may be "slow" with tiny screens!!!  The ones priced in the middle, well, they have some features that may be just enough for you. You don't need to get the most expensive thing to get what you need.