I am continually amazed at how difficult it is to find what I want (or need to meet a client’s needs) in a regular production computer. Not that I am against building a custom computer; but the cost is often higher than buying a pre-built and making a few key replacements. I know some of it is simply market pressure; I prefer solid state drives to hard drives (spinning magnet platter type) and they are more expensive in the short run. Similarly, the choice of processors in most retail machines makes little sense to me, combine that with the mediocre performance of Intel integrated video (compare to AMD integrated video or the addition of a video card) and it is easy for me to see why so many machines fail the consumer (fail to meet expectations).
Aside from my general preferences (use SSD’s, use an inexpensive video card instead of Intel integrated video or go with an AMD processor and integrated video), the process of selecting a computer, while straight forward, can require some careful thought and planning. All windows or IOS systems rely on graphics but some applications can really benefit from superior video ability. Photographic retouch, photographic editing, video processing, and gaming, for instance, can bog down without appropriate video power. Many drawing and design applications will bog down with insufficient RAM and processor power. So, it really is important to have a good idea of what the computer is going to be asked to do, which applications will be used and how often.
To make the task of identifying what you need in a computer a tad more difficult, the new browsers can be called upon to perform a lot of video processing (google maps, google earth, and a few other online apps are examples) that can really choke a machine that doesn’t have an appropriate video system. Folks who like to have a lot of active tabs in browsers or who like to have several active applications running that they flip back and forth between may notice some bogging down if they don’t have quite a bit of RAM (8gb – 16gb or even more) when just a few years ago 4gb was the limit for anything short of a server or workstation class machine.
So, once again, it is really helpful to determine what you are going to ask of a computer before you head out to select one. Choosing the right components, that work well together and provide adequate performance and resources will make all the difference in a computer.