Buying a new PC

PC's are expensive. They are amazingly powerful and complex pieces of equipment, and they are worth the money, but they do represent the consumption of a lot of resources.

These are the rules I follow when buying a PC. Others may work for you, not least because you may be reluctant about installing a new operating system, upgrading the memory of your laptop, or replacing the hard disk. If you are willing to have a go at doing these things you can save a lot of money:

1. Think about buying a second-hand machine. There are a lot on the market, and some have been well maintained,
2. don't disregard processors made by AMD or designed by ARM,
3. don't be worried if the hard disk has failed - this is usually easy to replace, and quite cheap,
4. don't be worried if the computer has no operating system. If the PC has a COA then you are entitled to install a fresh Microsoft operating system. In any case you can install Fedora or Ubuntu, which will probably serve you just as well,
5. eBay is a great source of ex-lease laptops. Sellers will usually have very high feedback.
   
6. think about buying the sort of boring computer corporations typically lease - i.e. not Alienware or Mac,
   

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7. don't be put off buying from abroad - you can escape the VAT (possibly) and it's easy to get used to a US keyboard (I prefer them) or if you don't like that you can still use a UK-style keyboard, you just have to remember where the £ key is,
8. get as much memory as you can afford. I think that a 4GB PC is just much nicer to use, even if the processor speed is a bit slow. It's fairly cheap to buy extra memory from a specialist supplier like Crucial  but it's probably going to be cheaper to buy the PC with the extra memory already installed,
9. always google for reviews of the particular PC before you bid. Amazon is good, but sometimes ordinary buyers will give a low rating because the item was delivered damaged, or doesn't do something it was never designed to do,
10. think about what you need the PC for. If you are going to connect it to a modern PC or monitor, then an HDMI connector is very important (DVI or display port may be an cheaper alternative if you're prepared to buy a slightly more expensive adaptor cable).

These are my top-ten tips. I am sure there are other things to look out for. Send them to me on Twitter and don't forget to tell me how you get on! My latest purchase was a Dell Latitude E6400 with 4GB RAM which I managed to pick up for under one hundred and sixty pounds from PC Efficient in Shefford (driveable from me, so I save the delivery cost!).