Used Computer Hardware

Video Transcript

"On behalf of expertvillage.com my name is Don with Friendly Computer's and I'm here to talk about today used computers. Now, we've mentioned briefly in the introduction that you need to find out what your needs for computer are before you go looking for a used one. With used computers that's even more important because there are such a variety out there. Do you plan to use it just for internet and email? Maybe some light use? Do you maybe plan to use it for the kids to do homework on? Run some word processing, take your family photos and store them on it? Maybe you plan to use it for gaming or some of the higher end applications? All of these things have to come into play to determining what you need. There's a lot of older computers on the market today in the used area that are mostly older technology. Now for some uses this is perfectly good. If you're going to use internet and email, if you're using a dial up service, then any computer that functions and runs well is going to serve that need. If however you're on high speed, you have to make sure that the computer meets the minimum requirements of whoever your broadband provider is. Additionally, you have to make sure that it has a network port. Now, beyond those things if you're looking for a computer to use for the kids for their school work, their homework and you're just trying to keep the price down and look for a used one, I would say that you probably need to make sure that it's running Window XP. Anything over is going to be incompatible with many of the assignments that children may bring home. Additionally, a lot of today's new preferals and devices in software will not run on the older operating systems. Now, beyond that you want to see how much hardware space you need, how much processing speed? Many of the used computers on the market are Intel Celeron and for most users today you need either the Dual Core Celeron, the Pentium 4 or better. Now, make sure that any used computer you have that you may purchase, starts up. This computer looks perfectly good as far as a used computer goes, but notice the power button is missing. It wouldn't do a lot of good unless you're capable of pulling it apart and seeing. Now, there's a lot of other things you want to look at in a used computer as far as determining whether or not it's one that will work for you. If you're going to use it for high end requirements, you can see there's no add on video card here, that's a detriment. Additionally, it only has a modem, it doesn't have a high speed port. These kinds of things will be very important once you determine how you're going to use it to match the features of what's available on that machine to your needs."