How to Buy a Computer

Video Transcript

"Are you sure this stuff is new? Look man, are you going to buy something or not? I got to get out of here. I, oh hi, today we're going to show you how to buy a computer. Computer store, that's where I buy them. How to buy a computer? Well its a relatively complicated process of comparing the pre-imposed obsolesce of the models and the MTBF. Now look, its not quite that easy but its not quite that complicated either. First of all if you're working in an office and you're doing basic everyday office tasks like writing letters, surfing the Internet, checking your e-mail, maybe doing some spreadsheets, you can use a pretty much generic computer. Give yourself a little room to expand. A generic monitor, a little keyboard and a mouse. For younger students or even middle school students, an older model that will still do what you need, you can go back 3, 4 years in the model and get something that's 2 or 3 hundred dollars, something inexpensive, CraigsList, in the newspaper, go to Goodwill, you'd be surprised what you can find. At the end of every year or every couple of years, most schools in the United States refresh their technology which means they've got a ton of perfectly good older model computers that they let go for super cheap. Now if graphic arts is your thing, your money is better spent on more memory, more storage space or bigger hard drives and the software. Hey now if music's your thing, then probably you might enjoy something that's a little bit newer, 1 to 2 years old. Spending you money more on memory, storage or hard drive space, the software, the accessories that go with it like MIDI equipment and mixing boards. But most importantly in the audio world, you really need to be concerned with compatibility. If you're into the gaming world, you want the latest model of computer that you can afford. Gamers, you want to fill those slots with as high an amount of memory as the motherboard will accept. This motherboard has the capacity for two processors. Highly desirable in the gaming world if you can do it. Looking at the graphics card, even more than one graphics card is really desirable. Then you can have two monitors. You definitely want a graphics card that has its own video memory and a fan on it to keep that puppy cool. No system is complete without multiple hard drives and of course if you're doing online gaming you want a really fast Internet connection. For all your video production hounds out there, a desktop is going to be better in the long run than a laptop. The fastest processor that you can get is definitely what you want, especially when you start rendering your videos or exporting them. You're going to need a hard drive, a really fast hard drive. One minute of HD video equals about 1 gigabyte of space on your computer. Dual monitors, a track ball, killer software. Get the fastest DVD burner that you can, its going to save you a lot of time. And of course, a fast Internet connection. No matter what kind of computer you decide to buy, remember one thing, it'll always go smoother if you hey, read the flipping manual."