With the holiday season fast upon us, it is extremely likely that new technology purchases will be happening. Whether you are buying that new computer or printer for a family member or treating yourself to an update, here are a few guidelines to help you make the best purchasing decisions.
If you spend any time at all researching technology products, at some point, you will run across Moore’s Law. In its most basic form, Moore’s Law states that processing power of computers will double every two years. That law was incredibly accurate from about 1965 until about 2016. Intel (one of the most dominant computer chip manufacturers) announced in 2016 that they were slowing the launch of their chip-making technology. Essentially, they were declaring that the internal processors of computers would increase in speed, but nowhere near the break-neck pace that it had been occurring.
What does this have to do with holiday tech buying and why am I boring you with these details? Simply stated, the first factor to consider is “Is new technology needed?”
Two or three years ago, it was common for anyone who used a computer daily for work or enjoyment to be itching to have the hot new device. That isn’t as prevalent anymore. Today, you can quite often upgrade an existing piece of technology (if it is upgradeable) and receive almost the same amount of performance boost as the purchase of an entirely new device for a fraction of the cost. Upgrading a computer (laptop or desktop) from a traditional spinning hard drive to the more modern Solid-State Drive (SSD) technology will make a GIGANTIC leap in overall performance. Also, increasing the Random-Access Memory (RAM) inside the computer can have a positive impact. Of course, there are other factors at play here, and your mileage may vary, but consult with a local trusted source if you are not sure if these suggestions apply in your case.
If you are looking to replace a printer always, always, ALWAYS double check the costs that the printer will incur after you own it. Quite often, that $30 to $50 printer that appears to be such a bargain will require you to take out loans to keep the ink flowing happily. For printer buying, you need to locate just a few pieces of information to determine the actual cost of ownership. First, how much do you print? Secondly, do you need to print in color or could you have a local store print your color documents for you when they are required? The other pieces of information may take a little bit of research but shouldn’t be too difficult to track down. What is the price of a replacement cartridge for that printer, and then find out how many pages it produces? Most cartridges are available in standard and XL sizes, and almost without exception, XL will be a better value. However, if it is ink (liquid) and not toner (powder), then the ink could dry up if you don’t regularly print (see the article from September QCBN for more details).
Once you have all of this information, you would then take the cost of the cartridge and divide it by the total number of pages it produces. For example, if the cartridge is priced at $14.99 and prints 550 pages, then take 14.99 and divide it by 550, which equals .0272545 (or 2.7 cents per page). For a color printer, you do this for each of the individual color and black cartridges and then add all those values together to obtain the cost for a color print. You will see the costs of printing a page vary from a few pennies to sometimes close to a dollar! Just a little homework can save you a TON of money in the long run and by spending a bit more on the purchase of the printer, you can quite often make it up ten-fold over the life of that printer in per page cost savings.
For computers, it is quite a bit trickier to provide a guideline of purchase recommendations as the best computer deal is highly dependent upon the usage of the machine. If you spend all your computer time online watching videos, researching items and checking email, then you wouldn’t need the same computing power as an engineering or programming users would. With that in mind, for an average daily computer user, you typically would want a system with at least 6GB of RAM, an Intel Core i3 (i5 or i7) processor (the higher the processor number, the “better” performance you can typically expect) and an SSD hard drive. If the end user of the computer has specific requirements such as the need to do video editing, programming, gaming, etc., then it is highly recommended to consult with a trusted local resource to help guide you in your purchase.
Too often, a computer or printer is purchased expecting it to be a great deal only to discover in use that it falls short in one area or another. With just a bit of homework, you can often avoid that. If you are looking at new devices now or in the future and aren’t entirely sure which item to choose, send an email to questions@tekcw.com for free guidance and advice. QCBN
By Greg Hicks