![]() ![]() The business lines will give you all types of hardware ports and flexibility as well as a certain amount of redundancy and usually user upgradeability (some laptops will not not even allow end user battery replacement). For true flexibility (on laptops) get the manufacturers’ off lease business-grade product and OS (for Windows flavors, 64Pro). I also echo, for those with the curiousity and interests, your recommendation on refurbs. In any case I recommend buying or at least testing your preferred choice, BEFORE you need to actually switch so you can get used to it. With those two issues out of the way I find your recommendations for what you want to be very reasonable and prudent and cannot emphasis enough to do an inventory of what software or “apps” you actually use before switching OS on a whim or from a state of frustration. Any future video card upgrades will be useless if your machines power supply is optimied for a low end card. For the desktop user, especially if you or a family member might game, think not only of what video card you are buying, but also the power supply. That said, I still recommend an SSD for the boot drive, and if it is your only drive, 512GB is the smallest SSD I would consider. ![]() With spinning HDD prices for huge 2-4 TB+ drives so low, you should not skimp on storage. My rule of thumb was always double what ever the OS maker said it would run on since they want you to buy their bright and shiny new OS. I have been told 8 Gigs minimum RAM since at least 2011. Cheap out or choose unwisely and you will regret it, or you you will learn expensively (probably more than buying it up front). Those items ‘may’ cost a bit more, but many laptop machines today are NOT end-user upgradable (for most users) and some not at all. Great article! I especially like to see the warnings about too small HDDs or SSDs and the 8 or 16GB of RAM. …and make sure the shop has a good number of business accounts, and check their refs and BBB! You can save a ton of money this way, IF you get a good shop to do it, and have the knowledge of separate components and the time to do research on them. (But I DID have to take it back to the custom shop twice to get the job done right.) The resulting 5-fan workstation has been running for 8 years with XPSP3 (offline) very few hiccups. “Spec it all out, and then beef everything up by 50%.” I deliberately chose to over-spec just about everything using the “MIL-Spec Field Tech’s Rule of Thumb”: □ (I got a 1 year parts and labor for that, and it wasn’t that much more.) ![]() I have built my last three PC’s according to my own specs for the fourth, I chose all the separate components just like the last three, but had a PC shop do the assembly and testing for me. I agree with Susan…there’s something about having so much of the functionality in “The Cloud” it would make me uneasy. ![]()
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