What will your *next* computer purchase likely be?

Thanks Alex H. I fully see your point. I can easily think of situations in which a desk-top is far more practical. I suspect that if I ran a business, I would probably want a laptop. And the your point about things being matter being comfortable for you is very, very significant. I hold a very simple principle in life: "All that a person needs to be justified in doing something is that it works for her or him and it does not harm anyone else ".

 

That's kind of a corollary to a simple "needs analysis" in which only the things a person needs are considered - in this case, when purchasing technology tools.

-a.

 

A few years ago, I purchased the "Next Computer" to myself, then every member of my family. Now, I still am satisfy with the decision and feel making the right decision. Two years ago, the OS X had been more advanced than Windows 8, not to mention the current OS X Mountain Lion and the expecting OS X Marvericks. Though not sure if the new stupid Apple management team got any talent to sustain Jobs' success. But at least, the next computer of mine, will certainly be an Apple MacBook Air or the New Mac Pro ( looks like R2D2 or a charcoal-grilled burned out bin) for the next 4 years.
B.t.w. you should take a look at Apple's routers (Airport Express, AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule), though PC magazines have been traditionally ignored them for comparison on purpose. But users should not be blinded by the biase.

 

Oh? Note you make a great argument for the death of the "PC ". Do understand there are tablets, smartphones, and notebooks (laptops never belong on the lap, so I say notebooks), and then there are PCs. A notebook is a computer, and a PC is a computer, but a notebook is NOT a PC.

So the very fact you see many students with notebooks IS an indication the PC is going away. Fewer and fewer computer users want a big desktop or tower "PC" taking up so much space.

Me? I cannot live without my full sized keyboard, mouse, and two full sized monitors so a PC will be in my future - until I die.

 

I just bought a Windows 7 desktop computer. Laptops are OK, but I like the ergonomics of the desktop environment.

 

My setup is simple: one 13" MacBook Pro (going to obsolete), an external 22" mon., an iPad tablet (going to obsolete too), an iPhone just out of warranty. I have a numeric keypad in the drawer, rarely rarely used. I do not have big hands so the normal keyboard fits me. My wife, anyway, needs another bluetooth keyboard for her iPad. We shelled the full-sized wired Apple keyboard (with numeric keypad on the right) cos it's too big. I have an WinOnX, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows XP, Ubuntu...Servers... on virtual machines.

If my next computer has to be a desktop, it may be like this:

http://www.apple.com/mac-pro/ with 2 x 4K monitors and a 85" 4K TV as external monitor.

 

I don't travel away from my office/home enough to rely upon a laptop; I do have an older Acer, with a dual Intel chip in it, and it's excellent. I use it when I travel, or while watching the Tube in the living room, as I don't feel like having a full desktop in every room.

 

Wow!

[FONT= "Tahoma"]Sounds like it might be enough ...[/FONT]

 

To follow up my earlier post - we travel around in an RV a fair amount and it's not practical to take the desktop with us - in a 32' Class A there isn't a lot of room for the desktop, its printer, me, DW and two Labradors!

I've had my current eMachines desktop for about 6 years, still running XP, still with the Lexmark printer I bought to go with it. The only add-on is an 80GB external DD.

DW has an ASUS netbook, which is a nice little box, but has no DVD/CD drive, making externally introduced updates and installation of new software a bit difficult. Right now I use the DVD drive in my desktop as a slave drive to load stuff on her machine.

We'll probably update our set-ups in about 18 months and go with a couple of lap-tops which have DVD/CD drives, along with a compact wireless network printer that's easy to find room for in the motor-home. Personally, I'd prefer to stick with Win 7, rather than go to an OS designed for touch screens that works less well with keyboard machines.

Maybe Win 9 will be out by then and MS will have realised that people still want keyboard machines.

 

To be sure, W8 works perfectly well with a keyboard and mouse. It simply adds touch screen support.

 

That's an interesting comment, Bill. When W8 was first introduced, this community was scathing in its criticism and gave a very strong indication that its capabilities with a keyboard and mouse machine had been compromised by the touch-screen emphasis.

 

I agree with Bill; W8 works just fine with keyboard and mouse.

As for the netbook - I love my Dell netbook, but it's not working right now - the other way to do updates/upgrades is to copy them to a flash drive and plug that thingie into your USB on the netbook.

-a.

 

It's actually just fine

Seriously, I was all hot against W8 when I first upgraded and, until I did a W8 "refresh," I had found it unwieldy. The refresh, however, made it behave like a fresh, clean install. It also caused me to reevaluate those many apps and suites I'd installed, which cluttered up my system.

As a long-time systems/IT professional, I definitely should have known better. My excuse was that I evaluated a lot of 'stuff' before recommending anything to my clients. So the clean install allowed me to keep things out, and only add back those things that are necessary. I did a needs analysis on my own system and now I do appreciate W8.

Okay, there are still things I think should work better, but partly because they require a bit more RAM than I have.

All in all, W8 is just fine, with keyboard and mouse.

Cheers!

Alex

 

Laptops are notorious for unneeded bloatware and such. Maybe that is part of the reason I had such a bad experience with Windows 8.

 

Truly, my laptop also was crowded with things I simply did not need and, every time I start fresh from the hidden partition, all that stuff comes back.

So I've begun to take it out a little at a time. But then, my laptop is still on vista and I actually do like that OS. Not, mind you, for a desktop, but the laptop is just fine.

Cheers!

 

Maybe you need to look into this...

http://pcdecrapifier.com/