The following three posts will lay down some basic guidelines about buying a computer. These will be about the following topics (in order of posting):

• What to look out for when buying a computer (probably this will be posted in two parts to avoid having a wall of text)
• Macintosh or PC? (Spoiler alert: I'll say PC)
• Taking our freshly bought computer home

Let's start out with the most important one. You only need to answer a very simple question to yourself: What will I use my new PC for? This may seem an easy one at first, but it breaks down to many tougher questions which we'll go through now.

First of all, you need to make a decision about buying a laptop or a desktop computer. Many people skip this decision and buy a laptop straight away, as laptops nowadays can be very cheap and powerful at the same time. However, if you do not travel a lot or you are looking for a computer that will have a stationary place (e.g. an office or your desk at home), I'd suggest to buy a desktop computer. Yes, it is bigger than a laptop, and it can be louder, but laptops have a few problems stemming in their design, namely:

• No matter how good they are, they will heat up after a while that can cause damage over time or simply the death of the video card which may result in a huge repair bill.
• To solve the issue above, laptops have cooling systems, but those fans suck in dust, hair and other stuff over time, which means either you have to disassemble your laptop and clean it yourself or take it to the shop and pay to repair it. If you do nothing, the cooling of your laptop will be gradually more ineffective, therefore we are back at the first problem.
• Laptops are much harder to enhance, so there is not much room for improvements. This means that you'll have to change your laptops more often than your desktop PCs.
• The capacity of laptop batteries deteriorates over time just like any other battery's capacity does, so bear this in mind.
• This is more like a personal issue, but I know that many other people feel this way. Since laptops are portable, the keyboard, the screen and everything else is using the smallest possible space available. This results in a huge lack of comfort, at least for me. I can't work properly if I do not have my huge keyboard, mousepad and mouse, not to mention my monitor. As laptops' screens are obviously near their keyboards, you have to look at laptop screens at much closer ranges than you would have to look at a regular monitor. I hate to sit close to a laptop and type something. I like to sit back in my armchair and look at my 23 inch monitor from a healthier distance. Of course, you can solve this situation by simply plugging a keyboard and a mouse (Touchpads can be another problem as well) into the laptop, but that is just not right for me.

This is the comfortability that no laptop can give (Excuse me for the mess, it's an older picture)

Of course, laptops have the huge advantage of being portable, and being able to work anywhere is a great pro for notebooks. Personally, I recommend to have a cheap but reliable laptop or even a netbook (Netbooks are same as laptops but smaller and less powerful, therefore cheaper. Also, they usually work for more time on battery power.) as a secondary machine, and to have a powerful PC at home for the more time/power-consuming jobs.

Desktop computers have the advantage of being cheaper than laptops, not to mention they are much easier to repair, even at home. Cleaning them is not much of an issue either, and it can be done in a few minutes. They give the user the comfort that no laptop can give. However, they may be freakishly huge, and the bunch of cables going out from behind your table is all but a pretty sight.

The next thing you have to decide is the main purpose of your new computer. Will you use it for

• Office work (Word, Excel, etc.) ?
• Watching some movies?
• Gaming?
• Designer softwares (Photoshop, AutoCAD) ?

These are the general paths to choose, as the programs you are going to use determine the setup of your future computer. Most likely you will go with the first option, as I don't think that gamers etc. need a description like this. Anyway, you have to look out for the following things:

Basic, cheap office computer

Your computer should have a good amount of RAM, enough HDD capacity and a good screen. Also, make sure that it has a DVD drive and enough USB ports. Basically, if you'll only going to use your computer for Office applications with the occassional movie or even some simple games, the composition really does not matter all that much, except you have to choose quality parts. I'm not saying that a good processor does not make a big difference in the speed of your computer (what I mean by this is that your PC will start up faster, programs will load faster, and overall, everything will be faster), but it really does not matter when you are writing a Word document for example. However, brands are very important when choosing the parts of your computer.

Gamer/video heavy computer

All the above stands for this one as well, but you have to go all out on speed and graphics. You'll need to focus on a very good CPU with a powerful video card. Also, precision accessories (mouse/keyboard) are necessary for accurate mouse movements for example.

In part 2, we will take a look at the things we need to look out for in a PC store, and I'll also make some careful recommendations about brands (however, if you check out my first post, you'll see a list of some recommended manufacturers).