by Elton Gahr

Created on: February 05, 2009

In the modern era of computing there is almost never a reason to buy the most expensive computer. Thanks to Moore's Law and the expertise of many many engineers and computer designers computers have continued to double in power approximately every eighteen months. That exponential growth has resulted in a great many improvements but they have also caused a side effect that few of us expected.

Computers are getting powerful faster than our need for that power as average consumers. When computers first came out the doubling of computer power was of great importance because programmers were struggling to do the most basic things with computers. A simple typing program would tax most early computers and there was no way you were going to get a graphical interface. That isn't the case now. No one would even consider selling a computer which couldn't run the newest version of windows or the Mac OS, and that means that for 99% of computing the most basic computer is all you need.

The desire to have a better computer is of course still relevant but even that should be tempered by Moore's law. If computers continue to double ever eighteen months then the far smarter choice would be to not buy the two thousand dollar computer that is twice as good as the cheapest on the market but spend the five hundred on the computer now and in eighteen months buy another for five hundred.

Even cheaper than that though is not buying a new computer at all. It is easy to imagine that with a new computer a whole world of programs will be opened to you. Clearly anyone who has used early versions of Vista understands that the newest computer programs are not always the best and moving to a new computer is work. Instead consider what you really want to do with your computer. Often a far superior choice to buying any new computer is spending a fraction of the money on upgrading your old computer. There are dozens of small changes which will in many ways have as large an effect on your computing as buying a new computer. Adding ram, A bigger hard drive, or a video card are just the beginning of the possibilities.

In conclusion you should think long and hard about spending excess money on a new computer, both science and common sense suggest that you would be far better saving the extra money in something which will be useful long after Moore's law has passed by this current generations of TV. I suggest a big screen TV.

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