Today we are going to talk about speed, speed and more speed!!! So why do we care so much about speed? I have already heard so many customers say, “I don’t care if it is a bit slow – it will be way quicker than me anyway”. So, what do I say to this? “Rubbish – it is still all about speed & reliability”. You can have a slow kettle, a slow toaster – even a slow blender and you are really no worse off. However, throw in a slow computer and you have a game changer.
Whether it is a desktop or a laptop, what makes one computer fast and yet another computer slow? Also, why is it that many people can pay up to $1000 for a brand-new PC and yet it is slow and problematic right from new? The simple answer is nothing to do with brand names, colourful flashing lights, glossy exteriors or suspected individual PC personalities – it comes back to science and physics.
The Central Processing Unit (CPU) is the brain of a PC and it has a power rating, the RAM is the temporary working memory of the PC and it has a capacity rating & a less influential speed rating, the Hard Disk Drive (HDD) or Solid-State Drive (SSD) is the PC’s permanent storage device and they have a capacity rating and a very influential speed rating.
Further to the above you have the operating system and its relative efficiency (depending on how many changes have been made to it). You then have the number of installed software programs and how resource hungry they are. Next you need to consider if the PC has any viruses or malware that again, will suck up many of the PC’s available hardware resources.
It is the sum of all the above hardware specifications and operating system efficiencies that determine exactly how speedy a PC will operate. We regularly see PC’s brought in to us that have low powered hardware and an inefficient operating system installation, and they barely run. Some of these PC’s take 5-10 minutes to boot up and the operator can barely tell if they have double clicked on an icon.
When a PC becomes this slow, you become a slave to it. Everything that you try to do, from Internet banking to viewing some photos becomes a chore that can take 100 time more of your time than it should. The worst is that between mouse clicks you can rarely do something productive as you would if you had a slow kettle. With a PC you are sitting in front of it and waiting …. and waiting!
Unfortunately, if you spend much less than $1000 in the retail shops for a PC, you are most likely getting a low powered PC. It will have a budget CPU, less than 8GB of ram and a ‘slow’ 1TB or 2TB 5400rpm HDD. The PC can be sped up to some degree with more ram and a SSD, however the cost of these upgrades will work out much dearer than buying the right PC in the first place and we are not able to speed up the CPU.
To cater to budgets of less than $1000 and to still supply a workable solution is exactly why we have started stocking our Eco Laptops and Eco PC’s. These devices are factory refurbished ex-corporate PC’s that have the performance and specifications to match a brand new $1500 PC. We sell most of these devices with a high-powered CPU, 8GB of ram, a brand new SSD a fresh install of Windows 10 and 13 months warranty.
It is unfortunate that our industry allows the sale of brand new under-powered or low storage PC’s that will never function well enough to suit even the needs of even the most basic computer usage.
Future Byte Me topics can be emailed to [email protected] and Bruce is contactable at Kerr Solutions, 205 Musgrave Street or on 49 222 400.
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