Reply #2: If you gotta buy, buy top end portables. [View All]

I know this sounds counter-intuitive, but if you buy a low end computer that can't be upgraded easily, you'll be throwing it out or discarding it in 1-2 years. If you buy the top of the line, you can use it for four or more years before it becomes obsolete.

Portables, like lap and palm tops, consume less power and are more flexible for most needs. You can plug in external monitors, speakers, keyboards, etc to a laptop, and you can take a laptop to the park, which you can't do with a desk top. A high end laptop is expensive - 3-5 K, depending on options, but again, it can be used for a long time, and cascaded to a niece or child or school later. Laptops retain their utility longer than desktops, too. We had old Toshibas that were 6 years old when we bought the iBooks in 2000, and while they were not capable of many things, they were still useful for the things we needed them to do. They've since been sent on to the UN Technology Project, which put Linux on them and sent them to East Timor.

Laptops cannot be upgraded as easily as a desktop, but when you buy looking at the next four or six years instead of the next two, that can be worked around.

Pcat