Do most people buy more computer than they need?

[Richb1492]

A friend of mines wanted to get a new fancy computer and asked what they should get. But all they do is word proccess and play mp3 files and surf the net .
I really wonder if stores and companies are selling more computer than most people need.

Unless a person is gaming or video edit Do they really need the lastest greatest computer?

 

[Ricemarine]

Huh? More computer?

If I interpret this correctly, no, people don't really buy more computer than they really need. They want something fast, manufacturers give them something fast. What they don't give them is something that they can game with easily (which is why there's a lack of good video cards), in which they focus more on hard drives, accessories, and clock speed rather than the necessities that an average joe wouldn't know.

 

[the Chase]

Like the dual core AMD system for sale at SAM'S CLUB- does the average SAM'S CLUB shopper really need or use a dual core system??

 

[dnuggett]

If they were to buy a new computer today 95% of households would buy more than they need. Most users could get away with 512 RAM and a 1Ghz P3. All they do are office apps and web browsing, with some mp3's thrown in now and again.

 

[Richb1492]

Companies are doing a very good job marketting The newset and best when 75% of people really dont need it.
Think of the number of people who will rush to buy windows vista when when windows xp orwin 2000 will serve them well.
But microsoft will have a ton of people racing to upgrade.

 

[Polish3d]

Well my PC is awesome for using windows notepad and that is what I bought it for.

It opens fast

 

[Sparkpug]

Maybe. My dad used to buy the latest and greatest whenever it was released, be it a new video card or faster CPU when all he used were spreadsheets, word processors and accounting software.

What was worse is that he forbade me to install a "game" on his new baby, even though that's what it was clearly designed for.

 

[CrispyFried]

yes.

look at all the P2 and P3 systems with <=256 megs RAM kicking around happily surfing the web and printing pictures and documents or running basic office apps (I know of 5).

most of those old systems still have pep and lots of drive space left except for one guy with a lot of mp3s. at the desktop/web/wordpad level, new systems arent much faster. a bit, yes. but nothing earth shattering.

 

[Vee]

No, most people do not buy more computer than they need.
Enthusiasts buy more computer than they need. But actually, this "need" is really up to them to decide.

Most people end up with less computer than they need. But that is more due to ignorance and Dell marketing than choice. "Most people" simply don't know what to look for in a computers spec. They look at GHz, hd, bundle and good looks. So they end up buying some Dell office machine, which frankly is not capable of handling anything at all, beyond the most mundane office & Web tasks which any 10 year old computer can do just as well.
So in that sense you could say that they end up with more computer than they will use.

Another old pitfall is this pretentious "It's not for games". I don't know why people tell sellers/advisers that. Maybe to avoid that dreaded $2000 enthusiast rig. But the result is they get integrated graphics, which go a long way to make a computer useless, insufficent interfaces and insuffient power. Most persons I know who have asked me for help with their PCs, have had strong reasons to regret that "It's not for games" farther down the road.

IMO, people end up with more CPU and bundled software than they need and too little of everything else except maybe hd.

 

[ribbon13]

The answer to that relies on how much more ****** the skill of the average programmer becomes. And it's creepin up everyday. I think the 'average user' has been the bottleneck for pretty much everything except professional content creation for a long time now. ~95% of the time they're using <5% CPU.

Too bad owning a badass machine doesn't help when the website you want to see is on a shittacious server. :\

 

[F1shF4t]

I have to say that people get more and less than what they need. For example seing computers being sold with like a P4 3.4ghz with integrated graphics and 256mg ram, i mean thats stupid, a celeron would do as well.

U get a celeron with dedicated graphics and more ram for cheaper and it will serve u much better. I guess its their marketing, stick one good thing in the comp to make it seem good but in fact make it useless.

 

[ZOXXO]

No.

It takes quite a bit of power to run multiple layers of spyware, and trojan horses while whomping words at pogo.com.

 

[Amaroque]

I built my computer to play solitaire. In fact, I don't even use a word processor. That would slow it down too much. :Q

 

[Insidious]

"need" ????

Of course they are buying more PC than they "need".

They don't "need" one at all

Do they get more than they "want", most likely not

-Sid

 

[3NF]

I feel that games drive the PC market - if we didn't have games, then we would all be using 1GHz machines at home to surf porn ...

 

[Insidious]

Originally posted by: 3NF
I feel that games drive the PC market - if we didn't have games, then we would all be using 1GHz machines at home to surf porn ...

yep!

Games for the kids and Digital Video Cameras for the old farts. It's not hard to put a GOOD computer to task.

-Sid

 

[sonoma1993]

I remember when my grandma bought her emachine from best buy. It came with windows xp home edition, i think an 80gb slow hard drive, 1000mhz intel celeron, 128mb pc100 ram. that computer was slow. It took forever too boot up. My grandma put that aol 9.0 se on it. that took forever to load. And my grandma ran whole bunch of other pointless program that started on bootup, such as some weather thing, call wave, my comet, and some other programs. The lack of memory in that system, just made unusable. back in the fall I, built granny a new used computer out of spare parts that i had here. Now she has 2.0ghz athlon barton, 80gb 7200rpm 1gb memory. Now that system goes. But yea, i'll go to best buy just to look around and see what kind of system offer they have. alot of them come with like 2.0ghz+ processor, measley 256mb ram, then video card that shares 64mb of the system ram. The hard drives, they are like 80gb+, but most likely use the slow piece of crap 5400 rpm. A good web surf, email, word processing, can get by with a sub 2.0ghz, 80gb 7200rpm, and at least 512mb system, i rather have 1gb system ram though.

 

[MrX8503]

Originally posted by: sonoma1993
I remember when my grandma bought her emachine from best buy. It came with windows xp home edition, i think an 80gb slow hard drive, 1000mhz intel celeron, 128mb pc100 ram. that computer was slow. It took forever too boot up. My grandma put that aol 9.0 se on it. that took forever to load. And my grandma ran whole bunch of other pointless program that started on bootup, such as some weather thing, call wave, my comet, and some other programs. The lack of memory in that system, just made unusable. back in the fall I, built granny a new used computer out of spare parts that i had here. Now she has 2.0ghz athlon barton, 80gb 7200rpm 1gb memory. Now that system goes. But yea, i'll go to best buy just to look around and see what kind of system offer they have. alot of them come with like 2.0ghz+ processor, measley 256mb ram, then video card that shares 64mb of the system ram. The hard drives, they are like 80gb+, but most likely use the slow piece of crap 5400 rpm. A good web surf, email, word processing, can get by with a sub 2.0ghz, 80gb 7200rpm, and at least 512mb system, i rather have 1gb system ram though.

I hate it when the avg everyday computer user has like 10,000 programs running at the same time or at bootup. I'm like sheesh how can you do anything on this computer.

 

[Richb1492]

bump

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Had to answer a self-bump, but I didn't get to give my input earlier. And as far as I'm concerned, buying more than you need will always be better than buying less than you need (IE PSUs).

 

[pkme2]

People buying habits are predicated on emotion the majority of the time. If they see something they like, they'll buy. If someone has it, and they want it, they'll buy. If they got money burning a hole in their pockets, they'll buy. What they bought today will be obsolete tomorrow, if something came out that's better.
The only time they stop is when ill health gets them or they die.
GAMERS ARE NEVER SATISFIED UNTIL THEY GOT THE BESTEST SYSTEM TO PLAY THEIR NEWEST GAME.
I'm not satisfied until my graphic work and video editing are instant and still I want more. If the advertisers said the computer of the future is coming out next week, many of us will be salivating and .........COUNTDOWN!
People will buy what other people say is good. The experienced learn by hit or miss, and now they know, so they try to lead & recommend. The general computer buyers will still make their choices and if it looks like a great deal, they'll buy the Fortron over the PCP&C. That's reality! Can't figure.

 

[sumyungai]

Do people need a BMW M3 to get from point A to point B? No, 95% of the people of the world can get by with a Toyota Echo but sometimes people just want to get from point A to point B a little faster.

Do people want to open MS WORD in 2 seconds or in 1 second? If I had the money, I'd rather be able to open MS WORD in 1 second.

 

[alimoalem]

you always get more than you need. if you didn't, you'd have to upgrade every month or two

 

[Googer]

Originally po:laugh:sted by: Ricemarine
Huh? More computer?

If I interpret this correctly, no, people don't really buy more computer than they really need. They want something fast, manufacturers give them something fast. What they don't give them is something that they can game with easily (which is why there's a lack of good video cards), in which they focus more on hard drives, accessories, and clock speed rather than the necessities that an average joe wouldn't know.

:thumbsup:

Never such a thing as too much computer!

 

[dodgybob]

Like previous posters have mentioned, I think the biggest problem is inbalance in the specs of the pcs that are bought by average joes. I've lost count of the number of nominally fast 2Ghz+ pcs that i've had to add an extra stick of ram to for people due to the original 256mb supplied being a major bottleneck on performance.