It's interesting how those with so much technology under their belts, come across like they are more superior than many who do minimal tech and believe it or not many have Never done a computer and they are good and wise people....
Like many other things we buy, the kind of computer we use is generally dictated by what we need and can afford. If all we use a computer for is email, forums, and surfing the web, then pretty much any computer will do, although some will be faster than others. I don't do as much of it anymore, but I also build websites and occasionally play around with learning to program again, so it's good to have something other than a Chromebook or a very low-end PC. Also, because I've been using Macs for fifteen years, I have more trouble when I'm on a PC, so it helps to have a Mac, although I could learn to be proficient on a Windows machine again if I had to. Many years ago, before Apple and Windows made everything graphic, I ran a computer BBS. In order to be able to support games and other people connecting to my computers over a dial-up, I needed the highest-end computers I could get and had two of them networked together, with four telephone lines coming in. For me, the most important criterion is what I could afford. Because I'm an impatient bastard sometimes, I hate waiting for things so I'd like to have the fastest computer I can afford, but, for what I am doing these days, it doesn't make sense for me to spend $6,000 for a Mac Pro, although if I were to win the lottery or something, I'd place my order that same day.
For my birthday last year my second son bought me a Dell Optiflex 7010. I may have shared this in another thread but yeah that's what I'm on now. I still have my other computers. Something wrong with each of them, very sad. It's all Windows 10 fault. Hey, I gotta put the blame somewhere.
Well after 6 days I finally made some progress with this new system I finally installed on that down machine. I kept getting graphics problems because there was a lot of issues with different video cards out there. In my case it probably wasn't wins 10 trying to do an update at the same time I was installing my graphics drivers. I ran a bios update on the machine and it must have misfired because I never had any change but those black screens and slow sluggish mouse and freezes. I did the bios update again and this time it cured all the timing problems with the system and graphics. I have not had another error or warning box yet so the speed is up and I think my problems are fixed. I did run into one more problem this morning and that was my large 200mm front case fan went belly up an quit working. If I had to I would say this case has no more than 40 or 50 hours on it because when I first built it I was using a used motherboard and cpu I had bought from eBay and it did work good but there were some issues with it. Since I was not using it often I didn't worry about those issues. I was lucky and found the exact fan on newegg for 20 dollars and I will install it soon as it arrives but I can still use the machine it runs really cool. I initially paid like 169 dollars for that case and there is an exact twin to it now from the dealer for 129. I might jump on that for the coming upgrade of my last old computer. I do have a good case for it but it has that perforated side on the front of the motherboard side and the dust is just terrible. This other case is good and not a lot of dust gets in. I didn't pay a lot for that old case but it does look good. I will probably repurpose all the hardware inside and make a good linux machine for a standby. I think upgrading the bios fixes a lot of problems especially with all the windows updates. Just about everything in win 10 was redone in all the past updates. I read a little about win11 and what I see is a lot of useless changes in appearance and other things that actually would make you less productive if you took all the time to relearn things that was forced onto you just so they could make a buck.
HP desktop cheapie from Walmart. I don't like laptops. Screen too small. Tinny sound for music. Funny mouse thingy.