On Sun, Jun 22, 2008 at 11:48 AM, Derek Smithies <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Sat, 21 Jun 2008, Caleb Sawtell wrote: > >> Thats all well and good but this person is wanting a computer for keeping >> track of memberships and newsletters not for keeping huge video files. > > Er, well, maybe. > > People have asked me in the past, questions along the line of, > "All i want is a computer to do mail and browse and print out the odd page, > what should I get ?" > > So you run around with them and set them up a machine (linux of course) > which is second hand with a small drive etc etc. And then you discover that > their desired feature list was a bit longer: > > *want to be able to play those infernal win98se games on CD > *want to be able to play and store video > *want to be able to store all the digital images from their camera, which > is 8mega pixel and only ever works at max resolution and is used > extensively, capturing both video and stills. > *want to be able to play all dvds from the dvd shop > *want to be able to browse to every web site under the sun, which > *want to do video games with accelerated graphics > *and the list goes on and on. > > And that little machine you set up for them (which met the original > requirements) is, of course, not up to the job. > > ---So my preference on hearing someone's "spec" is to always go big. > > Further, cause I don't really want to do lots of support work, I tend to > suggest reliable systems... Which is driving me away from the cheap second > hand things.. > > Then you look at the price of an expensive second hand machine, you notice > the price is not a lot less than the brand new price... The question comes > up, "So why buy a cheap second hand machine". > > Note that my whole comment is based on the premise that the spec supplied by > people as to what they want is invariably much less than what they actually > want. > > Derek.
you make good points, but of course the cheapest new gear often doesn't improve reliability over a well made solid ex-lease piece of gear.
