So You Need To Buy A Computer But You Don’t Know What Specs Are Good These Days
Hi.
This is literally my job.
Lots of people are buying computers for school right now or are replacing computers as their five-year-old college laptop craps out so here’s the standard specs you should be looking for in a (windows) computer purchase in August 2023.
PROCESSOR
Intel i5 (no older than 10th Gen)
Ryzen 7
You can get away with a Ryzen 5 but an intel i3 should be an absolute last resort. You want at least an intel i5 or a Ryzen 7 processor. The current generation of intel processors is 13, but anything 10 or newer is perfectly fine. DO NOT get a higher performance line with an older generation; a 13th gen i5 is better than an 8th gen i7. (Unfortunately I don’t know enough about ryzens to tell you which generation is the earliest you should get, but staying within 3 generations is a good rule of thumb)
RAM
8GB absolute minimum
If you don’t have at least 8GB RAM on a modern computer it’s going to be very, very slow. Ideally you want a computer with at least 16GB, and it’s a good idea to get a computer that will let you add or swap RAM down the line (nearly all desktops will let you do this, for laptops you need to check the specs for Memory and see how many slots there are and how many slots are available; laptops with soldered RAM cannot have the memory upgraded - this is common in very slim laptops)
STORAGE
256GB SSD
Computers mostly come with SSDs these days; SSDs are faster than HDDs but typically have lower storage for the same price. That being said: SSDs are coming down in price and if you’re installing your own drive you can easily upgrade the size for a low cost. Unfortunately that doesn’t do anything for you for the initial purchase.
A lot of cheaper laptops will have a 128GB SSD and, because a lot of stuff is stored in the cloud these days, that can be functional. I still recommend getting a bit more storage than that because it’s nice if you can store your music and documents and photos on your device instead of on the cloud. You want to be able to access your files even if you don’t have internet access.
But don’t get a computer with a big HDD instead of getting a computer with a small SSD. The difference in speed is noticeable.
SCREEN (laptop specific)
Personally I find that touchscreens have a negative impact on battery life and are easier to fuck up than standard screens. They are also harder to replace if they get broken. I do not recommend getting a touch screen unless you absolutely have to.
A lot of college students especially tend to look for the biggest laptop screen possible; don’t do that. It’s a pain in the ass to carry a 17" laptop around campus and with the way that everything is so thin these days it’s easier to damage a 17" screen than a 14" screen.
On the other end of that: laptops with 13" screens tend to be very slim devices that are glued shut and impossible to work on or upgrade.
Your best bet (for both functionality and price) is either a 14" or a 15.6" screen. If you absolutely positively need to have a 10-key keyboard on your laptop, get the 15.6". If you need something portable more than you need 10-key, get a 14"
FORM FACTOR (desktop specific)
If you purchase an all-in-one desktop computer I will begin manifesting in your house physically. All-in-ones take away every advantage desktops have in terms of upgradeability and maintenance; they are expensive and difficult to repair and usually not worth the cost of disassembling to upgrade.
There are about four standard sizes of desktop PC: All-in-One (the size of a monitor with no other footprint), Tower (Big! probably at least two feet long in two directions), Small Form Factor Tower (Very moderate - about the size of a large shoebox), and Mini/Micro/Tiny (Small! about the size of a small hardcover book).
If you are concerned about space you are much better off getting a MicroPC and a bracket to put it on your monitor than you are getting an all-in-one. This will be about a million percent easier to work on than an all-in-one and this way if your monitor dies your computer is still functional.
Small form factor towers and towers are the easiest to work on and upgrade; if you need a burly graphics card you need to get a full size tower, but for everything else a small form factor tower will be fine. Most of our business sales are SFF towers and MicroPCs, the only time we get something larger is if we have to put a $700 graphics card in it. SFF towers will accept small graphics cards and can handle upgrades to the power supply; MicroPCs can only have the RAM and SSD upgraded and don’t have room for any other components or their own internal power supply.
WARRANTY
Most desktops come with either a 1 or 3 year warranty; either of these is fine and if you want to upgrade a 1 year to a 3 year that is also fine. I’ve generally found that if something is going to do a warranty failure on desktop it’s going to do it the first year, so you don’t get a hell of a lot of added mileage out of an extended warranty but it doesn’t hurt and sometimes pays off to do a 3-year.
Laptops are a different story. Laptops mostly come with a 1-year warranty and what I recommend everyone does for every laptop that will allow it is to upgrade that to the longest warranty you can get with added drop/damage protection. The most common question our customers have about laptops is if we can replace a screen and the answer is usually “yes, but it’s going to be expensive.” If you’re purchasing a low-end laptop, the parts and labor for replacing a screen can easily cost more than half the price of a new laptop. HOWEVER, the way that most screens get broken is by getting dropped. So if you have a warranty with drop protection, you just send that sucker back to the factory and they fix it for you.
So, if it is at all possible, check if the manufacturer of a laptop you’re looking at has a warranty option with drop protection. Then, within 30 days (though ideally on the first day you get it) of owning your laptop, go to the manufacturer site, register your serial number, and upgrade the warranty. If you can’t afford a 3-year upgrade at once set a reminder for yourself to annually renew. But get that drop protection, especially if you are a college student or if you’ve got kids.
And never, ever put pens or pencils on your laptop keyboard. I’ve seen people ruin thousand dollar, brand-new laptops that they can’t afford to fix because they closed the screen on a ten cent pencil. Keep liquids away from them too.
LIFESPAN
There’s a reasonable chance that any computer you buy today will still be able to turn on and run a program or two in ten years. That does not mean that it is “functional.”
At my office we estimate that the functional lifespan of desktops is 5-7 years and the functional lifespan of laptops is 3-5 years. Laptops get more wear and tear than desktops and desktops are easier to upgrade to keep them running. At 5 years for desktops and 3 years for laptops you should look at upgrading the RAM in the device and possibly consider replacing the SSD with a new (possibly larger) model, because SSDs and HDDs don’t last forever.
COST
This means that you should think of your computers as an annual investment rather than as a one-time purchase. It is more worthwhile to pay $700 for a laptop that will work well for five years than it is to pay $300 for a laptop that will be outdated and slow in one year (which is what will happen if you get an 8th gen i3 with 8GB RAM). If you are going to get a $300 laptop try to get specs as close as possible to the minimums I’ve laid out here.
If you have to compromise on these specs, the one that is least fixable is the processor. If you get a laptop with an i3 processor you aren’t going to be able to upgrade it even if you can add more RAM or a bigger SSD. If you have to get lower specs in order to afford the device put your money into the processor and make sure that the computer has available slots for upgrade and that neither the RAM nor the SSD is soldered to the motherboard. (one easy way to check this is to search “[computer model] RAM upgrade” on youtube and see if anyone has made a video showing what the inside of the laptop looks like and how much effort it takes to replace parts)
Computers are expensive right now. This is frustrating, because historically consumer computer prices have been on a downward trend but since 2020 that trend has been all over the place. Desktop computers are quite expensive at the moment (August 2023) and decent laptops are extremely variably priced.
If you are looking for a decent, upgradeable laptop that will last you a few years, here are a couple of options that you can purchase in August 2023 that have good prices for their specs:
If you are looking for a decent, affordable desktop that will last you a few years, here are a couple of options that you can purchase in August 2023 that have good prices for their specs:
If I were going to buy any of these I’d probably get the HP laptop or the Dell Tower. The HP Laptop is actually a really good price for what it is.
Anyway happy computering.
I simply do not think you should give money to a company that would charge you $1200 ($400 for 16GB RAM and $800 for a 2TB SSD) for $115 worth of parts ($40 for 16GB RAM and $75 for a 2TB SSD).
And no matter what magic apple fans believe exists that allows the M2 processor to replace RAM, it can’t replace storage and $200 for a 512GB SSD is gouging no matter how you slice it.
You could buy any one of the computers that I linked for as much as Apple will charge you for a single SSD.
If you are considering buying a MacBook what I world recommend doing instead is buying one of the laptops I linked or something similar, maxing it out on RAM and storage, and using the leftover cash to take yourself out to a nice restaurant for a five course meal and some kind of dessert covered in gold leaf.
Or just go to browse and hang out! I promise it will be inspiring :)
It’s also a lot easier to do research in a library; sure, it’s one thing to have internet access, but it’s another to have wifi access to databases and books on the topic an approximate two minute walk away.
if you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to live in the midwest, this is it.
You missed some of the best ones
the best part about it is that the art installation isn’t actually called the Bean. It’s called Cloud Gate, and artist Anish Kapoor (yes, THAT Anish Kapoor) hates that we call it the Bean.
But i mean, look at it. It’s a bean.
How could you forget this one though
I HAD NO FUCKING IDEA THAT THE BEAN WAS CREATED BY ANISH KAPOOR.
someone help me why is anish kapoor important what did he do?
Alright sit down for some Art World Drama bcause this is what I live for.
So, sometime last year (?) science invented Vantablack, which is the darkest possible shade of black. Art world got incredibly excited. But as it needs to be very carefully made in a lab, it’s hard to get a hold of, and is extremely expensive. Enter Anish Kapoor, aka FuckFace McGee. Anish Kapoor buys the rights to Vantablack. He is the only human being on the planet that can legally use it, and he’s kind of a prick about it.
Art world is not thrilled with that.
Enter Stuart Semple.
Stuart Semple is an artist, and also makes pigments to sell in his free time. Stuart Semple is astoundingly pissed about this Vantablack nonsense, and Anish Kapoor’s dickery. Stuart Semple makes a new pigment, the brightest shade of pink ever, called Pinkest Pink, and puts it for sale on the internet. To be bought by everybody except Anish Kapoor. Literally, to purchase, you need to confirm that you are not Anish Kapoor, do not associate with him, and will not sell or give the pigment to Anish Kapoor or his associates. Art world has a good laugh, everyone buys Pinkest Pink because it’s awesome, and damn it we deserve something.
Anish Kapoor however is a penis, and will not take this lying down, because HOW DARE he not have literally everything.
Anish Kapoor gets his London associates to buy him a thing of Pinkest Pink, and being such a classy human being, posts a picture to instagram of him with his middle finger covered in Pinkest Pink, captioned with “Up yours. #pink”
Everyone flips shit, because. Y’know. Fuck that guy. Especially Stuart Semple. For context here, Anish Kapoor is one of the richest artists on the planet, and has repeatedly been referred to as everything wrong with the art world, and the epitome of the art worlds elitism problem. He’s a giant douchebag. Meanwhile Stuart Semple makes pigments just to get them out there. He turns 0 profit from his now enourmously popular pigments.
Stuart Semple launches an investigation as to who the fuck leaked Pinkest Pink, and plans to strike back. He does so by releasing two new products. First is Diamond Dust, which is a glitter made from glass, so that a painting is still visible after it’s applied, but glitters like a mofo. It’s the most reflective glitter out there, and is available to everyone who isn’t Anish Kapoor. And it being made of glass, if you stick your finger in there, it’s going to hurt quite a bit, so that was Stuart Semple’s way of saying “shove your middle finger in this, asshole, see what happens”. Except without saying that, because he can get an insult across while still being fucking classy.
He also releases Black 2.0, created with the help of over a thousand artists worldwide.
Black 2.0 is the answer to Vantablack. Black 2.0 is a slightly less black black, but looks functionally the same to the human eye. It’s completely safe, smells like cherries, and costs four pounds. Vantablack is highly toxic, potentially explosive, needs to be applied in a special laboratory and sealed properly, can’t be moved across borders, can reach 300 degrees celsius if you’re not extremely careful, and costs thousands of dollars. Anish Kapoor is the only human being who can use Vantablack. He is the only human being who cannot use Black 2.0.
So I think we can guess who got the better deal.
And thus the feud ends, Kapoor defeated.
…But not quite.
Kapoor, in this entire afair, has made exactly two comments to the public. The first being his charming message about aquiring Pinkest Pink, the second being claiming to Buzzfeed that he and his small army of lawyers will be suing Semple, an extremely poor artist who cannot afford a lawyer.
No lawsuit has been made yet, fyi.
The point is, Kapoor is a prick, and doesn’t like talking to the lower classes. So one day in July 2017, he decides he needs another floor on his London studio apartment, and starts making arrangements to have it built. His neighbors are fucking pissed, because this will ruin the light of their apartments. They call to Semple to save them, or at the very least piss Kapoor off some more.
Semple answers to the call, and releases two new paints, Phaze and Shift, as always, banned to Kapoor. They change colours, Phaze with temperature, and Shift is just iridescent. Shift needs to be painted over Black 2.0 to work, and Phaze just works on its own.
So that’s been the art world for the last two years.
Basically, get fucked Anish Kapoor your bean sucks and so does your vantablack.
Stuart Semple is organising a bean-kissing event for Anish Kapoor’s birthday.
Reblogging for “By attending this event you confirm that you are not Anish Kapoor, you are in no way affiliated with Anish Kapoor, you are not attending on behalf of Anish Kapoor or an associate of Anish Kapoor. To the best of your knowledge, information, and belief this event will not be attended by Anish Kapoor.”
ALSO HE JUST POSTED THIS!!!!!! LIGHTEST LIGHT!
I know this isn’t my art blog but this entire post gives me life
im sorry is that man holding a real actual miniature star in his hands
Y’all missed the best part about the lightest light, called aptly ‘Lit’. This is from their product page:
Two things:
1. “Anish Kapoor is however a penis” is the best line in this post.
2. I wish to be half as petty and half as awesome as Stuart Semple
I hope Stuart Semple is making a lot of money. What a good person.
Go support him the paint’s are pretty cheap and you get the added bonus of being one of many to help piss off Anish Kapoor
He is my fucking role model for pettiness oh my god
It got better! I’m also excited because he just released biodegradable glitter in non plastic containers! How amazing is that?! Stuart Semple, good guy for the planet and artists, fighter against the rich elite artist like asshole Kapoor.
Okay something that bothers me is the fact physics is seen as the more prestigious of the three main sciences, with biology at the bottom and chemistry in the middle. Like. I doubt most people could name a famous biologist, but they could name 5 famous physicists. Why are Albert Einstein and Stephen hawking household names but Norman Borlaug and Jonas Salk aren’t?
Not to dismiss the accomplishments of Einstein or Hawking, or their genius, but their actual tangible contributions to society have been miniscule compared to that of Borlaug or Salk who have each saved LITERALLY hundreds of millions, if not billions, of lives each. Half the food on your plate was probably grown thanks to Borlaug and Salk is the reason half your siblings didn’t die of polio as a kid.
Sure Einsteins theory of relatively is important for modern satellite communications but really though how can it compare?
This is coming from someone who studied physics. I love physics, and years ago when i was at uni I looked down at biology and so did everyone else studying physics. And I know others did too. Retroactively of course I know this was so very wrong.
If society as a whole started treating biology with more respect then maybe more students would go into that field. If we had rockstars of medicine and agricultural science that were household names rather than just physicists? think of how many more lives could be saved, how many more lives could be improved.
I’m not saying physics isn’t important, and more scientists of any kind is always good, but proportionally I think societies priorities are a little skewd.
It’s the sexism. Biology has the highest percentage of women out of any of the STEM fields by far. (60% of biology graduates are women compared to only 40% of chemistry graduates and 20% of physics graduates.) Research has shown that when more women are involved in a STEM field, that field is more likely to be labeled as a “soft science” and devalued based on that perception, even by other women. Biology is seen as less prestigious because the high proportion of women in biology means it’s now considered a pink collar job
Any setting where the elves have weaker booze than the dwarves isn’t committing to the bit
I mean, we’re talking about people whose lifespan is Yes.
“Oh, the weak wine? That is for children. I am two thousand years old, and I daresay one sip from this highball would knock you on your ass for a week.”
Look, there’s this weird thing people do with high fantasy where they want elves to be immortal/extremely long-lived snooty aristocrats and also somehow incapacitated by imagining the taste of salt too hard. “Orcs and dwarves have the hardest booze” no they don’t, they have work in the morning! In any of these settings, elves would pregame harder than hobbits party and everyone else has shit to do tomorrow.
The average high elf builds up the drug tolerance of a mid-70s Hollywood producer and then spends three centuries studying alchemy. While humans seek immortality, the Immortals seek the elusive “philosopher’s cocaine.”
This comic is so cute it warms my heart every time it comes on my dash. I don’t know if the main character is a young buck going through puberty or a trans buck with the HRT kicking in, but whichever way I read it, it’s cute. 😭
I think it works well in both interpretations, which is very cool!
just saw someone post “it’s common knowledge ur not supposed to spam reblog from someone ur not mutuals with” …..?????????? am i confused??? IS that common knowledge???? i try not to spam if i can help it but i actually personally love seeing spam notifs lmao??? unless i dont know what spam reblog means
Reblog if you like it when people “spam reblog” from you or whenever that means at any time
We are current recruiting people to help make a document introducing orv to new readers! It also has sections that will just make the experience more enjoyable :)
We’re currently at the information-gathering stage, but we plan to make it more presentable.
Your help in any small way would be appreciated!! For example, some things we have conceptualised but not implemented are: a collage of tumblr posts from people who just finished the novel, posts that sound fake but are not, etc. Which we just can’t do on our own, so every contribution is very helpful!
Also… ORV Twitter has already made their version of this (which is linked in the doc)… I think it’s our turn :)
If you want to help, please contact me in any way (on tumblr ofc) Alternatively you can just suggest edits to the document as a commenter!
Omg so many additions since I last saw this post! 😂😂😂
It’s funny but incredibly telling how entitled/ignorant/insensitive some of these people are… idk if it’s an education gap or purposeful ignorance.
The really bewildering thing to me is that I remember when you needed to get up and pull a dictionary off the shelf, or visit a library to look up the facts you needed. Now people have all kinds of information literally at their fingertips and they can’t be bothered to use it.
Oh dear gods, it’s gotten worse
When you know politics but no facts
don’t take people too seriously on the internet
This hits different when combined with that “Americans don’t learn other countries exist till they’re in 5th Grade” post from the other day.
Demily recently got another one lads
Also, I love that, in the sign language one, it seems like the last image might’ve been a gif of “fuck you,” screenshot at the perfect time to let you know they were about to sign “fuck you”
IRL I’m actually a geriatric millennial translator. So and this client approaches me about a project he has, he says he wants to learn German and wants to build a database with example sentences around vocabulary for A1.
I’m like ok sure whatever I’ll do it, a girl needs to pay bills. Well first of all this was some b*ring ass shit and it took forever, but here’s my whole point: I get now why Duolingo has some weird ass sentences. I get it. If you’re tasked with coming up with example sentences, and they have to adhere to certain parameters (e. g. can’t be too complex, can’t be past tense, can only have these words, needs to have an infinitive etc etc), it’s super easy to blank and just be unable to come up with something someone actually would say. so here are some of my gems that I came up with:
so I just wanted to tell you all, I get it now. This is why Duolingo is so weird
Duolingo has a home screen widget now so I was like sure why not.
So I didn’t notice until late in the day yesterday so that’s why the streak numbers are different… but the longer you go through the day without practicing the Duolingo owl gets more distressed
In responding to a Tesla owner group acct, Elon Musk says they’re removing the ability to block people except that you can block people from DMing you.
I deleted my acct last week. Recommend the rest of you do the same.
LMAOOO
You know someone on the twitter team showed Elon how many accs he was blocked by minutes before this tweet.
The fact that Americans have to live with private utilities like electricity and water actually sounded unbelievable when I first heard it. It makes no sense to do it that way.
the intersecting needs of christian childrens cartoons to make all biblical figures both painfully average looking white people and as un-sexualized as possible creates a hellish world where all of humanity is descended from 2 Jon Arbuckles
I’m gonna need a sketch concept of Garfield as the Snake on my desk by 5.
I may have to cleanse my computer after this act of sacrilege.
Horrible fact of the day: Chevron just released a new boat fuel that WILL give you cancer.
Not “might”, not “could”, WILL. It has a cancer ratio of 1:1, as in, in a group of 10 people, ALL 10 would contract CANCER.
The EPA’s safety limit is 1:1,000,000 as in 1 in a million people get cancer.
The EPA approved it anyways. I am not joking. The EPA approved a boat fuel that has a near 100% chance of giving someone cancer. It has such a good chance of giving someone cancer that if you DIDN’T get cancer YOU WOULD BE AN OUTLIER.
So here’s a fact I learned from looking into it. If 100 people would eat fish that lived in waters contaminated by this fuel, it is assumed 7 of those people would get cancer.
Also handing this material unprotected gives you cancer at a rate of 1.3:1. Yes you read that right not the 1 in 7.8 chance of lung cancer from smoking, over 100% chance of cancer from this.
As of Friday August 4th the article I read said Chevron wasn’t making it yet. They want to though. They won’t tell people where they plan to make I though nor which boats will be using it. So that’s great.
tumblr staff adjusting a dial to fine-tune exactly how much they’re imitating twitter while occasionally looking back at their userbase for approval except the userbase is just booing the entire time “we hate twitter” “why do you even have that dial”
@dimiclaudeblaigan asked for a tutorial on how to begin drawing. Good news! If you can draw a funky looking stick man, you have already started!
I think that stick people are a great starting point for artists because of the things you can learn from them that will be important later on.
If you are able to draw a circle and a couple of lines, you can easily put together a stick person.
Congratulations! You have started to draw. :)
A stick person is a very minimal artistic representation of a real life person. It is simple yet recognizable, and is widely used in art, media, and signage.
But what can a stick person teach us about drawing people that look more like… well, people? Lets have a look!
A professor gave us an extra credit option: take a picture of yourself outside, doing something that you would not usually do. We were told not to take it too seriously. Here is my entry:
I maintain that sticking my head in the mailbox is not something I do on a regular basis.
Love that some of you are reblogging this. You looked at a picture of a guy with his head in a mailbox and went “yeah”
Can’t wait to see if everyone did something like this or if they had a normal reaction. I will keep you posted.
[ID: a photo of a pale person wearing a black t-shirt and jeans with his head in a mailbox /END ID]
Hello to everyone asking for an update!
The professor has said that he will put all submitted pictures into a powerpoint to be shown in class tomorrow (Tuesday, March 9th). I am very much looking forward to seeing the reaction from him and from the rest of the class. I promise to keep you informed.
Update: the professor saved my picture for last. I was told that I had “truly embodied the spirit of the assignment” and that I had gone “above and beyond.”
Also, to everyone who is worrying about whether or not I got my head out, I was gifted with a very small head, and while I got out just fine I would NOT recommend this if you have a large head or even a normal sized head.
I keep getting people asking about bowling on this post so I’m just gonna repost this drawing I made on Twitter
How did her grandmother fill 4 vases?
She was a very large woman. Easily 12 feet tall.
then why the heck is her family not tall too?!?!
Pop-pop was very small so it canceled out.
This was originally part of its own post, but I figured I should add it here so all the Bawling/Balling/Bowling family lore can be in one place, sorry if you’ve seen it before.
So 12-foot-tall Grandma was actually a star basketball player back
in the 70s for a very brief period of time– her career as a
professional athlete only lasted between October and December of 1972.
The reason for this was because John Basketball, the inventor of the sport, realized that the WNBA had not yet been established, so he asked her to please sit out until the Basketball Elders got a chance to make a space in the sport for women. Grandma thought this was pretty bullshit, but she decided to leave the NBA anyway because nobody could keep up with her balling, and the sport had lost its novelty.
After she settled down in her new-but-less-exciting career as an astronaut, she met Pop-pop on the moon. It turns out that he had been a big fan of her and had recorded all her matches on U-matic, and had fallen in love with the sport.
Anyway things happened, the two fell in love and got married, and Grandma and Pop-pop had a beautiful family together. She became especially close with one of her granddaughters, Ballin’ Jessie, who inherited her propensity for basketball. The two would often dunk hoops with each other, and developed trash-talk as their love language.
Pop-pop also had an interest in the sport, but his height had made
it difficult for him to keep up with the others. In fact, he had
actually lost about a foot in height as a result of being compressed by
Earth’s stronger gravitational pull. Despite this, Pop-pop was never
really bothered by this because of his exceptional love for Grandma, who
was always more than happy to lend him a helping hand.
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