Since I am the guy that "works with computers" everyone asks me the same things over and over. So here's at least one answer.
Question: What computer should I buy?
Answer:
If you never need a computer outside your home/office, a eee PC will suck for you, but maybe a Shuttle KPC will do the trick.
But suppose you are a "Office+Web+Mail+IM+Youtube" guy, as are about 90% of teenage girls and maybe 95% of the over-50.
Then the KPC will work wonderfully for you, if you don't need to travel with it.
And the eee could work great for you if you travel a lot, or prefer your internet access on a cafe , although you could be happier with a light-ish, ordinary 13" or 14" notebook with a large disk (you know the size of your data, right?)
Do you use it for work on the road, only? Then the eee is awesome. I dare anyone to need over 3GB of data for work, outside of some specific data-intensive niches.
Do you see a pattern here? I never tell you to buy a 4-core 4GB RAM box. You do not need it.
If you needed it, you would not haveto ask, you would know you need it.
If you are a gamer, you need a gaming rig. But you knew that, so you were not asking me.
If you edit video, you need what you need. But you knew that too.
If you build KDE from sources daily, well, you know you need more than one computer anyway ;-)
A Celeron 900 (what's on the eee, probably the slowest non-VIA CPU sold today) is enough to play any video, except full-HD (which makes no sense, since it has higher resolution than your screen anyway ;-).
A 240GB disk can hold everything you own. Everything you may need on the road probably fits on 8GB, or 40GB if you want a huge music collection.
So, your data can fit in one external disk (buy 2, do backups) , and what you use often will fit on any notebook you buy, even a eee PC, modulo a few SD cards.
So, if it's not about the CPU, it's not about storage, it's not about the video board, why would you need a very fast computer?
Buy cheap. Buy last year's model. Are you willing to spend some extra money? Then spend it onnicer peripherals for your desktop computer, or spend it on a quiet computer, orspend it on a little RAM, but do NOT spend it on CPU.
Here's my current hardware:
Main traveling notebook: Asus eee PC 4G. Can't be happier about it.
Main desktop computer: A HP Pavillion zd7000. Got it for nothing, used.
Rosario's desktop computer: a Intel box with no fans, a 600Mhz P3, got it as surplus from a client for free.
Also: a couple of monitors, a bunch of external IDE disks (with el-cheapo USB-IDE adapters) for backups.
Total cost: probably U$S 500. You will probably pay U$S 800 for it, since you probably have less people willing to dump their old computers on you ;-)
If I were to buy all new today, I would probably get two KPC's along with a 9" eee.
Expected responses:
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I need a faster computer
Then buy one ;-)
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The eee/P3/KPC would be too slow!
For what? Tell me something specific, I'll try it on my eee andlet you know how it goes.
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You manage with that hardware because you are a low-end user.
Maybe I am! But maybe you are, too. Let me know why you are high end.