Computer Repair in Kalamazoo

Technology is changing at an astounding rate with new, exciting products hitting the market every few months.  With the constant shifts in computing, it can be difficult to decide what will work best for you. At Geek Easy Computers, we want to help you make the most informed decisions possible when it comes to technology. With that in mind, we thought it would be useful to break down some key differences in device types that might affect your holiday purchases.

Let’s start off with the computer you are most likely most familiar with. The desktop computer.  Consisting of 4 main components: the “tower” – which is the main body of the computer, the monitor, the keyboard, and the mouse.  The defining characteristics are:
1. It’s meant to be a stationary workstation.
2. It’s typically the most upgradeable and customizable of the three computing devices we’re going to talk about here.  With a desktop unit, you can easily upgrade your memory, hard drive, add/remove additional optical drives, video cards, additional cooling, etc.   You can modify the case pretty extensively, with LEDs, paint jobs, fan grills, and other modifications.  You can easily purchase a larger monitor, wireless keyboards, or other input devices.
3. You’re going to get the “most tech for your buck” in a desktop.  Desktop computers are typically more powerful than laptops in the same price range.
4. If you’re a gamer, you are definitely going to want a desktop to take advantage of the advanced video capabilities and increased memory over a laptop.  There are laptops made specifically for gaming but these tend to be very pricey, high-end units and they still will never beat a desktop at the same price.
5. For the most part, desktop components like motherboards, processors, optical drives, power supplies and cases are interchangeable. This is not the case with laptops, as each manufacturer has a certain way of doing things, and often has parts designed specifically for that model, or even generation of model. So if you want to play the latest games for several years, the desktop is your best bet for upgrade compatibility.

Next is the laptop.  This computer type was initially developed so that consumers could take their computing with them.  The laptops primary characteristics are:
1. Portability; You can take a laptop just about anywhere with you.
2. Laptops can usually handle all but the most intense applications (e.g. graphically demanding games, high-end video/multimedia and computer aided design applications).
3. Laptops are not as upgradeable as desktops.  You are typically limited to hard drive and ram upgrades. The smaller these get, the more likely even these devices are embedded, and not replaceable.
4. They have the convenience of having both the keyboard and pointing device built in.  Todays trackpads and keyboards are very responsive and comfortable for even extended typing sessions.

The tablet is the newest entry to mobile computing.  It is a quickly growing & exciting segment which has lots of holiday buyers looking at them.  There are so many choices, it is hard to make a qualified decision without gaining some knowledge about them.  Lets take a look at what a tablet is:
1. The tablet is the most mobile of any computing device (not counting the smartphone, that’s an article for another day!).
2. Tablets also have the best battery life, relatively speaking.  Tablets run time is usually measured in tens of hours as opposed to the 4-8 hours of a laptop.
3. One major difference with tablets is that most run a mobile OS (operating system) instead of a typical desktop OS such as Windows or Mac OS.  These mobile OS’s (Android, iOS, Windows RT) tend to be less powerful and feature limited.  They also require applications developed specifically for them that may or may not have the features and capabilities of a desktop or laptop.
4. Tablets can’t compete with laptops on storage. Laptops typically have ten times or more storage than a tablet. With a tablet, you’ll have to be choosy about which photos, videos, music and documents you store locally, or use a cloud-based storage service such as Dropbox, Google Drive, Sugar Sync, or iCloud.
5. Tablet browsers can be limited in what they can view.  For example in both Android and iOS the web browser applications do not support Flash, which is a popular plugin used for displaying video and interactive content.
6. The current generation of tablets are designed for consuming content, rather than generating it, and productivity is almost an afterthought.

Each has its strengths and weaknesses and are really made for different tasks. Developers will certainly come up with new innovations to make data even more device independent, and online services that mean you never have to consider which device you’ll need to carry with you. It’s still early days for tablets, and while they haven’t yet made laptops redundant, this might not remain true forever.

The real answer to the question “What should I buy?” boils down to this.  What do you want to be able to do with your device.  Do you want a customizable, stationary powerhouse, a mobile workstation, or an ultra-mobile unit for watching videos and checking email?  That answer combined with the information in this blog post, hopefully will help you with your decision.  And as always, if you need further assistance, you can always check with your local experts at Geek Easy Computers!