Ed Russell

Buy now: this deca-core-mega-machine will make your life better enabling you to work faster, get a better job and attract members of the opposite sex"

Is your computer old? New is better...  You NEED new!"

Have a flick through any computer magazine advertising sections you will see many computers with adverts such as the above; obviously not exactly the above as I'm paraphrasing (though I've seen a few that are perilously close).

Whilst I can be a bit of a sucker for advertising (I'm trying to be better - it will be on my New Years resolution list) when I was playing with a brand new toy yesterday (a Samsung NC-10 netbook) I asked myself a question - "how much computer do you actually need?"

Netbooks - for the non-technically aware - are small cut-down laptops that are "under-powered" but should be enough for browsing the internet.  I've read lots of information about them on the internet before we bought them and there are many comments such as "they aren't quick enough" and "why not get yourself a proper laptop".  

I tend to use my machine for a bit of web browsing, sending and recieving emails, and editing a few documents or spreadsheets.  None of it is really that intensive work so why exactly do I need a really powerful machine?  Personally I own quite a range of machines (yes, yes, consumerism is bad - again it's on the New Years list) ranging from a Quad-core desktop beast* right down to the little Samsung netbook.  Using my desktop to perform the daily tasks of emailing and document processing is overkill, it's a little like using a rocket launcher to open a tin can but without the mess and danger of serious injury...  I'd hazard a guess that most computer users are in the same position and yet when they walk into a store (or go online) to buy a new computer they will be pointed towards machines that are capable of a lot more...

There are a number of things that feed into the desire to own the more powerful machines - some are engineered for us to spend money, some are down to naivity and some are because people just don't understand the technology. 

Advertising - The key fact is that advertising (as described above) is always going to focus on the new technology as it generates more money.  The more expensive kit will be made to look more expensive and increase the draw to the people that don't understand the technology.  I've never seen advertising that really says "if you want to just read documents and surf the web then this is all you need" - except maybe for the product that prompted all of this in my head which is my little netbook.

Reviewers - people who review machines are always going to point out it's inadequacies - and that is their job so I think "fair play to them".  But what I have come to realise is that actually these comments may actually not matter and should not neccessarily persuade me into one piece of technology over another.  Fitness for purpose is a really important key indicator and it's hard to guage when a reviewer is pointing out that a hard disk access time might be slower than the norm but when loading my 100K word documents it may actually make a few milliseconds of difference so I wouldn't notice.  Reviews on buying sites aren't much better as I usually find that it's the geeks or someone who wants to demonstrate their level of understanding pointing out the same flaws in a piece of technology when actually it would perfectly suit use by the masses...

Speed - A common reason for wanting a new computer is to "speed up" simple things like browsing the internet or writing a document.   Browsing the internet is generally constrained by the speed of your internet connection rather than your computer.  The speed of the computer in general is partly to do with the speed of the processor, but also it's the speed of the disks, RAM and a whole heap of other factors all too often I find that the biggest single drain on the speed of your machine is the programs that are running**.  A new computer may simply seem faster as when you first fire it up there are less programs running - most people don't know the half of what computer is doing "in the background" because of all of those things that you've installed (or installed themselves for legimate or illegitamate reasons).  Keeping a machine working and running smoothly requires maintenance and while there are lots of programs out there that say they clean up the machine for you I've found nothing that works well for me apart from being careful about what I install and making sure that I don't visit sites that I'm not sure of...

Modern  Software (or software bloat) - the next generation of your favourite operating system or program always seem to need more processor or memory or something to enable them to run.  As a (retired) programmer I get a little frustrated at the amount of bloat (extra stuff in programs that are not neccessary for the tasks you are using it for) that seem to crop up in some of these packages.  Sometimes it seems like the reason that a piece of software can do x is because the programmer has figured out how to do x and wants to put it in rather than it would actually help the majority of the users - in many cases it hinders the majority of the users as it means that the software runs slower...  It's why my netbook came with XP which was released way back in 2001 rather than the new Vista operating system.

So, back to the original question - how much computer do you need?  It's obvious that no one size fits all and that it depends on what you use the computer for but the one thing I think is important is to really think about what you do and have that as a context when you are reading the review of a machine.  

Me?  I'd quite happily use the netbook for most days as it has many advantages; it's small, and because of it's lack of computational power it takes less battery to keep it running which makes it cheaper to charge and last longer when I'm away from a socket.  It's new technology as well, and I like new (until I've managed to remove my consumerist ways) so until the next thing comes along it's top of my list! 

As this is my last post for 2008 - Happy holidays and have a great New Year! 

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* Which I use for writing music - that's my excuse for needing the power...

** I'd like to point out that I'm really only talking about your standard, non-gaming type machines here - just to be clear! 

Posted by Ed Russell