If there is an option for putting the operating system on a smaller SSD Solid State Drive, it might be a worthy addition. You might replace your dead hard drive with a 250gb $70 SSD and install fresh windows onto it - get second life from that desktop and might surprise you with its new peppiness.

Personal preference here is laptops. I would never have imagined replacing a tower with a laptop until I bought one. Now I would never want a desktop unless I wanted super large monitor.

Unfortunately, my husband's eyes are so bad that he uses a very large monitor. It is interesting that you prefer laptops. As it happens, we did buy a Dell laptop several months ago, thinking it would be easier on his eyes than his iPad when away from home, but it has turned out to be a disaster--terribly, terribly slow, often unresponsive to commands (or perhaps it has just decided in some cases to wait several minutes before opening an app), and in short, it has quite turned us both against laptops. More recently I read an article about laptops saying you get what you pay for, which makes me think that if we had spent $700+ instead of under $300, we might have gotten a better-performing machine.

Your suggestion about replacing the dead hd is also very interesting, but I don't think my abilities would extend to installing fresh windows, even if I might perhaps, with the help of YouTube, manage to replace the hard drive. I wouldn't have the first idea of how to connect the hd to the motherboard, either. But thanks for taking the time to answer me.

As Mikie suggested, a solid state drive and a fresh install of Windows would be a cost effective option to revive your old machine. But if you lack the necessary skill...any techie kids in the family?

If you want speed, you have to pay for it. Unless you have some compelling need for a terabyte of storage, I'd suggest a solid state drive in the new one. Unfortunately most manufacturers require you to up almost everything else to get it.

As for you laptop, most inexpensive laptops have middling specs and will be a little slow. You might want to get rid of whatever bloatware Dell installed. If you don't use it very often, the first thing it will want to do is run a virus scan and check for updates. Without enough horsepower, the machine will slow to a crawl. Leave it on for a while and let it do it's thing, then try to use it.

My suggestion would be to get a desktop with the fastest processor and the most memory that you can possibly afford, and if you can get an SSD too...so much the better. I have 12 GB memory on my current Dell XPS, but I will want 16 or more with the next one. I don't want or need a laptop and think they are too fragile anyways. I'm typing this on my 2008 Dell Inspiron running Vista and it still keeps going.

A vendor I like to use is B&H, a New York store which started out as a camera store but now has expanded to computers and much more. Their web site (www.bhphotovideo.com) has a good search menu which allows you to be very specific - brand, disk capacity, processor, etc. You can also get components as well as complete computers.

On another thing, I also have poor eyesight and I bought a large screen TV for my computers - it works with my desktop as well as my laptop. Just make sure your new computer has an HDMI or a DisplayPort port (and also get the appropriate cable). I think all modern TVs have HDMI inputs.

I second B&H. Been ordering stuff from then since back in the 35mm film days. I bought a new desktop and laptop in November. I had an HP desktop with Windows 7 I replaced for my husband. I usually went with HP and have always had good luck but this time decided to try a Lenovo all in one. I think it has the I7 processor. Was on sale for $800 and I love it. One plug and no more tangle of cords and I got quite a large monitor. It did come with an external DVD drive but haven't had the need to hook that up as I use flash drives to store stuff now. It seems just as fast and peppy as my HP was.

My laptop was a Toshiba with Windows 7 and there is nothing wrong with it but figured if I had to learn Windows 10 to help my husband might as well get a laptop to match. The laptop was on sale for about $600 and so far very happy with it. It boots fast and runs fast and I have had no issues. I back up everything on both devices every few days so don't keep a lot of clutter on them. I admit I didn't research about Lenovo but I saw no Toshiba laptops in best buy when I was there so went with this. Time will tell I guess. Never had a dell but know a few people who do and like them. Mary

As others noted, replacing your current bad hd with an ssd is a huge improvement. That said, how old is your current pc, and what are the specs? Spending time and money on a bandaid to get you through another couple years may not be worth it if its pretty old.

Also, a 1tb drive is good if its being used as a 2nd hd in the pc. I always recommend an ssd as the boot/os drive. If you have a ton of data, then get a larger 2nd drive to store it on there to keep the ssd uncluttered which will help not to bog it down. If you dont have a lot of data (music, pictures, files), then just the ssd might be enough for you.

Same goes for your laptop. It probably has a cheap 5400 rpm hd in it given the price. Replacing the hd with an ssd will make it noticably faster as well. Any computer repair shops around you? They can do this for you.

What do you use the pc for? Email & web browsing? Or any specific programs?

Never met a soul who didnt appreciate a faster computer. I used to support a campus of 3500 users and not one person complained about a faster ssd than their hdd. Its also more reliable, especially in a laptop where it can get banged around. No moving parts in a ssd.

I never met anyone who wasn't happy to save $500.

Many of the people who visit this forum are seasoned citizens (age 50+) who use their PCs for internet browsing, email, and looking at photos. Users like that don't need high performance units. Those who do - gamers, people who work with memory and processor-heavy apps like image or video editing or very large spreadsheets - know who they are and can opt up when necessary.

With PCs now viewed as commodity products in the marketplace, the manufacturers are stuffing them with premium "options" (like car companies used to do and still do to a lesser extent) to raise the selling prices. Do you sell a retired person on a limited budget a small Toyata or a Tesla that has lots of tech features and faster acceleration.

Over-spec'ed PCs for people in this demographic are a waste of money. You know that whether you want to say so or not.

High spec'd PC's for the average user, I absolutely agree it's overkill, a waste of money, and not needed. But sorry, I don't find an SSD to be "over spec'd" for anyone. HDD's are great for storage, but not great for running an OS. Will it work, of course it will, it's been doing it for many years. Would I want it as my boot drive here in 2018? Hell no. I've had an SSD as my boot drive for 5+ years and would never go back.

I did look at oem machines online last night, and find that most oem's only offer an SSD in their performance pc's which seem to START at $1k and include a bunch of other crap that isn't needed which is rather unfortunate. I know they do it to cut down on overhead of additional models to stock, but dang,

Counterpoint though, I also feel a person over 60 who drives like a grandma should't own or be driving a Corvette or other high performance vehicle because they'll likely never drive it the way it's meant to be. BUT, they're the bulk of whom I see drive them, because that's about all who can afford them ;o). Some people just want to buy nice and impractical things because they can, not because they should.

(like car companies used to do and still do to a lesser extent) to raise the selling prices.

Kind of like wanting power seats (a SSD) and having to buy an interior "package" (processor, memory) to get them. Are you old enough to remember when, at least domestic cars, could be ordered from the factory option by option? My father ordered an Old wagon with a bigger engine and oil cooler for towing the family RV and they send it out with what he wanted plus some wood grain paneling and a roof rack. No extra charge. <lol>

Although I also agree with Steve, no one really wants an under powered computer, the trick is finding the sweet spot (and it isn't easy). My "work" laptop could use a bit more memory and it's frustrating when it doesn't respond as I would like it to, especially when I'm using it as I typically would for "work."

Steve, my year old but modestly equipped Win10 PC boots to the Desktop screen in just under 30 seconds. Yes, I know, a PC with an SSD (which I've used) is faster. I can spare the extra 20 seconds, I'm not usually in that much of a hurry. Nor are most users.

It's a matter of opinion but I don't consider a Corvette to be a high performance car. It's a low profile, downsized GM sedan with a large engine. You'll see the same demographic driving Cadillacs. In my area, where there are a lot of real very high performance cars, Corvettes are rarely seen.

Mike, I don't know if your work laptop is your's or an employer's. Buy another more suitably equipped or, until you can, if your work PC is underpowered, you can boost performance by spending $10 for an 8GB thumb drive or SD card. Configure it to provide ReadyBoost functionality. It's the equivalent of extra RAM but slightly slower than the onboard stuff. Much faster than slow disk swapping and the resulting choking that can occur with an underpowered machine.

Elmer, here in MN, its about as performance as you get so take that with a grain of salt. We don’t see Koenigsegg’s or Pagani’s here.

Any who, its not necessarily just boot times, its faster at reading and writing period so MOST everything is going to be a bit snappier providing a better overall experience except for the up front cost. The newer sata hdd’s are faster than the older drives helping their case, but not as fast as an ssd. You’re going to pay for it eventually, either in money up front, or time along the life of the drive (assuming it lives long), and time is money.

Also mentioned, they’re considerably more stable than hdd’s. I’ve had several hdd’s fail over the years, some recoverable, and some not. Knock on wood, but I’ve yet to have an SSD of my own fail or ever hiccup. Not saying they never will, i’ve seen them fail at work, but at a considersbly less percentage than the old dogs.

No scaremongering about "unstable" hard drives, that's nonsense, as is your comment "you're going to pay for it eventually". Important files should always be backed up and unless you're living at the end of a 150 mile dirt road with streams to cross, getting replacements and repairs is rarely a problem. Again, remember the audience here but the same would be true for a general audience of average users.

California has long had a strong car culture and production (but expensive) Italian and German performance models of any brand are more commonly seen than Corvettes. We're in a post-US car culture here and have been for decades. Foreign brands of all types (not just the inexpensive ones) are far more popular and common.

Do you think most people here actually back up their files? From my experience, many only think about it once their computer doesnt boot. The scaremongering only comes from my actual honest experience. I’m not saying they’re all going to die (well technically they will eventually), but hdd’s are more succeptible to failure than ssd’s.

My experience is that people who don't know the need to have more than one copy of files they can't do without, more often than not don't have files they can't do without. Often true of the seasoned citizen demographic.

Elmer,

The laptop is question is a new Microsoft Surface laptop provided by my employer. Overall I like it very much except that it needs more memory, it only has 4 GB.

Hadn't thought about Ready Boost. I tried a cheap flash drive I happen to have handy and Windows 10 apparently doesn't like it. I'll have to try another when I get a chance.

4GB is most certainly inadequate.

I have a small Lenovo netbook I use for simple Internet access when traveling that I like very much. It too has 4GB, not enough and it's prone to get clogged up with even light use But with a thumb drive and Ready Boost, it becomes a sports car. Huge difference. I hope you'll have the same experience.

PS - if you can, it also helps to use a browser with a lighter footprint and less resource requirements than some of the others that have gotten bloated. I find Opera works well for this purpose.

Given that the Surface line is positioned as a "premium" product, you'd think Microsoft would know better than to offer one with only 4GB of RAM but I guess they have to compete in the same price sensitive market as everyone else.

IT installed Chrome and I'm fine with that and it seems to work well for casual browsing. I'm not one to have fifty tabs open, a half dozen is generally more than enough. It seems the problem happens (as would be expected) with a few Excel files and a Word document.

As I understand ReadyBoost, it "speeds" up the system by a pre-fetching data from the hard drive and that speed improvements mostly occur with slower, mechanical drives. Since the Surface has a SSD...I'm not sure it will help but I'm going to give it a shot when I get a chance.

A little patience would help too. <lol>