It's that time again. The holiday shopping season has started. Every year I try to put together some notes on computer and technology-related shopping, but in most years past I tended to be bored about the whole thing. Technology has become, quite frankly, boring! I keep waiting for something new to grab my attention and it just doesn't seem to happen. When I do my gift list website this year (yes, yes, family - I will get it online soon!) I think most of the gift requests will be for my renewed sports car hobby rather than PC stuff. I probably won't list any DVDs either, as I did in past years. I have most of the old films that I want, and something like a packaged set of TV reruns leaves me cold.
Anyhow, back to the PC scene. As usual, it's pretty static in the PC marketplace. PCs have become fairly inexpensive and there have been no significant new technology offerings. Processors are the same, RAM memory is cheap, and hard drives are huger than needed. Different and interesting cases are becoming available, but I wouldn't buy a new PC just to get a prettier case! Case modding (modifying cases to various themes) continues to be popular with the younger set; I saw one on TV last night with a Halloween theme - it had little skulls mounted all over it, cobwebs, and fake blood. Yuuch!
Microsoft seems intent on using the PC as the center of a house audio/visual network, as it has for the previous few years. But I don't see that maturing this year, if ever. I don't know anyone who has bought a Microsoft Media Center capable PC, except one of my clients incidentally got one from his company although the media features were not being used.
If you want to buy a PC for a friend or relative, you need to categorize the recipient into one of three categories: Gamer, DVD Video, or everybody else. If you want to buy something for a Gamer, ask them first. They are so into cases, case modifications (mods) and power display adapters that you could not possibly guess what they will want. Unless you want to do DVD editing work, any new PC that you could buy these days will more than fulfill the intended's requirements - shop for price and support. I would also not buy a CRT-type display any longer. LCDs are ruling the store shelves - and get at least a 17" screen. Dell still makes a great product, just be prepared for the offshore buying and support experience. HP/Compaq has most of the local retail market sewn up, and they are making a very good, stable PC these days. EMachines/Gateway is a bit more of an unknown to me - I haven't followed their product lines and haven't read too many reviews pro or con. Gateway is stepping back from attempting to be a
home entertainment provider and is returning to specializing in PCs only.
If you are buying for someone doing DVD video work, that is the only application these days that is stressing PC hardware. Get the fastest processor you can afford, a minimum of 1GB (gigabyte) of RAM, and a high speed hard drive subsystem - probably with the Serial ATA interface and dual drives in a RAID 0 configuration. DVD writers are now supporting the dual layer format, enabling a home-written DVD to have the same capacity as manufactured DVDs - if you want a leading edge DVD writer, get one with dual layer capability.
Now, if you REALLY want to make somebody happy this holiday season, browse over to the TV section of the local electronics stores and look at the plasma widescreen TVs. Awesome! But plasma is expensive and there are some issues. More on TVs and audio in another column.
Bob Seidel is a local computer consultant in the Southport - Oak Island area. You can visit his Website at www.bobseidel.com or e-mail questions or column ideas to him at bsc@bobseidel.com. For specific inquiries, please call Bob Seidel Consulting, LLC at 278-1007.