Last week I gave you some tips for making your computer last. 

This week I’m going to share some advice on making good computer equipment purchases that will help you when it comes time to buy new gear.

One thing that really bothers me is planned obsolescence – the idea that products are intentionally designed to fail after a specific time.  In my opinion, nowhere is planned obsolescence more present than in technology.  This is true for several reasons, and they are:

  • It’s easy to hide because people believe that technology’s lifespan is inherently short and becomes outdated quickly
  • People’s expectations of how long something SHOULD last have become pathetically low
  • New technology comes out which seems to suggest the old technology is no longer useful
  • …and the list goes on

The fact is, technology companies have intentionally made products last a shorter and shorter amount of time for one reason – profit.  And this has had the concurrent negative consequence that people no longer EXPECT their technology to last, and so the expectations continue to fall.  30-day warranties are now quite common on many products – SHAME ON THEM.  So the result is that products are built to last only as long as people expect them to before they fail and thus have to be repurchased.  It’s sad but true.

Anyways, enough of that rant – but it was important to preface what follows with that concept in mind because it will unfortunately weigh in on your decision making.  So here’s what I have to say based on my experience making technology purchases:

  • Read reviews BUT don’t rely on them.  There’s a tendency to see a ton of positive reviews on Amazon and figure “Oh, it must be good”.  But here’s the problem with that thinking – most people don’t come back and review products after a year or two or three…  So the bulk of reviews are by NEW product owners – not people who have owned the product for a long time.  This is particularly important for the reason I stated above: lots of products fail after 15 months (just beyond the 1 year warranty).  Product reviews RARELY address longevity.
  • Stay away from HP products – HP mastered planned obsolescence LONG ago.  Did you know that HP printers used to use only gears inside and guess what – they lasted forever.  But HP realized this long ago and switched all their printers to rubber belts.  Why?  Because rubber belts dry up and fail after a while.  It’s a lot easier to make a profit when you know your product will have to be repurchased every couple years – you just have to make it last a little longer than the warranty.  Furthermore, I work on more HP products for obvious planned obsolescence reasons than any other brand.  I see keyboards fail RIGHT AFTER one year of ownership regularly.  Put simply – HP has MASTERED planned obsolescence and they build their gear as cheaply as they can.  They are NOT a good company.
  • Avoid most Dell products – Same story as HP.  They’re not quite as bad, but I do see a lot of similar issues with Dell.
  • Never, NEVER, EVER EVER – EVER, buy an Apple product.  I can hear some of you now: “Whoa whoa whoa!  Did he really just say ‘never buy an Apple product’?  But I love my iPhone!”  Indeed I did.  I’m fervent on this point and in fact, this topic deserves an entire newsletter itself, so I’ll come back to it – perhaps next week – but I can assure you, I have an endlessly long list of why you should never buy Apple products.  Talk about drinking the Kool-aid – I’ve never seen so much Kool-aid drinking in my life!  Apple is clearly a master of marketing.  Like I said – I’ll come back to this.
  • Laptop brands I can recommend include: Acer, Asus, Lenovo, Toshiba – Acer being my first choice.
  • Desktop brands I can recommend: Ummmm… to be honest, if you really want a computer that’s going to last you a long time, you’re probably best off having it custom built.  You may spend a bit more but you may also get 5-7+ years out of it instead of 2 or 3.  No kidding – well worth it.
  • Printers: Epson, Canon, Brother, Lexmark, Samsung.  Do NOT buy an HP.  Also, with regard to printers – if you really want your printer to last AND you don’t want to spend a ton of money on ink, buy laser.  They’re more expensive up front but they tend to last forever, have far fewer problems than ink, and ultimately cost a lot less in supplies.  I know ink printers are cheap but there’s a reason for that – they’re making a killing on those pathetic little ink cartridges they’re selling for an arm and a leg, and they don’t last very long in general.  Most ink printers are basically disposable products and most people know this on some level.  The exception is if you want a professional quality photo printer, in which case I lean toward Epson (as do most of the pros).

So all of this said – there are exceptions to every rule, and this list is definitely no different.  Certainly there are outliers within each of these topics I’ve discussed.  Not ALL Dell computers stink.  Not ALL Acer laptops are great.  But after working on literally thousands of computers for 20+ years, these are the trends I’ve seen. 

Obviously I’ve spoken in some broad generalizations here, and when it comes time to make a purchase there are MANY more considerations to be made with regard to specific details of the product you’re hoping to acquire.  How much memory should I get?  What about hard drive type, speed, size, brand?  Etc.  Perhaps this will be a topic for a future email. 

If you do have specific questions, please feel free to send them to me.  A good purchasing decision up front can help you end up with equipment that not onlylasts MUCH longer than the average disposable products that are out there, but also with a product you’ll be much happier with all along the way.