What should you look for in a new computer?

Computer OSes such as Vista and new programs place greater demands on RAM, CPU, hard drives and thermal issues. Catagorizing users such as home users, office users, professional users is meaningless. Some home users want to play local or internet games which require a good quality video card so this home user becomes a home-power-user. An office user who uses spreadsheets a lot needs a high spec'd CPU to zip through a days week in record speed. Some so-called professional users do a lot of file transfer and copying and may be more productive with firewire or e-sata capability.

The most basic office/workstation PC now should be minimum Core 2 Duo E4500 2.2GHz and 1gb RAM. Users should expect reasonable levels of performance in a work station or morale and productivity will be affected.

Apple Macs are among the most reliable computers and has good performance. Free operating systems such as Linux can be installed on all computers and have better performance than Vista. It is also recommended to buy a computer with XP instead of Vista if you're looking for Windows.

I think one should also consider the aspect of upgrading does the computer gives room for upgrading if yes then thats the computer one should think about buying since buying computers everyday is expensive expecially in africa.