My friend and I are weighting the options of building a computer from scratch, or buying a refurbished one. This week we paid a visit to Microcenter-one of the biggest computer stores here in Boston to have an idea of what were our best options. These computers are not for us, they are for people that don’t want to buy branded systems to save money.
We calculated that with $ 250 we could build a reasonable computer from scratch. But for the same money we can get a refurbished one. And, of course, these are branded computers like Dell or HP with limited warranty. The cons of buying a refurbished computer is that it does not gives us any credibility, the customer can go to the store and buy it too right? Refurbished is not new neither and the possibilities of failure are greater than a new system. The pros in buying a refurbished computer is that IT is already built and we don’t have to do anything. Also, the OS is already pre-installed.
Building a new computer means buying all the parts putting it together and then install everything from scratch.
If you are in the gaming whirl, forget of building or buying a 250 dollars desktop, keep in mind these systems are for people that only browse the Internet, and rarely use heavy applications or graphics.
The howtogeek wrote a series of posts on how to build a computer from scratch. Check it out as is one of the best tutorials I have ever read on this subject.
part 1-Building a new system-choosing the hardware
it all depends. If you are knowledgeable in terms of computer hardware and such.. by all means build that computer of your dreams! If not , well…. i guess you only have one choice