THE DOWNWARD TREND – WHY PCS ARE GETTING CHEAPER

Recently i.e. this year, PCs are getting cheaper. By a HUGE margin. When I started out long ago there was a price point which the customer saw as acceptable. They could afford it. Tax was added to the price point, but then component prices dropped so that tax was included in the price point. Then prices dropped again so that different configurations could be offered as options above the price point. Then they were offered within the price point. Next was the budget, office and power user categories. The PCs were roughly the same, just priced differently.

The common denominator was that these were basically good quality PCs, capable of lasting the course. I’m proud to say that I have seen PCs I built seven years ago which were still in use. A bit slow, covered in “stour” ( dust ) but still working. But currently the scenario is that there are entry-level PCs which feature integrated components and offer the customer an even lower price point. A THIRD of the original price point !! Add a 17” TFT for a wee bit more and you have a reasonable system. Perhaps not a game star, but capable of the usual domestic usage, web surfing, emails, some letter writing and perhaps even academic research. These budget machines typically have built-in video and audio, fast LAN connection, multiple USB ports, and even multi-port card readers, all integrated into the main board. These would be unacceptable a few years ago, however the goalposts have moved. The new common denominator is that the users expectations have fallen into line with the lower level of technology being delivered. As an example, look at laptops currently on offer. They are all between 1.4Gh and 1.7Ghz, decent graphics performance, 512Mb RAM option, SATA drive as standard, DVDRW usually supplied, and almost all have Windows XP provided as well. But a couple of years ago we were looking at supplying laptops with 2.4Ghz CPUs and upwards.

So what happened to the “faster” option ? Well, technology is forever a flexible animal and the new-ish mobile chipsets provide faster performance at lower chip rates. More bang for buck. The best enhancement to any PC or laptop is by adding RAM. A half-gig of ram makes it sing. Double that up to one Gigabyte of DDR and or really whizzing along. New laptop motherboards can accept additional SODIMM upgrades, and I recently supplied an Acer Aspire 3266WLMi with 1Gb RAM so that it will play DVDs using a wireless projector over PA system in an auditorium. It worked like a dream!! Extremely impressive performance..

Why is it all getting cheaper ? Well I am of the opinion that we have to thank Michael Dell yet again. The big boys are undercutting everyone and making it impossible to sell entry-level kit. But that’s not a bad thing. The entry-level stuff is usually duff or obsolete in a very short time, and usually requires fixing at some stage. As long as it is passed the warranty period then no worries. So there are opportunities to compete, but not with similar products.

May 2007 update - good quality PCs and laptops now being sold by TESCO! What is the world coming to FFS ? Do Your Shopping And Save A Bundle On A New PC Or Laptop ! (.... "Save A Bundle" was the title of a series of computer books by Aubrey Pilgrim). So? So What ! - DIVERSIFY - it's not the end of the world!