The home computer is used for many different purposes, and they all need to be addressed before the new computer is bought.
Who is going to be using the computer?
What are they going to be using the computer for?
Should the computer be good value for money or should it be fast?
By sitting down and thinking through what the computer is going to be used for you can get a list of the things you want in a computer, and decide what features you are prepared to pay for, and what features you do not need/want.
Who is going to be using the computer?
By knowing who is going to be using the computer, you know what your computer is going to need to do.
A computer for a family with teenage children is going to need to be able to play the latest games, surf the web, run all the applications used in the work places of the family members, be robust and resilient, able to stand all the knocks and blows dealt out to it by constant use, and be able to switch between multiple different uses with the least amount of worries.
A computer for a university student must be able to write reports, handle the applications specific to the student's course and be cheap, but still able to handle the games and entertainment usages to which a student will require.
As you see, listing the people who are going to use the computer leads to the next step:
What is the computer going to be used for?
The use the computer is going to be put to determines what it needs to have. Remember to look ahead over the life of the computer when planning what to buy. Just because you have preteen kids now who are uninterested in games, remember that they are going to want to play the latest brightest games later. You have to decide whether it is better to buy the computer that caters for that now, or whether to replace a cheaper computer you bought now, with a more powerful computer then.
An example of how the use the computer is going to be put to decides the computer you want is if you are a handy cam buff and would like to edit your home movies, as well as play the latest games, write a local newsletter and have a fairly flexibly, but not inexhaustible budget, Apples video editing Power Mac 6500 would be nice, but if you're only going to do the odd wordprocessing, family budget planning and the occasional game of solitaire, the Video Editing Mac is a waste of money.
