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What to look for, what to avoid, and what actually matters when you're spending your money.
Our philosophy is simple: buy right, once. A well-chosen computer will serve you for five years or more. A poorly chosen one will frustrate you from day one and only get worse.
Computers have roughly a five-year useful life. In the business world, that's the standard depreciation schedule — and it's not arbitrary. Around year five, the hardware has fallen behind what current software expects. It slows down. Updates take longer. Applications that used to snap open start to drag.
Here's the thing most people don't realize: a computer will almost never be as fast as the day you bought it. Software gets heavier with every release, however, computers hardware is stuck in time. Operating systems add features. Security layers accumulate. The machine you buy today is the fastest version of that machine you'll ever use.
This is why starting specifications matter so much. If you buy a computer with a budget processor and minimal memory, you're starting slow and only going downhill from there. If you buy one with a capable processor and plenty of memory, you're starting at a higher altitude. Five years from now, you're still in good shape when the budget machine is in the recycling pile.
The processor is the engine. You can't upgrade it later, so get this right when you purchase. We recommend the Intel Core i7 or the AMD Ryzen 7 as the sweet spot — excellent performance without the premium or reliability baggage that comes with the top-tier chips.
We do not recommend the i3 or Celeron. Ever. We only begrudgingly accept an i5. This is not about gaming — it's about longevity. An i3 starts life slow. An i7 starts life fast, and five years from now it's still fast enough. The price difference at purchase is modest compared to the frustration you avoid over the life of the machine. We've seen this over and over again.
As for the i9: you pay a significant premium for marginal performance gains over the i7. Intel's 13th and 14th generation i9 desktop processors also had well-documented instability and degradation issues that required multiple firmware patches to address. The i7 gives you the performance you need without the cost or risk.
Apple's M-series chips are excellent. We recommend the M3 Pro/Max or M4 Pro/Max — the current or previous generation Pro/Max variants. Don't pay the bleeding-edge premium for the newest chip when last year's Pro gives you the same five-year runway at a better price. Avoid the base M-chip models for the same reason we avoid i5s: they'll feel slow sooner.
32 GB minimum. No exceptions.
Most budget computers ship with 8 GB. Some mid-range machines come with 16 GB. Neither is enough. Windows and macOS both use available memory for caching — pre-loading things you're likely to use next so they open instantly. When you give the operating system room to breathe, the entire machine feels faster, more responsive, and more capable. When memory is tight, the system is conservative, and everything feels sluggish. Low memory also leads to excessive wear on your disk.
32 GB gives your computer the headroom to stretch out, cache aggressively, and run multiple applications without breaking a sweat — today and four years from now.
NVMe SSD, 1 TB minimum. If NVMe storage isn't available, a standard SATA SSD is acceptable. A traditional spinning hard drive is not.
NVMe drives are dramatically faster than SATA SSDs, which are themselves dramatically faster than spinning drives. The speed difference affects everything: boot time, application launches, file transfers, and how fast the machine wakes from sleep.
512 GB is the absolute floor — you'll fill it faster than you think. We recommend 1 TB as the right starting point for most people.
Some manufacturers (Dell in particular) offer configurations with a small 256GB NVMe drive for the operating system and a large (1TB) spinning drive for storage. This looks like a good deal on paper, but in practice the spinning drive is slow, noisy, generates heat, and is the most failure-prone component in the system. And at only 256GB, the NVMe drive isn't big enough to last, so it's going to fill up and choke your system. And having your data split between two disks is an uncessary complication and confusing for the user. Get a single large NVMe instead.
For desktops and all-in-ones: 27 inches is about right. A 23-inch screens are too small unless you literally cannot fit anything larger in your space. Nobody has ever told us they wished they bought the smaller screen.
For laptops: your first choice is the overall size of the laptop. 13" laptops are nifty, but have tiny screens and keyboards so they're really best only if someone is a travel warrior. We recommend you first settle on the right size of laptop, then look at what options are available in that class. Always get the best screen the model offers. Most people are accustomed to sharp, crisp displays from their phones and tablets — a low-resolution laptop screen will feel like a step backward. Look for at least a full HD (1920×1080) display; 4K or OLED is noticeably better, and Lenovo's newer OLED panels are particularly impressive.
Touchscreens are genuinely useful, even though most software isn't optimized for touch yet. If it's available on the model you're considering, it's worth having.
These are personal choices. What feels right to your hands and eyes is what matters. Try before you buy if you can — especially laptop keyboards, which vary enormously between brands and models. Lenovo has consistently produced some of the best laptop trackpads and keyboards in the industry.
Many modern laptops charge through a USB-C port. These work fine, but they require more care than a traditional barrel-style charger. The USB-C port on a laptop is soldered directly to the motherboard with nothing surrounding it to reinforce the connection. Over time, the jostling of the cable can stretch the retainer ring inside the port, leading to a loose connection or outright failure. Your phone's USB-C port doesn't have this problem because it's fully encased — but on a laptop, it's exposed and vulnerable.
Treat your laptop's USB-C charging port like a delicate instrument. Don't yank the cable. Don't leave it plugged in where it can get bumped or pulled. If you're in a rough-and-tumble environment — kids, pets, a busy kitchen counter — consider whether a laptop with a dedicated barrel charger might be the wiser choice. We see damaged USB-C charging ports regularly, and it's an expensive repair.
Both make reliable, well-built machines that are highly serviceable when something does go wrong. Lenovo in particular has impressed us with their trackpads and their newer OLED screen options. Both brands have straightforward warranty and support processes.
Other manufacturers — HP, Acer, ASUS — make fine machines, but in our experience they aren't as serviceable and we don't have as strong a track record with them. We want our clients on products with a high chance of success and a clear path to resolution if something goes wrong.
Apple positions itself as a premium brand, and the sticker price reflects that. But if you add up what they include as standard — Retina display, solid-state storage, the memory, and Apple silicon — it prices out roughly equivalent to a high-end Dell or Lenovo. So are Macs really that much more expensive? Not really.
We don't care what platform you use. What we do care about is people switching platforms because they think it will solve their problems. If your computer is slow because you bought cheap hardware, a Mac won't fix that — you just bought expensive hardware. If your problems are software or workflow related, switching platforms often makes things worse before they get better. Choose based on what you know, what your work requires, and what your family uses for support.
Laser only. We do not recommend inkjet printers. Period.
Inkjet printers are cheap to buy and expensive to own. The ink is costly, the print heads clog if you don't use them regularly, the Wi-Fi connectivity is unreliable, and the machines themselves are built to a price point that prioritizes shelf appeal over longevity. A sub-$200 inkjet is generally e-waste out of the box.
A laser printer costs more up front but delivers reliable, consistent output for years. Toner doesn't dry out. The machines are built more robustly. When you walk up to it and hit print, it works. That's what we care about — not cute, not fun, not pretty. We want the thing to work when you need it.
For all-in-one (print, scan, copy) functionality, look at the Canon imageCLASS laser MFP line or the HP LaserJet Pro series. These are prosumer-grade machines built for real daily use. Yes, toner cartridges are expensive across the board — but the cost per page is a fraction of inkjet, and you won't be calling anyone because the printer "just stopped working."
Every drive fails eventually — NVMe, SSD, and spinning disk alike. There is no perfect drive. The question isn't if you'll lose data, it's when, and whether you'll have a copy somewhere else when it happens.
We recommend iDrive for cloud backup. It's affordable, reliable, and straightforward. It backs up your files automatically and keeps them safe offsite, which means a dead drive, a stolen laptop, or a house fire doesn't take your data with it.
We recommend iDrive to all our clients for automatic cloud backup. It protects your files, photos, and documents — even if the worst happens to your hardware.
Print this page and take it with you when you shop.
Lenovo for best trackpads and OLED screens. Dell for serviceability.
Buy from apple.com — configure exactly what you need instead of settling for store stock.
All-in-ones from Dell and Lenovo are excellent for homes and small offices.
Buy from apple.com for custom configuration.
Spend more than $200. Anything less is a disposable appliance.
Costco Online (not the retail floor) — for Windows desktops, all-in-ones, and laptops. The showroom floor typically stocks commodity configurations with not enough RAM, CPU, or storage. Online, you can find properly configured machines, and Costco doubles the manufacturer's warranty with an excellent return policy.
Apple.com — for any Mac. Configure exactly what you want online instead of settling for whatever's in the back room at the retail store, and avoid being talked into a lesser configuration because it's what they have in stock.
Dell.com or Lenovo.com — for business-class machines with better configuration options and support than retail channels.