Birmingham Consulting Inc.
153-1235 Fairview Street
Burlington, ON L7S 2K9
www.birmingham.ca
CONSIDERATIONS WHEN PURCHASING A WINDOWS COMPUTER
HARDWARE

If you plan to do anything other than working on the web, avoid netbooks. Netbooks are inexpensive
but because their main use is intended to be Internet access, they are not very powerful. They may
struggle with office applications and could potentially slow to a crawl when anti-virus software gets
installed.

If you choose to do extended warranty, be cautious when buying it through a major retailer. It is
usually cheaper to do it directly with the manufacturer.
o The computer may be more expensive to purchase directly from the manufacturer but when the
extended warranty is included, the overall price can be less than at a major retailer.

Brands:
o All brands have had good and bad reviews but our experience shows that major brands like
Toshiba, Lenovo (formerly IBM), and Dell tend to be the most reliable. HP is acceptable IF you
purchase a business-class computer.
o Our experience has also shown that while less expensive, reliability may be an issue for lesserknown brands like Acer, and for laptops Asus and MSI.
o Our experience has also shown that in general, reliability for consumer computers is not as good as
business computers.
 This means that a computer from a recognized brand sold in a retail setting is not as reliable as
the business version by the same manufacturer.

Intel vs. AMD:
o For the main processor (CPU), there are 2 main brands: Intel and AMD. Intel runs cooler than AMD.
Cooler usually translates to longer life. Therefore, Intel is preferred.
o We recommend buying a computer with the best CPU as budget permits in order to extend the
usable life of the computer.

Hard drive:
o Home users: If you have a lot of media files (pictures, music, videos, etc.), get a computer with as
large as a hard drive as possible as these types of files take up a lot of space. Try to get at least a
1TB drive or as close to it as possible (for reference, 1TB = 1000GB).
o Business users: If your business has a server and all critical files are stored on the server, then hard
drive size is almost a non-issue. Anything 250GB or larger is fine.

Celeron CPU?
o Celeron is a less powerful version of the Pentium even though it may appear to have the same
specs.
o We recommend a non-Celeron CPU in order to avoid frustration of a slower computer.

Memory:
o 4GB minimum (the more the better)
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Like IT should be.®
Considerations When Purchasing a Windows Computer (cont’d)
SOFTWARE

Office or Office 365?
o Microsoft Office 365 is identical to “regular” Microsoft Office except that it is an annual
subscription instead of an outright purchase.
 Office 365 Pros: It has a lower up-front cost and you are always entitled to the latest version.
 Office 365 Cons: Ongoing annual renewal is required and as your computer ages, newer
versions of Office might not be compatible, despite you paying for them.
o NOTE: If you decide on “regular” Office, you may or may not need to purchase Microsoft Office,
depending on whether your current version can be moved to the new computer.
 Home users: If you don’t need Outlook, Publisher, or Access, you qualify for the Home &
Student Edition.
 Business users: Businesses do not qualify for the Home & Student Edition because it explicitly
says “not for commercial use”. Pick the version that has the applications that you need such as
Outlook, PowerPoint, etc. Next, decide if you want to save some money now and have it
licensed to the computer (called “OEM) or pay a little more and have it licensed to you (called
“retail”).
 OEM license can only be sold with a new computer and can never be installed on another
computer.
 Retail license can be purchased anytime and can be moved to a new computer when an old one is
replaced.

Security software:
o Home users: Microsoft offers a free version available at www.windows.microsoft.com/mse. For
additional protection, we recommend a home version of Kaspersky Antivirus available at
www.kaspersky.com.
o Business users: Microsoft offers a free version for less than 10 computers and you don’t have a
server: www.windows.microsoft.com/mse. However, for businesses, we recommend a business
version of Kaspersky Endpoint Protection (www.kaspersky.com). The specific version depends on
your network arrangement.

Backup:
o We recommend both a local and remote (i.e. cloud) backup.
 The local backup permits fast recovery of files. This can be in the form of an extra hard drive in
the computer or external hard drive.
 The remote backup protects against fire and theft. For cloud backups, there are many options
available; however, we recommend using a company whose servers are located in Canada in
order to protect your privacy.
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