Home office setups have become exceptionally popular after the pandemic, which is why it’s important to be extra careful while choosing one for your own home office. As is always the situation with anything in demand, there is a lot of mismarketing to look out for. Don’t buy a new desktop for your home office without going through the pointers next.
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What is a “Wrong” Computer?
A wrong computer would be any device that cannot serve you in the way that you need it or expect it to. The issue is that ads and salespeople have interest in misleading an audience, but we are not all tech savvy enough to know if that’s what is happening. This leads us to the next question.
What is a “Right” Computer?
The “right” computer is a device with the capacity to meet our requirements and expectation, preferably within our budget. Note that you can still end up with the wrong PC, even if you bought it well within your budget. In fact, if you can buy a desktop that meets all your requirements by extending your budget a bit, that would still be the right choice.
Whenever you buy a new computer for any purpose at all, keep in mind that it must serve the primary functions for which you are spending your money. A cheap PC that cannot help you with your work properly is still the wrong computer and a bad investment.
How to Choose the Right PC?
Since techies already know what they need, they are less likely to make the common mistakes. As for the rest, there are a bunch of proven rules that we can follow to avoid making a bad investment in the wrong computer. First up is the importance of brand reputation because that really does matter in this instance.
Brand Reputation
A reputed brand is much less likely to sell you something that won’t be sufficient for your needs. Upselling is still a possibility, but it would be very unlikely for an established brand’s representative to sell you something that’s inadequately equipped to handle your work. For example, take a look at these desktops from Lenovo for home offices. You will find that each product is clearly detailed with all specifications, so that customers can make the best possible choice for themselves. Big brands do care about what they are selling because they care about their reputation and your repeat business.
Aligning Question, Answers, and Requirements
First, jot down answers to the following questions:
- What profession are you in?
- How is that profession linked to your office computer?
- What kind of tasks will your new office computer need to complete?
- Which programs/applications do you plan to run on the computer?
- What is the maximum amount you are willing to spend on your new computer?
- Do you plan to use the computer for anything other than regular work?
- If the answer is yes, then what would they be?
Now that you have the answers, here’s a brief guide to help you choose the right PC:
- If your job involves media (image, audio, and video) editing, rendering, and mixing, the CPU should at least be an intel Core-i7 or an AMD Ryzen 7.
- If it involves rendering media in 4K, go with an AMD Threadripper or an Intel Core-i9 series CPU.
- If you want a workstation/server PC, it should have a server class GPU like the NVIDIA Quadro series in it, alongside an AMD Ryzen 9/Intel Core-i9 CPU.
- All modern office desktops should have at least 16GB of DDR4 RAM.
If you are a digital artist, you may want to buy a Wacom tablet as an accessory to connect with the new office PC. Alternatively, you can also buy a hypersensitive touchscreen monitor with support for digital pens.