The Rules of Thumb For Tech Purchasing

Hugh Pickens writes "Sam Grobart writes in the NYT that buying gadgets can sometimes be like buying a car; it requires sorting through options because the reality is that most of us are usually dealing with a finite amount of money to spend, and that means making trade-offs. Grobart puts forward his set of rules for getting the most for your tech dollar when buying computers, cameras, cellphones, data plans, and service contracts. For example, Rule No. 1: pay for PC memory, not speed. 'When buying and configuring a new computer, companies often give the option of upgrading the processor and adding more memory, or RAM. If it is an either/or proposition, go for the RAM,' writes Grobart. 'Processors are usually fast enough for most people; it is the RAM that can be the bottleneck.' Other rules include 'Pay for the messaging, not the minutes,' 'Pay for the components, not the cables,' 'Pay for the sensor size, not the megapixels,' and 'Pay for the TV size, not the refresh rate.' Kevin Kelly expands on Grobart's rules of thumb with 'Pay for the glass, not the shutters,' 'Pay for reliability, not mileage,' and 'Pay for comfort, not for weight.' Any others?"

Comments

Last, but not least...

[VortexCortex]

Read TFA, not TFS.

Re:Last, but not least...

[Anonymous Coward]

OMG, read Amazon too!

First off, I bought one of these for my $200 19" Visio. It displays 720P, but NOT ANY MORE!!!

When I got this cable, it came wrapped in bacon, which I thought was pretty weird, but shrugged it off, slid off my recliner into my Rascal, scooted from the living room to the kitchenette, and started cooking my bacon-wrapping.

As the smell of delicious pork back filled my double-wide, I turned around to look again at the box the cable came in. ...

Simple

[Haedrian]

"Decide what you want to do with it, then buy exactly what you need"

It sounds stupid, but you have no idea how many people buy a laptop or something without knowing whether they want to run high-end games or just use it for browsing the internet and then they end up with something overly expensive with traits they don't need.

Re:Simple

[Haedrian]

To give two real life stories to explain my point.

A person I know turned up at a shop and demanded that she wanted "The Best". Aside from telling the salesman that you're a mug, she basically got the most expensive laptop in the shop, and now she runs Word, IE 8 and a ton of Spyware on a high end machine.

Another story involves the missus trying to choose between two laptops, one of which was an i3 with a large screen, and another which was an i5 with a smaller screen. I asked her what she was planning on doing with it, she told me she wanted to use it for watching videos and the like, so she got the i3. For myself, given I don't really need the screen real-estate and could use the cycles for my developing, picked up the i5.

So before you ask anything, find out what you're planning on doing with it. There's no such thing as 'the best'. An i7 tower with a demon of a graphics card is great for gameplay, but you try taking that on a train or to take lecture notes on. Similarly, a 'netbook' is great if you need a ton of battery life and the ability to carry it around without snapping your back, but sucks if you want to "pwn some n00bs" at online gaming.

Re:Simple

[hedwards]

It would probably help if Intel could hire somebody that's qualified to name its product lines. You shouldn't have to spend months researching processors to be able to know what an i3 is or an i7 is.

Re:Simple

[Bill Dimm]

Slight improvement: Decide what you want to do with it, then buy something a little better than what you think you need.

Because there is a significant probability that you'll underestimate what you need, and having to buy a second item to meet your needs is a lot more expensive than paying a little more for something better the first time around.

Re:Simple

[christian.ost]

Oh, and don't buy Apple... unless "cool" is worth a ~100% tax to you.

buy Apple if you see extra value in the operating system and the model you are considering to buy has been refreshed recently.

My experience is that Apple computers are usually priced quite competitively at the date of their release but their refresh cycles tend to be very long and there generally are no discounts until an improved revision is released - so Apple's offerings become more and more overpriced towards the end of the cycle.

Re:Simple

[gordo3000]

what are you comparing the price against (or better, what do you value the OS at over windows 7)?

I'm in the market for a laptop now, and I find the macbook pro, which was just released, to be about 25% more expensive than a similar equipped Sony, the most expensive windows laptop I can find. If I compare against the macbook, I have to struggle to find a computer that out of date.

WHAT THE FUCK! THIS DOESN'T WORK FOR OPEN SOURCE!

[Anonymous Coward]

FUCK! I was trying to come up with some of these sayings for open source software, but it just doesn't work.

I started with, "Pay for the FreeBSD, not the Linux". But FUCK, that doesn't work. You don't have to pay for the FreeBSD! It's already free!

Then I tried, "Pay for the LLVM, not the GCC". But FUCK, that doesn't work, either! LLVM is free, too!

Finally I tried, "Pay for the Python, not the Ruby". But FUCK ME AGAIN, that doesn't work. Python is totally free.

FUCK.

RAM Over Processor?

[Apple Acolyte]

The summary claims that one rule is to pay for more RAM over better processor. That sounds like poor advice for at least three reasons: 1) RAM can usually be user-upgraded later, while the processor usually can't be; 2) RAM is cheaper than the processor; 3) some OEMs overcharge for RAM upgrades (cough, Apple). Plus, it is dubious to claim processors are usually fast enough for most people. All told, whoever offered that suggestion wasn't thinking very soundly.

Re:RAM Over Processor?

[rvw]

The summary claims that one rule is to pay for more RAM over better processor. That sounds like poor advice for at least three reasons: 1) RAM can usually be user-upgraded later, while the processor usually can't be; 2) RAM is cheaper than the processor; 3) some OEMs overcharge for RAM upgrades (cough, Apple). Plus, it is dubious to claim processors are usually fast enough for most people. All told, whoever offered that suggestion wasn't thinking very soundly.

I disagree. A better processor means you get a 2.7 instead of a 2.4, and for that you pay $300 (Apple Macbook Pro 13"). That's a waste of money for 10% speed increase. Then I would use that money to buy more RAM, which is probably a much better way to speed up a machine.

Define the Requirement(s)

[geekmux]

#1 rule, no matter what you buy. Plasma vs. LCD, car vs. SUV vs. truck, laptop vs. desktop, handgun vs. rifle vs. shotgun, or even rent/lease vs. own.

If you don't know your real requirements for a purchase, then you're just shooting in the dark, or have already made up your mind based on peer pressure. The best example of sheer peer pressure/brand pushing can probably be best summarized within 80% of Apple sales. The other 20% actually know what they're buying and actually need it.

Re:Silly advice

[TheRaven64]

As long as Windows applications are almost universally 32bit, this is pointless. As long as the system has 4GB, the rest is "nice to have for future", nothing more.

Bullshit. Running 32-bit apps just means that no single app can have all of that RAM mapped into its address space at once. Even if you're only running a single 32-bit app, 6GB means that you have 2GB left over for the OS, most of which is used for filesystem caches. More likely, you're running half a dozen 32-bit apps. With 6GB, each one now has a maximum of 512MB of physical RAM before you have to go to swap (ignoring the OS requirements), which is well within the limits of a 32-bit address space.

On real estate

[rwa2]

"Don't buy a house more than 3x your annual income."

Probably could have saved us some troubles back there.

Re:On real estate

[MoonBuggy]

Much of the price inflation (at least at the 'low end') is more the fault of the government, so it's hard to make market-based assumptions like that. Basically, the UK has ended up with a public-private hybrid social housing system, and (as expected) it exacerbates the disadvantages of both. It's similar to the US healthcare system, in that it takes the inefficiencies and 'unlimited' budget of tax funding and then funnels them into the profits of private enterprise.

In short: UK govt. builds council houses, which are rented to the poor at subsidised rents. This is fine, and actually puts pressure on the market to improve offerings at the low end. Govt. then thinks (for some reason) that the 'right to buy' one's council house is a good idea; many people do so. Owners then sell ex-council houses to private landlords at significant profit, private landlords put them back on the market at three to four times their original rent. Since the council is short of space (because it sold off most of its housing and couldn't build more), those on housing benefit are placed in these buildings, with the council paying much of the private landlord's requested rent - on a building they built themselves, and wouldn't have had to pay a penny more on if they hadn't fucking sold it off in the first place. Anyway, because cheap supply exists in the form of sold-off council houses, and many low-end rents can be government subsidised at a high rate, the investment value of these properties is much higher than many could afford if they wanted to buy one to, y'know, actually live in.

Of course it's by no means the whole problem, not even close, but it is significant, not to mention fucking irritating for those of us too poor to even look at buying a flat, as a direct result of this, but too rich to benefit from the government paying our rent.

Re:On real estate

[Idarubicin]

There are no houses less than 3x my annual income around here. Houses start at 4x, and decent ones start at 5-6x. I might be able to find a condo at 3x.

Damn, that's in intractable dilemma. It would seem that the rule of thumb offered by the original poster violates your God-given right as an American to own (a small fraction of, shared with the bank) a home with a lawn and a driveway where you can park your SUV, so that you can make long trips to Wal-Mart. Since you're a good person, you deserve to have your front lawn and backyard barbecue; it's a moral issue, not a financial one. I mean, only sub-humans live in condos.

Seriously, we're talking about rules of thumb here. They can be bent or broken providing one has sound justification; a rule of thumb is heuristic guidance, not Mosaic law.

On the other hand, the U.S. housing market is ample evidence that large numbers of people are very poor judges of their financial limits. Even among the substantial majority of Americans who didn't lose their homes or their solvency during the subprime fallout, many still live right on the edge. Fewer than half of Americans have any sort of 'emergency fund' to cover them in the event of surprise expenses or unexpected job loss. Any family carrying any credit card debt month to month is living beyond their means, but there is an appalling culture of "I want $NICE_THING, therefore I should have it, whether or not I can afford it--and anyone who says otherwise can go soak his head."

Re:WHAT THE FUCK! THIS DOESN'T WORK FOR OPEN SOURC

[TheRaven64]

I started with, "Pay for the FreeBSD, not the Linux". But FUCK, that doesn't work. You don't have to pay for the FreeBSD! It's already free!

These people will happily let you pay for FreeBSD. The FreeBSD Foundation has just paid for some of my work, so I'm pretty sure that it is possible to pay for FreeBSD.

Then I tried, "Pay for the LLVM, not the GCC". But FUCK, that doesn't work, either! LLVM is free, too!

XCode 4 includes LLVM and Apple will let you pay for it. Some of that money goes to funding LLVM development. If you need extra features added to LLVM, I (and others) will happily give you a quote.

Finally I tried, "Pay for the Python, not the Ruby". But FUCK ME AGAIN, that doesn't work. Python is totally free.

I currently have a contract that is paying me to hack on Python, so I can assure you that it is possible to pay for Python.

FUCK

I've not tried, but I'm pretty sure you can pay for that too...

Re:My rule with Apple products

[Noughmad]

Fascinating, I have a similar rule for Star Trek movies.

Re:So,

[TheRaven64]

For a lot of uses, I wouldn't be surprised. This machine (Core 2 Duo) rarely sees the CPU load go over 20% in normal use, but anything involving the disk is slow and swapping completely cripples it. Doubling the RAM would be a much more noticeable improvement than doubling the CPU speed.

Re:WHAT THE FUCK! THIS DOESN'T WORK FOR OPEN SOURC

[brusk]

Simple. For software, pay for the support+license, not the license.

Understand why people buy things

[petes_PoV]

Leave aside all the technical stuff for now. A large proportion of people don't buy tech. to solve a technical problem (such as being able to play a given game, or run a particular application). A lot of people buy stuff as an extension of their personalities. This is particularly true of cars. So asking "What do you want to do with it?" will elicit a technical answer that probably has nothing to do with what the purchasing decision will be made on.

I also find that most people who do go for the "emotional" buy, rather than the technical buy, will often be reluctant to tell you the real reason they bought something. Usually the sales/marketing material that they quote afterwards is merely an excuse or rationalisation for their decision. Usually the reason people buy tech is because it makes them feel good. Nothing more.

Re:Understand why people buy things

[Jurily]

A lot of people buy stuff as a replacement of their personalities.

FTFY

That is really it right there

[Sycraft-fu]

Analyze what your needs and wants are. You have reasons you are looking at something, decide what they all are. This can be a mental exercise but if it helps you make a physical list and rank things. Do things like set a budget, I recommend 3 points: A target, a preferred max and an absolute max. List requirements, as in deal breakers if you can't have the features, and list things you'd like to have in order of importance. Basically, get yourself a specification sheet.

Then start doing some research. Find out what best meets your needs that fits in your budget. You can certainly get help, ask friends who are experts and so on. However research what your options are and decide what you would most like.

Also be willing to back down if you can't make it work. If you cannot find anything that meets your requirements and gits your budget, then be willing to say "Ok, I can't have that."

That doesn't guarantee a purchase you love, because nothing does, but it gives you a much better chance. You can also rest easier in your purchase with the knowledge that you probably bought what was best, even if it doesn't end up being perfect. You likely couldn't have done better.

Now I should note I'm not saying do this for every single thing in life. Base it on price. The more it costs, the more considered the decision should be.

When I bought a $20 water filter/pitcher I did no research beforehand, I just went to Target, looked at the options, and got the one I felt was most what I wanted.

When I bought a $600 bicycle I did some research beforehand on the Internet, and brought a friend who is a bike nut with me to the store.

When I bought a $7000 air conditioner, I spent a number of weeks researching A/Cs including who makes them, what matters, what options there are, and solicited bids from about 5 different vendors, all of who I did online background checks on with places like the ROC and BBB.

When I bought a 6 figure house, I hired a professional (real estate agent) to help me out in searching who in turn hired other professionals (home inspector, title search agent) to examine the potential purchase and make sure I was getting what I thought I was.

Tech is no different. If you are getting a cheap clock radio, go ahead and buy whichever one strikes your fancy at a store. If you are getting a $1000 computer, you can spend some time doing some research to see what meets you needs.

TV size vs. refresh rate

[hcdejong]

I find this statement to be true more for computer monitors than for television screens. Too many people end up with TV screens so large that the individual pixels become annoyingly visible. HD mitigates this, but most channels still use SD.

Pick a TV screen size that's appropriate for your viewing distance, instead of the bigger == better fallacy.

Re:TV size vs. refresh rate

[CmdrPorno]

The average consumer buys an HDTV and brags to all of their friends about how great it is and how clear the picture is, and if you ask them whether they upgraded their dish or cable service to get an HD signal, they have no clue what you're talking about.

Re:Silly advice

[fast turtle]

The main advantage to 64 bit windows is that all 32bit apps run in their own VM called WoW (windows on windows) meaning that a buggy app doesn't take the entire system down if it crashes or pukes. Another thing is that ASLR and DEP both work a bit better and when I max out system memory (16GB) the system should be able to run w/o paging/swapping at all because of the memory.

The last benefit is that I will also be able to run any 64bit app as they become available instead of being stuck with 32bit only and from what I've seen, MS is going completely 64bit with TNG Win8

In some areas it is bigger than people think too

[Sycraft-fu]

I get that all the time with audio shit. Someone will came and say they want "The best sound system, money is no object." I say ok, and start laying out what in my opinion would be the best sound system money can buy. Generally you are talking in the high six figures, and no that doesn't use anything like audiophile ripoff cable, just extremely high spec speakers, amps, processors and so on.

They always balk at that, of course, and usually it turns out the budget is a few hundred bucks at most, which doesn't even get you a mid range home theater system. However for some reason they decided that they could have, and wanted, "The best." Never mind that even most people who have that kind of money wouldn't want it as the gains get extremely incremental.

Last, but not least... don't believe TFA

[Barbara, not Barbie]

For example - "Pay for RAM, not speed. The speed of the computer chip does not matter; the attention-span or RAM memory does matter."

Totally wrong. You can always throw in more ram at a later date, and it will probably cost less to replace all of it than the cost of the "upgrade" today. Upgrading ram on a laptop is even easier than on a desktop, while a cpu upgrade ... forget it. And you'll always find takers for your old ram.

Or "Pay for components, not cables. Buy the best components, and the cheapest cables". While you don't have to pay a monster price for "Monster Cables", some HDMI cables don't meet the latest specs. The difference between those that do and the cheapest may only be a few bucks, and it can't hurt.

Or "Pay for speed, not channels. For cable internet, with enough speed you can watch TV channels on the internet for free." Pay for bandwidth. Speed means nothing if you have a low bandwidth cap. And buying a pair of bunny-ears for your HDTV can give a better picture over the air than either the net OR cable.

And "Pay for reliability, not mileage. On a car, you'll spend more of repairs and maintaince over its lifetime than you will on a difference in gas." needs to re-think that when faced with $6-$8 a gallon gas prices. At $6 a gallon, 20mpg is going to cost you $30,000.00 in gas over 100,000 miles. At 40mpg you save $15,000.00

And for those who don't think gas prices will go that high, they already are in many parts of the world (and you can bet that cash-strapped state and federal governments are going to need to raise more taxes).

Think of how many people bought their cars when gas prices were half what they were today. When buying a car today, you have to keep in mind that history tends to repeat itself.

Re:Last, but not least... don't believe TFA

[_Sprocket_]

You've really got to consider the audience this article is written for; it's not for /. techies.

For example - "Pay for RAM, not speed. The speed of the computer chip does not matter; the attention-span or RAM memory does matter."

Totally wrong. You can always throw in more ram at a later date, and it will probably cost less to replace all of it than the cost of the "upgrade" today. Upgrading ram on a laptop is even easier than on a desktop, while a cpu upgrade ... forget it. And you'll always find takers for your old ram.

Most /. readers would likely have no problem popping open a case and swapping out a few sticks of RAM. We'd probably also know where to get a better price on RAM than the factory pull-down option offers, and where to get good quality RAM for that better price. However, there are many, many consumers who view this all as black-boxes and black arts. To them, the box will remain in whatever configuration they buy it as until they decide it's time for a new computer and buy another one. Here is when one has to be wary of the marketing of CPU numbers and the illusion that a fast CPU guarantees a fast computer. Nevermind that most consumers' needs would be well met by today's moderate speed CPUs.

The advice is good for those who won't know more than the rule of thumb. But as with most things - reducing the complexity reduces accuracy. A smart consumer would be better served at knowing a bit more.

Or "Pay for components, not cables. Buy the best components, and the cheapest cables". While you don't have to pay a monster price for "Monster Cables", some HDMI cables don't meet the latest specs. The difference between those that do and the cheapest may only be a few bucks, and it can't hurt.

And here we have the same problem. You have to know something about HDMI cables and specs to ensure that you're buying a technically superior cable and not just a marketing up-sell. Keep in mind that a lot of up-selling happens with ancillaries like cables. And if that's the waters the naive consumer is swimming in, the advice to avoid the costly cables and get good hardware steers clear of the most sharks. But again, a bit more knowledge beyond the generic rule of thumb would serve the consumer well.

Or "Pay for speed, not channels. For cable internet, with enough speed you can watch TV channels on the internet for free." Pay for bandwidth. Speed means nothing if you have a low bandwidth cap. And buying a pair of bunny-ears for your HDTV can give a better picture over the air than either the net OR cable.

Along the lines of my theme - I'm not sure telling people that they should swap out Internet for the cable box as a TV source is all that wise. Sure - many /. readers probably have no problem doing it. But I'm not sure we're there yet (much to Google's chagrin). So if we're going to get in to those bleeding edge waters - I think you have the right of it. Bandwidth caps are the hidden evil.

And "Pay for reliability, not mileage. On a car, you'll spend more of repairs and maintaince over its lifetime than you will on a difference in gas." needs to re-think that when faced with $6-$8 a gallon gas prices. At $6 a gallon, 20mpg is going to cost you $30,000.00 in gas over 100,000 miles. At 40mpg you save $15,000.00

And for those who don't think gas prices will go that high, they already are in many parts of the world (and you can bet that cash-strapped state and federal governments are going to need to raise more taxes).

A couple small points - repair bills are big, sudden expenses while gas is a slow consistent expense. And while many places in the world have had high gas prices due to taxes for decades, many places in the world do not have the land mass and infrastructure requirements of the US. Having said those things - you do have a very good point that's certainly worth considering.

Re:Last, but not least... don't believe TFA

[Sepodati]

For example - "Pay for RAM, not speed. The speed of the computer chip does not matter; the attention-span or RAM memory does matter."

Totally wrong.

Remember the audience. This is for people clicking through the customize options on the Dell website. Do they go with the i3 at $550 or the i5 at $650? Do they go with the i3 and 4GB of RAM for $550 or 6GB of RAM $610.If someone's going to spend the money, I think most people would get more out of the additional RAM than a processor upgrade. That's what TFA is getting at. In reality, the plane old i3 with 4GB is going to be more than enough for most people.

If you're willing to do a little research, you're not the target audience for a rule of thumb.

Re:Silly advice

[Anonymous Coward]

App limits are different from OS limits for 32-bit. 4GB+ is moot if the user isn't on x64 Windows.

Windows XP, Vista, and 7 do not support more than 4GB RAM in 32-bit editions. If you have more than 4GB in the system, the remainder is not used. Some operating systems, such as Linux and Windows Server Enterprise, will use PAE to allow access to over 4GB to applications. Moreover, a 32-bit install of Windows (other than Server Enterprise with PAE enabled) will actually have 4GB - PCI memory space, which means subtracting video RAM, and other memory mapped spaces. It's likely that only ~3GB is usable to the OS. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366778(v=vs.85).aspx

32-bit applications (even under x64) can only use 2GB each unless additional support is enabled. This support allows a 32-bit app to access 3GB RAM. You don't necessarily have 2GB left over if you have 6GB in an x64 box. Different 32-bit apps can grab different address ranges out of that 6GB and run the system out of memory just fine.

Modern Windows also has a tendency to use 100% of available RAM for app and filesystem cache. It's good behavior, but makes the numbers look off if you're checking and don't realize what you're looking at.

Re:In some areas it is bigger than people think to

[kevinmenzel]

Psh - active studo reference monitors, connected to your high quality mixing board via XLR cables. :P