Okay, hardware. How to save money in the process by making the right choices upfront on hardware. Meaning, what computers do I buy? Spending a little more upfront will usually buy you more longevity with the computer. Don’t go and buy the cheapest computer you can find. If you buy it online, you’re probably going to save money, so if you have a little time buy it online. Go to websites like Newegg.com Amazon.com B&H.com and read the reviews. Sort by average customer ratings and best reviews, stuff like that. Sort by those criteria and find which ones are giving the best reviews. Also buy business class products. I like HP personally, I like their EliteBook series. If you’re going to get Dell laptops, get their Latitude series. I also like Asus’s products, they’re usually a couple of a hundred bucks cheaper but they make really good products.
When you’re buying a product you want to read the reviews. I have a friend who purchased a product from a website blinded by price. It was a $1,300 gaming computer, almost unheard of, gaming computers are usually around $2,000 for a good one. It had i7 processor, loads of RAM, loads of hard drive space. He ended up getting it, used it for less than a year and crashed, crashed, crashed over and over again. He’s a producer and a marketing … He does all kinds of video production. It worked good at first, but then it kept crashing. In the end, he ended up having to go back and get a different computer. Ended up getting a really nice Alienware computer which actually serves him really well now, but it ended up costing twice the price.
When you’re buying something, it’s worth to spend more and you get quality products, quality parts. Inside the computers when you do pay their premium price, they are putting better parts in the product. They’re putting more time in production, in construction. They’re using parts that are just handled better. They’re using name brand parts, not just the cheapest from China. Think about that, think about the problems you may have and then maybe get an extended warranty on it too.