1: Advice plse to guide my decision-making when I switch computers

I'm after impartial advice from people who use their computers to run small businesses. Would be very grateful for any suggestions you can offer.

I'm expecting to have a Windows computer bought for me but I don't want to ask for anything that's "over the top" as regards spec or price.

Currently, I mainly use my computer to produce documents, trawl the internet and pick up email and edit my website. In theory, I may also wish to produce Powerpoint presentations and spreadsheets, keep an electronic diary etc.

I understand I should get a Windows 7 computer loaded with Microsoft 2010 Pro (is this the standard spec for an ordinary business computer please)?

Can you advise me what would be "good enough" for my purposes as regards memory, speed, space on hard drives, peripherals (and anything else important) plse?

Are there makes of computer in my price range which are generally regarded as being more trouble-free than others? PM me please (lw@careers-partnership-uk.com) if you want to say "don't touch makes X or Y with a bargepole"! Thanks.

Yours hopefully, Linda

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Now days a lot of the computers you will find are either dual core or quad core. So I would say dual core, as quad core heats up a lot. I have friends running water cooling systems on their phenom chips just to make sure it doesn't burn out when they play really graphic games.

If you are only using it for documents etc, then I guess a norma dual core with about two to three gigs ram on a windows vista or 7 rig should do the trick. If you had one with a small(ish) graphic card of about 512 to 1 gig, it should also help speed up the PC a little. That way you could watch movies as well as work on any editing program with a certain amount of ease. I will put a small list together for you and pm it to you.

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Hiya Linda

Good advice from Sam, but here's our rule of thumb when buying office machines.

Can't offer any tips on PC's as the price on laptops is now so cheap, for us, it doesn't make any sense buying fixed workstations for the office, when you have the flexibility of a laptop (work from home, meetings, presentations etc).

Laptop wise, we go for bigger machines, so desktop replacements, wide screens, assuming you go for Windows, as much RAM as you can afford, (minimum 4GB), decent processor, dual core is fine (steer clear of any celerons, has cut down cache, so cheaper, but a lot slower).

Budget wise, we look around £400/£500, which gives something like a HP Pavillion or similar,this will include the Operating System, then any add on's are Microsoft Office Home & Business 2010 key, (assuming software preloaded) which is about £150, and a copy of Symantec AV, which is about £30. That gives us all our office apps like word, excel, PowerPoint, and the one we can't live without, outlook!

That then gives us a decent multipurpose machine for about £600 which we depreciate over 3 years, then replace. May sound pricey, but its a critical business tool, which will have 3 years heavy usage.

You can get cheaper machines which are supposed to be fine, such as Acers etc, and no doubt there are deals galore, but to me its a critical tool so about £600 for 3 years continual heavy usage isn't worth worrying about, plus for my sins, I've always liked HP's. May not be sexy like a Viao, and may weigh a ton, but its a good tool.

That's assuming HP are staying in the hardware market! If money was no object, then I'd probably go for a high spec Lenovo(IBM), for no other reason than I love IBM laptops, and they are also great business tools, but tend to pricey compared to spec.

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Will be writing shortly with updates and thanks but just now am too busy looking up computers that fit the specs you've given me! Am SO, SO grateful!

Best wishes, Linda.

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