As I’m writing this, it’s late summer in 2020, many of us have found ourselves needing to go to school from home, work from home, or maybe trying to pivot to working for ourselves. For instance, my wife and I found ourselves, with my 10 year old gaming desktop and her 4 year old 10” laptop on the same desk, on a Friday afternoon. Suddenly we found out that we would be going into the office on the following Monday to grab vital tools and files we needed before starting to work from home. Our working lives, and home organization, were thrown into disarray, as many people’s were- and we got off lucky, as we had jobs that continued to keep us employed, while many were not so lucky.

THE LAPTOP SURGE

Understandably, when lockdowns and quarantines started, many people gravitated towards laptops for their Working From Home setups because of their compact size and portability. For many the selection was limited because there was a huge surge in computer purchases due to everyone else working from home, plus limited stock because of reduced factory and shipping capacity from Asia.

When people thought this could cool off in several months, the ability to work on the kitchen table, or the couch, or sitting on the bed, offered important flexibility, especially when there was maybe another person also working from the same house, plus potentially kids who suddenly were also stuck at home with you. Now, beyond just several months in, some people are finding that working on a laptop may not be the best for our productivity, or our backs.

WORK FROM HOME CONTINUES

We’re now past 5 months of working from home. We are entering a new school year that seems pretty risky to some, and that additional outbreaks, and later waves, have the potential to keep us working from home for multiple months more. Some have kids who, instead of heading off to college, are setting up for a semester of classes from their dorm rooms, if not from their childhood bedrooms.

Now it appears that there is an increasing likelihood that even after COVID is eventually tamed, some of us may get to, or need to, work from home on a much longer term basis. Both as a way for people and companies to save money on travel and infrastructure, but also to reduce the likelihood of another pandemic crippling companies in the same way that COVID did. Others of us are trying to get new businesses off the ground from our computers that are on our laps while we sit in bed. All of this means that we are going to be in this for a longer haul than we had hoped.

So, in my opinion, if you haven’t already, now is the time to ask yourself: “is the setup I am currently using the best setup for my household, and for my career, and for my wallet?” This answer is going to be different for everyone. I know that most of the people in this situation have never really had to pay THAT much attention to what hardware they wanted in a computer, or to the space their computer lives. For computer hardware, you might know a specific thing that you want, like amount of RAM, or size of Hard Drive, but unless you’re an enthusiast in the PC world, you may not know if you want a CPU with more cores, or one with fewer cores but higher speed in each core. I’m going to help you get closer to the level of understanding that people like me, who build PCs for fun and for friends have, so that you know what you need and what you are paying for.

ANSWERING YOUR QUESTIONS

In a series of articles and videos on my YouTube channel, I’m going to walk you through how to answer some of the important questions. Is a laptop with an improved work-space the best answer for you, or is it time to move to a desktop? When you shop for a computer, what do all the numbers and acronyms actually mean? What are your options if you want a desktop, but not one that is just a black monolithic box? For the work you do, what type of computer hardware is best, and how much will it cost? What if you want to do your work, but also want to spend some time with the new Microsoft Flight Simulator, or you want your kid, or yourself, to play some Fortnite or Minecraft after you clock out?

This series is going to provide some general insight that will help you figure out what solution will best fit your needs. One of the things I also definitely understand is the issue of cost, especially at this time it is important to not over-spend, and to make sure you are getting what you want and need, not what would be ideal if you had $33,000 to throw around on a fully loaded out Macbook Pro.

In the last 2 months I have built two computers, and I just helped a family friend figure out what laptop they should get. The laptop is for a pre-teen who needs to be able to bring it to school and back home because he’s going to be doing blended in-school and remote learning. One computer I built is for a teen who wants it for gaming and remote learning for $750. The other computer I built is for a Landscape Architect who is working from home for $1,250. Each had their own budget limitations, and their own needs based on what games they play and what work they do. I’ll be briefly walking you through each of these builds later in this series to help illustrate some of the part selection process.

What I’m going to do with this series is help you to look at what you use your computer for, to figure out what you need your computer to do, how much you want to spend, and how best to find the sweet spot where those meet. In later video series and articles I hope to provide some more advanced information on comparing specific hardware when running specific software, and the newest generation hardware.

We’ll start with the basics: What computer specs really mean, so that you know what you get for your money. Because to know what you might be gaining or losing with various choices, you need to first understand what the options mean.

If you want some one-on-one coaching through selecting a pre-built computer, or if you want help choosing parts and you want some guidance on how you actually go about building it yourself, I can help you with that too, just click the Services link in the top menu.

Part 1 of Hardware Demystified is here! Learn about what CPU specs mean, and what you should look for in a processor when buying a computer.

If you have a question about any of the information I’ve given, or about something I haven’t addressed, let me know in the comments below or on my About page, and I’ll try to answer your question, or I may even turn it into more content- There are things I may not realize I need to talk about until you tell me. Thanks!