Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire New home PC?

Gunner,
You want to remember just a couple things when computer shopping.
1 mimimum 500 gb SSD
2 Maximum RAM

If you have a monitor you like, get a tower for under the desk.

I use a $150 thirty two inch television for a monitor.

The suggestion to buy a laptop is valid. Hook it up to a TV with an HDMI cable. Grab a cheap wireless mouse and keyboard. You will never know that you are not using a desktop.

When you leave town, you can take the laptop with. Store photos on the computer as you go. Access your favorite websites or social media accounts while out of town.

All you need is access to free WiFi, or turn on "mobile hotspot" on your phone.

Whatever choice you make, you will have to learn to live with a new operating system. Though there are options to make Win 10 feel more like what you are used to.

Learn how to put a PC build together. It is actually simple.

Turn off the 47+ useless background processes running on Windows 10. Research how. Easy.

Optimize performance on your SSDs.

Add Windows 7. Have been a Windows 10 tester for years and it still is a bad OS with plenty of security flaws.

MAC...comes with free forehead tattoo.

Just throwing out some thoughts--

Throw a laptop in a docking station on your desk that is connected to a keypad/screen/mouse and now your portable laptop is a desktop. Plus you can take your laptop anywhere you need to, be it the shop to watch a step by step youtube video on the best way to pull a motor, on vacation, or to your bubble bath. On mine, one wire is plugged into my laptop and it is connected to the monitor/keyboard/mouse/etc automatically.

My kid is into coding and what not. He has a Mac or something like it. I’m a Corp Shill so I have a thinkpad lightweight something and a P51 that’s battery weighs more then the entire other PC. It’s more for CAD, heavy computing in Excel, PowerBI, etc. It definitely fires up the processors sometimes still. Our Org likes 600 layers for every drawing. It’s going on a few years now though no issues.

House everyone has tablets but we have a real old dinosaur tower we got from WalMart for $250 then had to by Office separate. It’s still functional but comparing it to the P51 it’s almost “Green Screen” in appearance and performance.

For cruising sites I’d probably get a Surface Pro to be honest. I’ve an early surface but might get a Pro too so I can work on automation and other stuff at home without dealing with all the security protocols on my work pc. I have SuperUser rights and it’s still painful.

What, no one mentioned, the laptop can be placed at the side of the bench rest and wired to your Chronograph.

Dell

What is the advantage of buying ( isn't it actually renting) Office today?

I use Libre Office. It covers all my needs and more. And it is free.

What’s is a docking station? I thought that was where you park you park your boat.

Agree, Idaho. Especially when Libre Office comes installed with Mint, and almost ALL other software for Linux is free and open source.

Switching to Linux is easy, free, and will work with any computer less than a decade old (and there are versions that will work perfectly on even older and less capable machines.) Your old machine will run like new again, too.

Don't be locked into the software prisons of either MS or Apple. Free yourselves.

for simple browsing, a chromebook is hard to beat. and not much there to go wrong with

You got a place on the Hi-Line what does that for folks?

Fancy Schmancy stuff there.

https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/imac/27-inch

Buy it once and in 10 years when it's getting creaky thank me (or do like I did and move the 10 year old one to the workshop and use the new one for home stuff).

Gunner, is this for you or for both you and the wife?

I only ask because IIRC, she's working for a big hospital system or something, and if she's using that computer for work, she may be married - permanently - to Windows.

For you, a MacBook Air, definitely. They just work, and you don't have to fiddle-fart much with them.

If it's the two of you, then you may need two computers. (They're cheaper than rifles!)

I had the same problem last fall.... after much reserch I went a whole different direction from Windows operating system...

I got a Mac mini and then got a 27" monitor from HP and used my old keyboard and mouse. All in and up and running for less than $800 for an Apple system.

Then I got an old Chromebox with a wireless keyboard and mouse and hooked it up to the 55" big screen TV... All set up and working for less than $120. So, I do all my work/buisness and research on the Mac mini and do all my dirty sites on the Chrome box...

No Windows systems of any kind in my house at all anymore...

In an afternoon on the kitchen table. Newegg will sell you the parts. UPS will deliver them to the door.

Or Newegg will put it together for you and ship it.

Google (or your favorite alternative) google is a verb now, "Newegg build to order PC".

Ive replaced 3 batteries and upgraded the memory on my 2011 Macbook. Its easy and there's plenty of videos out there on how to do it. Ive even swapped out batteries on Iphones as well as replaced cracked screens. The tools are pretty much the same.

Only problem is the non-apple batteries dont last nearly as long as OEM but for an old Mac i'd rather drop $30 for a off brand battery and get a year or 2 out of it than drop $250 on a 10 year old computer.

I use Brave browser.

I hate Windows.

apple macbook pros are great but they cost 5x for the same thing in a windoz laptop. i know, i just bought one. lenovo makes a good laptop. it will come with latest windoz. i use brave for the browse and duckduckgo for the search engine.

thanks again everyone, old pc blew today, wifes letting me use her dell notebook, she also said we have to stick with hp and windows for her work network, she's ordered a monster hp with mega loads of gigs and storage, that'll most likely easily my rudimentary .com uses.

thanks for all the help and tips.

If you are running some Windows based programs/Apps and you switch to an Apple/Mac system your software will not run without some kind of Windows based parallel system.

Dell