The first choice is whether to buy brand names such as Compaq, Sony or IBM or non-brand computers. The non-brand ones can be bought in small computer stores and can save you $500-1000 on the initial cost but are potentially less reliable. I've always had good luck with the non-brand PCs but I know people who haven't. Whichever you go for make sure you get at least a one year warranty.
A computer with Microsoft Office and Anti-virus should cost you around $2,000 for a desktop or $2,500 for a laptop.
Generally you should budget for your computer to last around 3 years. Yes, I know that's not very long - and I know they can last 4 or 5 years at a stretch - but keeping a computer for a long time means you spend more time (and money) fixing it and complaining about its speed and frequency of crashing than you will enjoy using it. Trust me, it is not worth it.
Buying a new computer for you and your employees is well worth the money in your / your employees' morale and the speed and efficiency at getting work done. Spending all day waiting for programs and documents to open, rebooting your computer and retyping documents after crashing is not fun.
So, to do the calculations for you, if you change your computers every 3 years, you are looking at budgeting around $55 per month per employee for a desktop computer or $70 per month per employee for a laptop.
You can keep your old computer as a spare or it can be recycled at the PC Graveyard in Geelong Good luck
(This article was originally written for the Hong Kong Women Business Owners' Club newsletter - Sept 2000. Updated May 2005)
I would currently recommend looking for the following:
Speed: 3.2 GHz - This effects how fast the PCs boot up and how fast they open programs. The fastest PCs are usually considerably more expensive than the ones a little slower and you probably won't notice the difference - so go for 100-200MHz less than the fastest available to save money.
RAM: 512 MB (or if you deal with a lot of graphics 1 GB). Don't skimp on this one. You will notice the difference with more RAM much more than you will notice a difference with more speed. RAM effects how many items you can have open at one time and how fast you can open large documents. If the computer you are interested in comes with less RAM, just ask for it to be upgraded.
CD or DVD writer - make sure you buy a CD or DVD writer to enable you to backup and transfer large amounts of data. Floppy disks hold about 1MB, CDs hold about 640MB and DVDs hold about 4,800 MB.
Software: Microsoft Office 2003 and anti-virus software (like Norton Antivirus). If you buy this with your PC it is often cheaper than buying the new full version.