Just a few years ago, I used to build computers, and building your own or building for others was quite a profitable business for many computer geeks. Times have changed, today if you want to build a computer, it is going to cost as much for the components to build a fast machine as you can go out and buy one already that comes with a monitor and the operating system. If you build your own, you still need an operating system to go with it. Where the advantage to building your own or building for others comes in is in building in the upgradability as well as being able to custom build for extreme machines and for corporate uses since most of the shelf computers use onboard graphics, onboard networking, and onboard everything else, but this proposition still becomes expensive. For those of you who do not know, onboard simply means it is built into the motherboard, and is not removable however it can be over ridden and updated graphics and wireless networking can always be added. Also shelf computers generally come with a lot of bloat ware that can slow your machine down.
For the general consumer the shelf machines are more than fast enough to handle what most people use them for, in fact they may actually be over kill. If you are a consumer and are looking for a computer that will handle Internet surfing and shopping, and maybe even one capable of playing video’s, in many cases you can save up to $200 or more by purchasing a refurbished computer. Many places on the Internet specialize in refurbished computers, like Daily Sales Online.com. What is a refurbished computer? Refurbished computers are generally computers that come from corporate leases. Due to the rapid increase in computer technology, many large companies will instead of buying new computers every few years, they lease them on a 1 to 3 year leasing plan at which time those computers go back to the factory and new ones are delivered. This keeps the corporation up to date without spending the large sums of money to buy and having a bunch of computers left over to try to sell off. They also receive the benefit of tax deferred money, but that is another story.
Once the lease is up on these computers, the computers are still generally only 1 or 2 years old and have lots of years left on them, but they go back to the factory or to an authorized service department and they are gone through and bad or worn components are replaced, they are cleaned and tested, and quite ready to give several years of service to a consumer. I remember when computers still cost close to $1000, we needed a second computer for our home so we purchased a refurbished 233MHz machine for $235. This computer lasted us for 6 years, was still compatible and competitive until modern machines exceeded the 1.2 Ghz mark, and when our daughter went off to college we gave it to her and she used it for an additional 3 years. At that point is was so antiquated it was way too slow for WinXP, so we replaced it for her with a faster machine, but the fact remains that this computer had several years of great service for most purposes. We had our first machine which was faster, but for a second computer it was great and its primary purpose was Internet surfing.
So if you have a computer, maybe it is too old, you have a monitor but are looking for something to bring you more up to date, you can get a refurbished fast computer with a big hard drive, ready for broad band and complete with operating system for as little as $200 or less. If you want a really fast machine, you can spend as much as $800 or more for ultra Multimedia machines. Refurbished computers are definitely worth a look.