Link This |
Email this |
Blog This |
Comments (1)
What Type of Computer Should I Buy to Run the POS? What’s Vista All About?
August 31, 2007
I’m not much of a techi but I needed to buy all new computers for the store. I realized most computers are now equipped with Microsoft’s new operating system—Windows Vista not Windows XP. I don’t know much about computers so here is a break down in layman’s terms of what you should look for when buying a new computer…my apologies to all the techi's out there.
I started to look for the most important things:
- How much memory does the computer have—this is what’s called RAM? RAM known as, Random Access Memory, in layman’s terms is equivalent to the computers short term memory. This is where the Windows Vista information comes in handy—Vista takes 512MB of memory so you’ll need a computer with at least 1GB of memory. Some will argue; to get maximum performance out of Window’s Vista you’ll need 2GB of memory. I just purchased a laptop with 1GB of RAM to be used to run the Point of Sale System and Vista is running fine—the computer is not slow at all.
- How much hard drive space? In layman’s terms this is the computers long term memory? I recommend 80GB—unless you’re using your system for something other than aPOS.
- What type of processor does the computer have or what type of brain?
- There are your regular Pentiums which are old now.
- More recently you have multi-core (dual and quad core) processors which are more than one processor inside the processor—hope this makes sense.
- What type of Video Card does the computer come with—if you need the computer for more than just running the POS—such as for video editing, creation, or viewing then you need to start looking at how much RAM your video card comes with. We jewelers wouldn’t need a great video card unless running CAD/CAM programs.
Buying a computer these days is much tougher and the salespeople at the store’s I visited weren’t much help to me—they kept using acronyms for everything…like military talk and I was totally lost. The gist of it is if you buy a new computer it’s most likely that it will come with Windows Vista so your best bet is to buy a computer with at least 1GB of RAM when running Vista.
Posted by Shanu Singh Guliani on August 31, 2007 | Comments (1)
