Year-end technology purchases: things to know

The shopping season has come and there is no time to buy technology products that are more appropriate than this occasion because digital goods (KTS) are plentiful, with many promotions.

However, you need to be alert about advertising techniques and consider old hi-tech products.

Currently, digital products are sold widely, making users overwhelmed. Once defined what your high-tech item is. Please refer to the experience and knowledge below to buy the most satisfactory product, limiting the money for unnecessary features.

Desktop

Do not buy PCs that lack a choice of discrete graphics cards. You may be able to save millions of dollars because of nVidia or ATI's graphics card options, but then you will regret it. This is the component to speed up the game as well as browse the web and enjoy movies.

Currently, the most eye-catching 'desktop' is the mini PC. This line has a case that is only marginally better than a normal PC power supply, with a tight space that is half of a thin TV (LCD / Plasma). Another option is a multi-purpose desktop that meets all needs and installation locations (such as bedroom, office or living room).

Laptop

L194W - LG's widescreen format screen

Excluding mini laptops for school environments such as OLPC, Eee PC or Classmate PC, you should not buy cheap laptops because they are just enough to meet the minimum needs. With them, you will have to be patient when it comes to websites designed with flash, watching videos online or having trouble even playing simple games.

Laptops should be purchased with good configuration, widescreen (widescreen) instead of standard 4: 3 screens. Wide screen allows to cover multiple content, multiple windows at the same time and suitable for watching widescreen movies.

Game console, media player

Currently, people do not use the method of downloading multimedia content to the drive and need an adapter to connect this drive to the TV. You can use Linksys or Netgear transfer devices to transfer media directly from your PC to your TV and speaker system. If this is still too complicated, you can buy game consoles like Xbox 360 or Wii. This is both a professional gaming machine and a device to share your movie and music repositories from your PC to your TV and speakers with a minimum of annoying procedures.

Digital music player

Do not be dazzled by machines that are labeled with less dependence on PCs and wires. Haier and Slacker products, for example, sound very cool and don't need a PC and download music directly via Wi-Fi. But the technology is still not ready. It only works with home Wi-Fi networks, not public hotspots and slow download speeds. Therefore, it turned out to be nothing more than a classic iPod.

Instead, you can buy Microsoft Zune. Not necessarily an iPod with iTunes because at this time the new Zune with an 80 GB hard drive is the best option because you find more features than the classic iPod. However, the iPod Touch is still the pinnacle of the dream because of its simple and comfortable criteria.

Printer

Currently with narrow offices it is not possible to choose to purchase three separate photocopiers, faxes and scanners, but choose one all in one. Canon's Pixma series is a hint of this type.

Storage

You should not rush to buy new SSD semiconductor drives this year as it is still too expensive to replace instead with traditional hard drives with capacities ranging from 4 GB to half Terabyte. Some are quite neat and easy to use as Maxtor's OneTouch 4 Plus drive.

Optical drive

Do not choose a drive that can read only one format. Suppose you choose a Blu-ray drive, but some time after HD-DVD wins, your product will soon go to a dead end. Therefore, multi-format drives while reading both high definition (HD) disc formats are recommended if you want to get ahead of the technology. And in order to join the new HD video sources, it is essential that you have to buy HDMI displays, 'top' especially Full-HD TVs.

Digital cameras and video cameras

Do not buy machines that are less than 5 'dots'. 4-5 dots cameras only print beautiful images at 10x13 cm size. While with 20 x 25 cm images, more dot cameras are needed. In particular, you cannot zoom in less pixelated images, but still detailed images like high resolution images. On the other hand, although LCD monitors are getting bigger and sharper, cameras today still lack the optical viewfinder and need to have a face priority function.

With HD camcorders, it is necessary to record 16: 9 wide format video. You probably don't want to record a 4: 3 aspect ratio and stretch it on a 1080p screen.

PC operating system

Although Linux is the cheapest operating system, it is primarily for people interested in programming. While Vista shows many advantages such as speed, security, but not necessarily the right software. In addition, shopping for new computers with the most advanced configuration is a way for you to stay out of date and easily access powerful operating systems like Vista.

Screen

You should not be conservative with classic CRT screens but should strive to switch to LCD screens. It is best to choose a wide screen with DVI port and quality picture. It will serve as an HDTV when connected to Media Center PC's 'brain'.

Hai Thanh