The Computer Department's Eternal Merry-Go-Round (long)

[Zeeko]

It's a Coke and Pepsi difference. Some people swear by one and at the other but having used heaps of both, they perform the same for me, honestly.

Thats the BEST analogy for the AMD vs. Intel EVER! I'm definately gonna use this.

In my experience, people who want a "Good Deal" on a computer really want a "Cheap Deal". I take great pleasure in watching their eyes glaze over when I try to explain the difference between RAM and HDD memory.

When it comes to printer customers, the only thing worse is cartridge customers! Heaven forbid they actually know the brand and model of their printer - or even the cartridge number. I always get "there are four of them". To that I just do the good old Wheel of fortune wave at the words motion at 4 rows of them (thats one brand).

[mattm04]

As far as printers, I usually look through various reviews and make my decision. Printer quality varies greatly from year to year, so the company you love this year can really suck the next two. If you want a good B&W printer, get a HP LaserJet 4. Its big, bulky, and a little slow, but I've seen them run for years under heavy load with no or few problems. Those things are real troopers in an office envirionment.

My church has a donated HP LaserJet 4. over 180K pages on it. It was donated form a local hospital. We have had it for about 5 years now and we have only had to change toner.

I have used Epson, HP and Lexmark ink jets at home and have not had any problems. I also have a Borther B&W laser printer (networked) that i send any big jobs to. I have had it for a year and no jams on regular paper so far.

[RetailWorkhorse]

Thats the BEST analogy for the AMD vs. Intel EVER! I'm definately gonna use this.

In my experience, people who want a "Good Deal" on a computer really want a "Cheap Deal". I take great pleasure in watching their eyes glaze over when I try to explain the difference between RAM and HDD memory.

When it comes to printer customers, the only thing worse is cartridge customers! Heaven forbid they actually know the brand and model of their printer - or even the cartridge number. I always get "there are four of them". To that I just do the good old Wheel of fortune wave at the words motion at 4 rows of them (thats one brand).

"Good Deal" for my grandsire: Cheeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaap Gateway-why-is-it-slower-than-your-Sager-when-mine's-newer?

"Good Deal" for Workhorse: Can I run Guildwars, two art programs, a game of spider solitare, OpenOffice, and Azureus without it freezing up on me?

The printer I used to use was originally used in a cabinetry shoppe my parents worked in. I'd have my mother copy all those blasted pages out of my math book when I was public school because I didn't have the TIME (between working the shoppe with them, doing chores, and taking care of the dogs) to sit down and write down 50+ problems by hand. My teacher was a moron.

Have since used personal printers for my computers. The HP didn't like me at all, the lexmark was okay, I have a canon printer (inkjet) now and a canon scanner I adore. When I get a new place I'll be looking into Brother, seeing as I'm going to be needing a better printer for my artwork (Sister writes stories and I do the pictures for her).

I've had, in all, three computers in my lifetime that I've bothered to learn to use. The HP literally blew up (middle of the night and it was OFF), the Compaq that our tech nicknamed the Gay Purple Snail (don't ask, I honestly have no clue), and my 5-year-old Sager laptop. No problems with the Compaq other than age and I only had to replace the HD in my laptop when a rather nasty virus ate it. The casing is starting to crack now (but then, so would yours if a 19 pound KITTY CAT tried to sit on it) and there's some cosmetic damage. Still works fine. Will likely keep it when it's replaced with a Gamer-Artist desktop.