We generally prefer Macs to PCs however the below article gives you some good buying tips and information on both...

If you want a PC...

There are a LOT of cheap PCs on the market. The problem with cheap PCs is that the technology in them is often already 5 years out of date before you've even taken the computer out of the box. So we'd generally recommend buying the best you can afford to avoid this issue.

General things to look out for:-

(Note - correct at time of writing this article)

• A solid state drive (SSD). This replaces a traditional hard drive and whilst they don't usually have as much storage space, they are a huge amount quicker. We can't recommend solid state drives highly enough. Every computer we have in our offices runs a solid state drive rather than a normal hard drive as the performance increase is massive
  
  
• Don't just go for storage gigabytes. Many computer retailers try and make a laptop or computer sound "wow" by saying how many gigabytes of storage it has. Hard drives are cheap so it's easy for manufacturers to make cheap/terrible computers sound good by putting a big hard drive in it. Sadly, often consumers don't actually know what it all means but they think it sounds good. The sad reality is that whilst a retailer might offer you a cheap laptop for say £300, and say "wow it's got an amazing 3TB in it!", you might find in reality that because it's only £300 the rest of the machine is really slow and useless and you never needed the huge hard drive anyway.
  
  
• Get as much RAM as you can afford. The "RAM" is like a computers short term memory. The more short term memory it has, the more it can generally handle without having to refer to it's long term memory. The benefit of short term memory in a computer is that its miles quicker than long term memory. So, the more short term memory (RAM), generally the quicker your computer will be especially when you're trying to do lots of things at once.
  
  
• Avoid cheap makes
  
  
• Remember these sayings:-
• "You get what you pay for in life"
• "Buy cheap, buy twice"
  
  
• Whilst computer technology evolves really quickly and you might only have a computer for 5 years, I'm sure you'd rather it last 5 years rather than just 1. So avoid cheap makes as they tend to be quite poor quality.
  
  
• Quality can vary, but generally this is a good guide. This can vary however so do only use as a guide:-
  
  
• Good quality makes
• HP
• Sony
• Microsoft Surface
  
  
• Average quality
• Dell
• Acer
• Asus
• Lenovo
  
  
• Poor/cheap quality
• Packard Bell
• Toshiba
  
  
• Get the warranty. Unfortunately manufacturers are a little bit criminal in that they can get away with selling you something with only a 1 year warranty. But what if it breaks after a year? Well... generally it's your problem even if the computer manufacturer made a crap product to begin with. Computers only really have a lifespan of 5 years before they too old and obsolete so often manufacturers don't really have longetivity or quality in mind so we'd recommend getting the manufacturers extended warranty for 3 or 4 years. Do buy the manufacturers warranty rather than a shops warranty however as usually the manufacturer is better equipped to service the warranty if anything goes wrong.
  

If you want a Mac...

Macs are fantastic computers.

Laptops

• The MacBook Pro and the MacBook Air are both great. We're not so keen on the latest "MacBook" however as it only features one port for both USB and for charging and we think that in the real-world this might be quite limiting and irritating.
  

Desktops

• The iMac is great if you want something sleek and all in one. The downside is usually the price
• If you can't afford the spec you want in an iMac, have a look at the Mac Mini. Just add a bog-standard non-Apple screen which are so cheap these days and you've got yourself a fully functioning Mac computer for less
  

Don't know how to use a Mac?

• It's not that hard to learn as for the most part, their interface is so easy to use
  
• If you're used to using a PC and want to know how to use a Mac, see these instructions on the Apple web site which show you how to use a Mac if you're used to a PC.
  
  

I hear Mac's don't crash and don't get viruses? NOT TRUE.

• Well, that's basically a load of rubbish. Macs do crash sometimes, and, can get viruses. So make sure you get AntiVirus software for your Mac.