See our ethics statement. Long before phone addiction panic gripped the masses and before screen time became a facet of our wellness and digital detoxes, there was one good and wise piece of technology that served our families. Maybe it was in the family room or in the kitchen. It could have been a Mac or PC. Chances are it had a totally mesmerizing screensaver.
It was the shared family desktop. I can still see the Dell I grew up using as clear as day, like I just connected to NetZero yesterday. Depending on when you peeked into the room, you might have found my dad playing Solitaire, my sister downloading songs from Napster, or me playing Wheel of Fortune or writing my name in Microsoft Paint. The rules for using the family desktop were pretty simple: homework trumped games; Dad trumped all.
Like the other shared equipment in our house, its usefulness was focused and direct: it was a tool that the whole family used, and it was our portal to the wild, weird, wonderful internet. As such, we adored it. But, like any technological advancement worth its salt, the PC was initially met with fear and panic. Before it settled so comfortably into the family portrait, the personal computer first had to woo consumers for an invite into their homes. This was no easy task. This type is typically aimed at families, students and business people.
Mid-range computers can run most software and games, but may struggle a bit with high-end programs such as video editing and high-level games that require very fast graphics processing. The sky's the limit with both performance and cost. Most people will only require a mid-range system — and there's plenty of scope available in this category, depending on the type of processor, graphics card and storage that you choose.
Don't just consider your current needs, though. Look to buy a system that will still serve you well for the next three years or so. Check which parts can later be upgraded — for example, can key components such as processor, graphics card and hard drive be easily replaced with better ones at a later date? Mini PCs are generally compact and basic versions of the bigger tower and mini-tower desktop PCs. Unlike a laptop computer, their main processor is usually the sort of mainstream unit that can be found in all-in-one desktops or even some modular desktop models.
Being compact, they may also find use in the lounge room as an entertainment hub for streaming video and music. Some makes come as "bare bones" DIY kits you can build yourself, which requires advanced computer skills, but there are off-the-shelf units that anybody can buy and set up easily. Though mini PCs are in the minority, they've been around for a long time and for good reason. They can do everything most people use a larger and noisier tower-case PC for, but they take up relatively little space and cost less to buy.
They're also more economical in the longer term because you don't have to replace anything but the main box when it comes time to upgrade. Though there is little or no expansion inside the box, these days a lot of expansion happens outside the box, via plug-in hard drives and other external devices. Because mini PCs have a very compact case, they have limited or no space for expansion or upgrading of the hardware internally. You need to do your upgrading before you buy, not after. Check the specifications carefully before you buy, making sure you have enough memory RAM and storage drive to cope with your foreseeable future needs as well as your current requirements.
Possibilities include creating a mini home entertainment computer for streaming video and music without tying up your main PC; a school PC where screen, keyboard and mouse are supplied ; a simple PC for home or in the office, mainly for email and light web browsing; or watching videos off a local network. They could also be good for presentations at work, or for small businesses or clubs that want to set up their own digital signage with looping still images or SD videos.
Lack of processing grunt, however, means they obviously won't make a good gaming PC — unless you're happy with nothing much more demanding than good old Solitaire. Software Operating systems market share of desktop PCs , by month. Consumer Electronics Global market share held by tablet vendors Hardware PC vendor shipment share worldwide , by quarter. Hardware Global market share held by PC vendors Thomas Alsop.
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Please log in to access our additional functions. Yes, let me download! Exclusive Corporate feature. Corporate Account. Statista Accounts: Access All Statistics. I set up this machine about five years ago, when Pixel was a puppy. Even though I set up a puppy circus with all sorts of toys in my office, Pixel didn't like it.
He liked the living room. He also liked Daddy to be in the living room. Whenever I tried to leave him alone and work in my office, he commenced a howling that was heartbreaking to listen to and distracting as all heck. So, one afternoon, I went digging through my parts, dug out a spare Ergotron, a lightweight monitor, and an extra computer and set it all up next to my couch.
This allowed me to have a lean-in experience where I could work on small text and dot-level graphics, but let the pup sleep on my shoulder or my lap. It turned out to be a nice way to work, so the arrangement remained.
I have a third machine in the bedroom. Sometimes, when my wife has the run of the fun watching chick flicks, I'll head back to the bedroom and camp out there. We have another big screen TV there, so I have another Mac mini hooked up to that. Upstairs, in my actual office is machine 4, my main driver. This is the fully-equipped Mac mini I discussed last year. It has three monitors on it, including a sweet inch ultrawide. This is the machine I use to do video editing, because it's the only one with enough horsepower to handle 4K multicam editing.
Machine 5 is a Sager PC laptop running Windows 10 in my office. I use this for testing and for running applications that are Windows based and benefit from real Windows hardware. I also run Windows 10 and Linux in virtual machines on the Mac mini, but sometimes nothing beats a real PC. Finally, I have an underpowered i5 MacBook Pro. I use this when I travel, and when I'm not in front of one of my other machines. I've found that it's much easier to use multiple machines now than it was in the past because of the availability of generous cloud storage plans.
In addition to using a shared file server, tools like iCloud Drive, Dropbox, Google Drive, and OneDrive make keeping machines in sync a mostly set-it-and-forget-it process -- at least until something breaks. My wife has the other machine tied to our living room TV.
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