I agree with many aspects of the article below, I really do. However I do not agree with it being a “part of the times” thanks to the events of AMD and Intel. Many of these choices faced each day regardless of when the purchase is made.

If you have a newly minted high school graduate in the family - or a college student who’s complaining that her hard drive is so crammed with music and video that she has no room for her junior thesis - chances are you’re thinking about a new computer.

Whatever drives you toward a new PC this spring, it’s an unusually challenging time to buy.

On the positive side, prices have never been lower. For that, we can thank two market forces.

The most obvious is a major battle for market share among top PC makers, particularly for laptops.

The second factor is competition between Intel and its main competitor, Advanced Micro Devices. They make almost all the microprocessors that power desktop and notebook PCs. Long an annoyance to Intel, AMD is finally making serious inroads into Intel’s market with chips that perform as well or better for less money…. Source: baltimoresun.com

[tags]intel,notebook,amd,desktop[/tags]