Lets Talk Computers

I use a Chromebook or cell phone for on the go. I have a desktop with lots of RAM and SSD drives for processing. Laptops are always more expensive, prone to over heating and harder to get in under the hood. Apple - you pay a premium for style.

We use apple laptop, ipad, iphone ipod, We are great fan of Jony Ive, we have almost all apple products except the watch.
Love them

My husband works in IT & has always been a die-hard PC guy...until he inherited our daughter's iPod. Next step, iPad, then, iPhone. My PC couldn't keep up with my photography work, so in Dec. he bought me an iMac with retina display...and, I couldn't be happier!! It's not cheap & it's a bit of a chore learning a new system...but, well worth the effort!

I have an iMac and I love it. No worries about viruses, no problems with the Safari browser. And...it's so quiet. No loud fan like the pc's have. I won't ever go back to pc's. Apple products cost more, but I think in the long run they're better products.

I would not switch to apple all that money for pretty package and windows has a lot more programs available. That said Apple is the luxury car of computers.

A somewhat out of the box option is a Surface Pro 3 tablet with a docking station. Altogether that's a fairly pricey setup but it gives you both ultra portability and the power and customizing ability of a windows based desktop. I recently bought a Pro 3 i5 128GB and it's more powerful than my two year old laptop.

Another thing good about Apple is that they have outstanding Tech support w/ very little annual fee. One time our desk top broke and they gave us new one.
That is just computer but If I want to take photo with Cell phone you cannot beat Galaxy (16 megapixels)

I used PC's for years, gave me nothing but trouble (and I was a techie). Then I switched to Apple and my MacPro hasn't skipped a beat in the last 7years, nor did the Macbook Pro's I owned before it. Apple cost more, but last longer and are much more stable (my experience). Style means nothing to me. A machine that works well and is reliable does. You get what you pay for.

How old is it.? I hope you had it backed up recently. The cheapest thing would be to get another hard drive and install it yourself, if its not under warranty anymore. Call HP for a recovery disk with the operating system on it, if you don't already have one.In my opinion, Mac's are nice computers but way too expensive and if you want to upgrade any parts you have to buy a brand new one. A desktop is really the best way to go. And if you are at all tech savy it is cheaper, and more fun, to build one yourself. If you build it yourself you can have a higher end computer for less cost of a factory built one, plus you can upgrade it as needed without having to buy a whole new one. I have a computer I built about 4 years ago and it still works just as well as day one. I went as high end as I could afford then and I would say that it still is a very good upper middle end machine. Only the graphic card is starting to go out of date for newer games, but really for everything else I have no need to upgrade it. I also have a good ips monitor that covers 100% adobe RGB for my photo work.

My main computer I built myself around a top of the range soundcard - that is I'd invested in the card first, then the case, then the motherboard, then the rest of the components. And much to my frequent surprise two years going strong and it still works!

No serious crashes (touch wood), but I use a backup harddrives for everything just in case.

Just upgraded the monitor, which was long overdue, and now I feel like captain of my own Starship

Why did I begin with a professional soundcard? The list of specs is too long to write out, but the difference between it and integrated sound is worlds apart

I am a apple gal, but the transition is a pricey one. Not only for the hardware, but all of the software you use will also need to be purchased in Apple IOS format.
If you like the big monitor, you can always plug any device into it, regardless of platform. Heck, I even use apple tv to project my phone on the big screen tv on occasion.
Apple's used to be the go to platform for graphics but I think PCs have caught up. They just have a longer start up time and more issues with viruses.

Asus K54 laptop with 8GB RAM running Win7 SP1. Replaced the DVD with an onboard 1TB HDD as a 2nd drive, and a second external 1TB attached to the back with velcro! Plugged into a 2nd ViewSonic monitor. Works fine for me.

I also run a Samsung N120 for travelling which was getting slow with WinXP so it now runs Linux lubuntu.

We have a MacBook too, but everything about it costs $$$. Apple were useless as support when the screen broke and wanted $1000 just for the screen! The guys at powerbookmedic.com replaced the motherboard, screen, & magsafe board and overnight shipped it back for $570