EDISON, NJ—Wary of paying too much for a new computer loaded with unnecessary bells and whistles, area dad Paul Moyers, 52, announced Friday that he just wants a regular, no-frills PC with only the basics.
Moyers, whose aging Compaq Presario ceased functioning earlier this week despite the fact that he deleted several old files and installed the latest version of Norton AntiVirus, said he doesn't want anything fancy and just needs a machine that allows him to get online, send e-mails, and use Microsoft Word.
Moyers reiterated several times that that's all he needs.
"I don't want someone trying to sell me something with a ton of memory or RAM or anything like that," said Moyers, adding that getting a computer with "all that graphics and sound stuff" would be a waste of money because he'd never use it anyway. "What I need is something that starts right up when you turn it on and goes right to Google when you click on Internet Explorer. Nothing crazy. As long as it's compatible with Comcast, so I can get on the Internet, I'm fine. "
Added Moyers, "I don't need a scanner."
Browsing through a Best Buy insert in USA Today, the husband and father of two said that it's important to have some idea of what you want before you buy "one of these things." He told reporters that if you don't do the necessary research, you'll spend way more money than you planned and walk out of the store with "some super-computer for tech guys."
Moyers, who used the phrase "bare bones" several times in reference to what his new computer should be, said that when he is eventually ready to buy, he plans to tell the salesman to take him to the simplest PCs they have, ones that will give him full access to his work e-mail and hopefully allow him to open up the photos his sister sent him from her vacation to the Bahamas, and not try to upsell him anything.
"I'm not going to be airbrushing photos, so I don't need Photoshop and I don't need video cards," Moyers said. "I need a keyboard, a mouse, and something that won't freeze up every 10 minutes. That's it."
"Oh, and it has to work with my iPod," he continued. "There's got to be a plug for that."
Moyers went on to list several programs and features he doesn't need on his new PC, some of which include the ability to play video games besides solitaire, watch YouTube videos, or download things. Further, Moyers told reporters that his old computer monitor works just fine, and that he would rather just use it than spend another $200 on something he already has.
"This is going to be my machine, not the family computer we keep in the living room," he said. "The last time I let everyone use my computer, it got filled up with all these videos and files and junk, and when I took it to the guy at OfficeMax, he said it was running slow because there was all this unnecessary stuff running all the time. It was taking five minutes for Quicken to open."
In addition to doing his own research, Moyers enlisted the help of his 24-year-old son Keith, who, according to Moyers, knows a lot about computers. The younger Moyers reportedly suggested his father consider an iMac due to its ease of use and straightforward tech support. While Moyers was initially open to the idea, he swiftly ruled out a Mac due to the computer's price and the fact that it didn't come with Windows.
Moyers added that he also didn't like the fact that the mouse only had one click button.
"I talked to my friend Greg who has a Dell and says he likes it, so I might look into that," Moyers said. "But I'm not going to buy it if they make you get some expensive warranty. Those things are always a rip-off."