Like Rs. 5,000, for a desktop PC. And like Rs. 7,000 for a monitor. Crazy. I remember when PCs used to cost thousands of dollars. I mean, it’s basically the same PCs, for sale on Galle Road 5 years later. But still.
I’ve been walking around a lot and you keep running into awesome stuff. For example, Taprobane Computers on Galle Road. We need a computer for office but I had no idea prices had got this cheap. I haven’t used Windows for about two years (staying strong) and I’ve been off desktops for longer than that. I use an iMac but that’s more of a 2001 monolith than anything else. Hence, I was surprised that desktop PC prices have fallen so low.
A keyboard costs Rs. 200 now?
I have no idea where these Taprobane PCs are from. They don’t look new. They clock in at like 1.8-2.8 Ghz with 512-1GB RAM, 40-80GB hard disk. I mean, I have a video camera (now, thanks D) with a 250GB hard disk and phones clock faster, but these things run Windows XP and seem to work. They also kinda nostalgically crummy, like using a typewriter.
When I was in Montreal I remember investing in and worrying over a PC, but now they cost less than phones, at least used. And people don’t seem to desire them that much either. Once you get to a certain point and you’re doing certain tasks I don’t see that much value in the newest or latest PCs. Once you do get to that point (editing video, photos) then you might as well get a Mac. So we’ll compare some prices, but I think the first office PC (for YAMU) will be some poopbox from the street, AKA five years ago. I swear, the Colombo streets are a time warp sometimes.
With the new Macs running on Intel hardware, there really isn’t a massive difference in the architecture anymore. You can run Windows on a mac just as easily as on a PC, and if you get the right parts you can run MacOS on PC parts. Also, the one thing that PCs do well that nothing else can do is play games :)
Those are 7-8 year old PCs. Basically what happens is that large organizations in developed countries phase out these obsolete models. They do that by selling them en masse and importers from our part of the planet buy them at rock bottom prices. So basically its rich people’s trash that you are seeing advertised there.