Posted by Sir Four at 10:16am Apr 4 '13I feel like we're now in a time when more computer power doesn't translate into anything useful for most people, though. We've finally reached a point where you can buy even a cheapo computer/laptop and do all your word processing, email, web, casual gaming, etc. Of course that isn't true for power users or intensive gamers, but for most people today's computer hardware is an interchangeable commodity.
There's only one piece of hardware that I feel this isn't true: the hard disk. While the size has improved dramatically, the speed of mechanical drives has not gained much since the 90s. The damn thing drags a whole system down. The user perceives even a high-end computer to be slow because the hard drive is slow. I cannot fathom why manufacturers are not pushing SSDs hard on mid-range computers/laptops. Take a $400 laptop, add an SSD, charge $500. Educate the buyer that s/he's going to get much better performance on the $500 model. Hell you could even dial down some other specs and sell it at $450--it'll still be more snappy than the one with the mechanical drive.
Seriously..I cannot sing the praises of SSD enough.
Yep - Sir Four