Top 10 Best Desktops

Don't write off the desktop PC just yet—the workhorse of the PC world still has a place. The desktop continues to evolve with stunning new designs, extremely affordable prices, and a range of uses that extends far beyond the home office. Whether you're looking for a standard tower PC or a sleek All-in-One, we've got you covered. Whether you're looking for a crazy fast gaming rig or a computer for streaming movies and TV shows, you'll find something here.

Top 10 Best Desktops

The standard desktop tower still reigns as the basic PC, ranging from smaller budget-priced systems to powerful towers that can double as workstations or gaming rigs. You'll get a lot of performance and plenty of features even at budget prices, but perhaps the biggest draw for desktop buyers is the fact that, unlike slim laptops that won't even let you swap the battery, the tower still allows the user to maintain and upgrade their system. Even the simple tasks of upgrading RAM or swapping out an old hard drive with a newer, faster solid-state drive will extend the life of a PC for months, or even years.

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How To Buy A Gaming PC

When many people think of gaming, they automatically think of gaming consoles. And, sure, many households have at least one (if not all) of the three major gaming consoles available: the Microsoft Xbox 360, Sony Playstation 3, and Nintendo Wii. But for a truly connected and immersive gaming experiences desktop PCs reign supreme. 

How To Buy A Gaming PC

Gaming PCs are more upgradable than laptops, and it's still easier to install expansion packages to PC games than on consoles. There are vast online communities dedicated to modifying games to get desired results ('mods'). You need to use a PC for the best in 3D gaming, and you simply can't get all the new gaming bells and whistles unless you have a high-powered gaming PC. That said, you don't necessarily have to buy the most expensive desktop to play the most popular games.

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How to Buy a Business Desktop

Business PCs may not be the sexiest players in the PC market, but where the actual number of units the big PC makers ship each year is concerned, they do represent a significant segment. Think about it: You can still write a novel on a typewriter, shoot photographs with film, or play music live and record it with a DAT deck, but very few businesses can get their work done without a PC. Even a mom-and-pop shop that caters to a non-technological audience (say, a buggy whip maker) needs a PC to communicate with suppliers, customers, and potential customers. email, Twitter, the Web: All of these technologies make today's business happen.

How to Buy a Business Desktop

While it may be tempting to buy a simple consumer PC from a big-box store like Best Buy or Wal-Mart, you'll probably be doing yourself and your customers a disservice if you do. Specialized business PCs have extra features that make them better suited to the office than the $250 sales-circular special. For one, business desktops are built to last longer, and are usually easier to service, than consumer PCs. After all, the longer a business PC is down, the more money it costs you in lost earning time. Business PC makers may have specialized tech-support lines to help you troubleshoot your QuickBooks problem. At the very least, you can add a service contract to your business PC so that on-site tech-support calls are handled by techs who respond in hours or minutes rather than in days or weeks, like the ones who handle consumer tech support.

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Top 100 Best iPad Apps

The Apple iPad $499.00 at Apple Store is one of the most popular and influential consumer electronics devices in history. Its sleek design and extreme portability have made it an excellent slate for Web-surfing, movie-watching, email-checking, and numerous other activities. That said, the role that the Apple App Store has played in its success should not be overlooked. According to Apple, over 375,000 iPad apps have been released worldwide. That's a lot of apps that run the gamut from the entertaining to the business-centric. You can transform your iPad into virtually anything.

You can't (and don't want to) install them all due to storage or quality limitations. So you're probably wondering how one goes about finding quality iPad app. Easy. Check out PCMag.com's picks as the staff has tested hundreds of iPad apps and weeded out the ones not worth your time. You could scour the App Store for user reviews, but, really, do you want to go down that road? First of all, it's an incredible time sink. Secondly, user reviews can be highly biased, and a little-known app may have only a handful of reviews.

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The Best Android Tablets

Android tablets had a rocky start, but as Google continues to refine its mobile operating system, we're finally seeing a steady flow of high-quality Android tablets. And that's a good thing, since they provide viable alternatives to the Apple iPad, which has dominated the tablet market since its first release in early 2010. One of the major benefits of Android over the iPad, is that instead of a single hardware choice, you can access the OS on a number of tablets in different sizes with varied designs.

The only hitch there: There isn't a single version of Android. The latest iteration, Jelly Bean, adds so many valuable improvements that it's our Editors' Choice for mobile operating systems. It's the best Android yet, especially with the tweaks in the 4.2.2 update, and you can get it on Google's own Nexus tablets, but it's not yet widely available on other tablets. Android has notorious problems with timely OS updates.

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Belkin WeMo Light Switch

I think more that a few of us have plans of using our Android smartphones to control everything in our homes. You can already control things like your television, your thermostat, your car's door locks and now your lights and small electrical appliances thanks to Belkin's WeMo line of smart home automation equipment. It's easy to use, fairly easy to install, and won't cut too deep into your wallet.

Belkin WeMo light switch 

The idea is simple — install Belkin's smart switches or receptacles, connect them to your home Wifi network via the Android app, and go. Belkin doesn't give away their secret sauce, but from the looks of things you're connecting your switches to the cloud, and sending commands to it from your Android.

The commands come down to the always-connected switches in turn. They install like standard residential electrical products and while the Android app is still new and has a bug or two, they generally work really well. They can also connect to IFTTT, which opens up a huge library of online apps for folks who want to get really serious about automating their house.

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How to Buy a Desktop PC

Does your desktop PC take so long to start up you have time to go get a cup of coffee—and drink it? Tried installing the latest game only to find out your graphics card is six generations too old to play it? Or maybe you just want to take advantage of the speed and reliability of operating systems like Microsoft Windows 8 and Mac OS X Mountain Lion. If any of these are true, then it is time for you to buy a new desktop PC. And we can help you do it.

How to Buy a Desktop PC

Prices for new desktop PCs start as low as $200 and range all the way up to and over $5,000, but most of us would be more than happy with a $600- $750 box, including monitor. You still need to make some choices when it comes to CPUs, memory, hard drive capacity and graphics technology, but the good news is your money has never gone further. And a PC you buy today could very well last you for three to five years.

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