"Personal profile" of computer specs?

This question isn't specifically aimed at Linux, just a desire to gauge the general hardware opinion among hardcore techies.

I was shopping on newegg.com today and I had an idea. I wish we could have a "personal profile" of computer specs, which would make finding computers that match/similar to those specs easier. (I know at this point many of you will start screaming 'build your own pc!', but this question is aimed at techies don't want/don't have the time to build a PC, but still like shopping for the correct specs.)


For example, once upon a time I filled out a dating website and I answered all kinds of questions about what kind of partner I'd like. You could label some traits as "preferred' and other traits as "deal-breakers".
I wish there was a computer shopping website that did this for computers! I have specs I "prefer" in a computer and other specs that are "deal-breakers".


When shopping on any of these computer websites (newegg, tigerdirect, amazon, etc) I'm constantly having to readjust stuff, and some options I wish I could list as "preferred" instead of "deal-breaker". I wish I could include and exclude different specs better. I always eventually find something I like, but it takes days of wading thru crap because the search features aren't specific enough.


I think having a profile would solve these problems. The business could find out the types of specs the customers most want and sell this info to manufacturers etc. And the customers could find computers and look at ads they are most interested in. The computers don't have to match exactly to the personal profile specs. It's just a way to more easily find computers similar to what you want.

What do you guys think about this? Would this be a great idea for that "middle class" of people who do care about specs, but don't want to build their own?
This "middle class" covers a very large range, from the people who just barely know they want a certain amount of RAM, to the other end of the spectrum where they want to be much more specific.

This is not a support question, is it? It should be put into the discussion sections of the forum.

I think that you are coming at this from the wrong direction. For some years past laptops have been as powerful as desktop machines. Right now there are smartphones that match laptops and desktops as to computing power. The issue for anyone wishing to install a Linux distribution is not so much the capabilities of the hardware but compatibility with Linux. Checking if the hardware is Ubuntu certified will avoid issues.

http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/

Regards.

Moved to ​The Cafe

How often do you buy computers, and is it really often enough that the same set of specs would be relevant the next time?

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Originally Posted by lykwydchykyn

How often do you buy computers, and is it really often enough that the same set of specs would be relevant the next time?

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When the mother board dies...And i pretty much look for a similar machine. I go for middle or the road specs as I like just a good old average computer.

There's also the question of finding the right tool for the job. Lately we've had a desert consisting only of x86. IBM has recently invested another $1 billion in Linux but this time mostly on PowerPC. They earned their money back within a year last time. So this time we should also see big effects.

But on servers, I'd expect Sparc or PowerPC for LAMP stacks and such. Or even ARM for just a home file sharing machine. But unlike IBM, Oracle doesn't seem to know what it has so I figure we'll see even less Sparc.

On routers and network appliances probably MIPS or x86.

On mobile devices, ARM.

On destkop MIPS or PPC.