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It's big, and it's clever, but ...

OK, you've just seen a really clever gadget. Is it worth buying, though? Guest columnist Guy Clapperton looks at cut-down PCs, and wonders ...

One of the difficulties with trawling around the IT industry for the last 13 years or so is that one tends to go more than a little native after a while. Coo, I think, is that widget really capable of going that quickly? I must surely tell the readers about this. And is that PDA really only the size of my thumbnail, with a working keyboard that's even smaller? If so, I must not only tell the readers, I must definitely go and buy one for myself. No matter how much it costs.

OK, we'll leave the 'cost' issue to one side for the moment and assume that most jaded hacks will have learned the difference between 'can' and 'can't' when it comes to affordability. But there's a lot of unnecessary stuff out there being sold as essential merchandise and even more bafflingly, there are a lot of people - including businesses - buying it. And if there's going to be a recession - oh all right, since there appears to be a recession already - then this matters.

Take some of the purpose-built small business equipment currently on offer from some of the bigger manufacturers - for example, HP, which is offering the e-pc. This is a small system based on laptop technology; it is about the same size as a couple of dictionaries and the price starts at just under £500 including VAT, for which you get a 950MHz chip, 128 megs of RAM, 20 gigs on the drive, a CD-ROM drive, instant connection to a network and Windows 98. All of which is very good business at first glance, and indeed I'm using one to write this piece so presumably it works. In fact it all works very well indeed until you look at the changes that have happened in the PC business over the last five years and think about the need to upgrade at some stage. Yes 20 gigs sounds like stacks at the moment; five years ago I bought a PC with two gigs and didn't think I'd ever need more.

And the thing about these e-pcs and similar offerings is that they are very difficult indeed to upgrade since they are basically sealed units. You want a bigger disk? Fine, you can clip it in. You want to change the chip? It can be done, but not easily. You want faster graphics? Sorry, can't be done - this is a business computer rather than a gaming system. Which is fine until the need for graphics, sound or other elements in business start growing.

Likewise laptops themselves and most PDAs; sure, they're neat and nifty, yes they make it easy to work on the move but no, in spite of the odd expansion slot they're honestly not all that easy to build on. Easier than they were a few years ago I'll grant you, but the current expansion jacket or slot/card combination will have its limits, and if PDA applications grow memory-hungry in the same way that their counterparts on the desktop have done, you'll need more space and RAM than you had imagined ossible in a very short time.

So how long can businesses afford to keep swapping out entire units rather than spending a little on upgrades? During a recession the answer will be 'not long unless we can cut back elsewhere', and of course this will mean axing people. Granted, this is a business issue and may have to happen regardless, but does anyone remember that we were supposed to be supporting all sorts of European directives and indeed our own home-grown variety as regards green computing and recycling? You might want to give some thought to what happens to the old devices if you have to swap out an entirely new computer every couple of years; phrases like 'landfill' loom all too easily.

Personally I'm inclined to move back to the three-year-old machine that was until recently gathering dust (OK, 'being used by my wife') instead of sticking with the undoubtedly space-friendly and lower-noise offerings. It may only have 10 gigs, but I can put more in, and the chip slot can take a PIII - plus since I work from home I can put extra graphics cards, sound cards and whathaveyous in it for 'fun' use as well as for business purposes. And nothing gets thrown away. And I have an effectively 'new' computer whenever I upgrade.

By all means let's look at the best computers to buy, and of course let's look at making them as compact and quiet as possible. All of the major manufacturers are trying to serve that need. But let's also look at the longer term issues before putting hands in pockets; are you really saving money now, or are you simply saving the hit for later?