It takes a lot of research to make a tech purchase with conviction. Sam Grobart reduced a lot of hard-earned and complex wisdom to seven rules of thumb in the New York Times. I was pretty impressed with this list because I think his advice is sound and he was able to reduce it to short rules of thumb. His seven rules are a trade off, as most tech advice is. When buying hi tech...

-- Pay for RAM, not speed. The speed of the computer chip does not matter; the attention-span or RAM memory does matter.
-- Pay for messaging, not minutes. On your phone, your texting is more expensive than your voice time.
-- Pay for components, not cables. Buy the best components, and the cheapest cables.
-- Pay for speed, not channels. For cable internet, with enough speed you can watch TV channels on the internet for free.
-- Pay for screen size, not refresh rate. On TV screens, bigger size makes a difference while refresh rate does not.

What tips do you have for tech shopping?

http://blogs.forbes.com/quentinhardy/2011/05/10/google-to-announce-chrome-laptops-20month/

Forbes announces that Google will announce a $20/month Chrome laptop offer today: "Having students try out the product — at a price cheaper than buying a laptop for school — amounts to a shakedown cruise for the eventual product. If successful, it also seeds the market for future demand, as students move into the workforce with expectations of working in cloud-based systems."
___________________________
I might try this out if I'm not tethered to keeping it and paying for it in full. Overall, it's not cheaper than a cheap Windows laptop/netbook. And why do business idiots always crap statements like this out: "Google Apps, an online product with features similar to Microsoft Office...." Excuse me, Google Apps doesn't even pretend to be on the same planet as MS Office; why do business media fools write it?