By Andy Valencia
Yes, everything is up-up-up, as in prices: your cafe drink, groceries, ferry fares. Let’s not even talk about gas. Will we actually reach $8 per gallon? And in technology …
- RAM prices up 3x, maybe 4x, or even more
- Disks, more than 2x
- SSD, more like 3x
And now the word is coming out that you’ll need to throw it all out and get an AI PC?!
There’s a famous line from the old 1983 movie “WarGames,” where the AI concludes “The only winning move is not to play.” The AI was thinking about global thermonuclear warfare, but what the tech industry is doing to your paycheck feels like a kind of warfare, too.
If the pain in the wallet isn’t enough to motivate you, consider literal mountains of e-waste generated each year. Before you say “e-waste recycling,” note that the state of the art is less than 20% of the materials can even possibly be recycled. Extending the service life of existing devices is – by far – the greenest option.
You need a PC, and you’d like it to be green and cheap. The best option these days is a blast from the past – one of those big tower PCs. You know, that big metal box on your desk, or perhaps the even bigger box that you put on the ground beside your desk. Isn’t it crazy that the big chunk of plastic and metal is the green option?
In the modern world, everybody’s fixated on buying wafer-thin devices which mostly break the $1,000 barrier. Because of modern tastes, desktop and tower PC’s have completely fallen out of favor, and can be had for a song. A Lenovo IdeaCentre often sells for less than $100, with free delivery. That’s a full PC with disk and RAM, ready to get to work once you plug in mouse, keyboard, and monitor. I suggest installing Linux on it, of course – please check out my June 2026 article.
But a low price tag is just the start. When that exquisitely thin engineering miracle breaks in any way, you throw it out. Or, often, you send it to the manufacturer so they can “fix” it. Which, mostly, means they send you a new one. What do they do with the old, broken one? The reality of e-waste will give you the likely answer.
On the other hand, if you spill coffee on the keyboard of your tower PC, you unplug it from the USB port, and plug in a replacement keyboard. You probably don’t even have to reboot! If the monitor goes, you can replace just that part. Same for the mouse, the RAM, the disk, even the motherboard. All the parts are designed to be removed and replaced when needed.
You probably already have the USB keyboard and mouse; just look in your hall closet. You might also have the monitor, though you need to make sure it has the type of connection needed by your PC. That’ll be either SVGA or HDMI, and many monitors offer both kinds of connections. Don’t forget to dig out the monitor’s video and power cables.
For sound, many HDMI monitors have speakers built right in. If not, you can buy powered external speakers for less than $50. The ones we bought 20 years ago are still going strong – we plug a phone into them to provide music in the kitchen.
For the internet connection, I suggest putting your PC near the cable modem and using an ethernet cable. WiFi is fine, and many desktop PCs have built-in WiFi. But ethernet is cheap, fast, and reliable. Again, you can probably find an ethernet cable in the dusty corner of a drawer or closet.
Checking today’s prices as I type this, here’s what I’d spend for a full PC from scratch:
- i5 refurb Lenovo ThinkCentre with 8GB RAM and 240GB disk, $90
- 19” refurb VGA monitor, $40
- VGA cable, $2.50
- New / open box Logitech PC sound system, $35
- USB keyboard and mouse package, $13
- Ethernet cable 6’, $5
- Backup USB drive, $30
What’s that $30 for a backup drive? That’s your safety net. No matter what you spend on your PC, eventually disaster will strike. On that dark day, your PC will fail you – hardware failure, some internet villain wipes it, or it’s plain old stolen. Making a backup, and keeping it up to date, will suddenly be the best $30 you ever spent. Keep it in a different room, or better yet, at a trusted friend’s house. If somebody breaks in and takes all your tech (or there’s a fire), you’ll be glad your backed up data is somewhere else.
Your total? $215.50. With tax, that’s $1,215.50. Just kidding, but it’ll add quite a bit. I can’t help you with that.
Next month, I’ll finish this series talking about laptops. You get far less for your dollar, and they’re much harder to repair when they break. Still, there are times when you need a travel-friendly option, and there are some interesting green and cost-effective alternatives to the usual expensive, throw-away options.
