Purchasing new workstations for your home or business is easier than ever these days, but understanding exactly what will meet your needs is usually hidden in the more technical details. What are your day-to-day uses? Are you on the go? Working in varying environments? Need 24/7 availability?
To get through this process while ensuring you get the most performance per dollar, there are a few easy questions you can answer.
The reason for answering these questions is that mobile devices come at a cost premium while at the same time offering less performance per dollar. At the same time, all-in-one systems are usually limited in terms of performance and expandability. To give an example, the following are the current price and performance points for Dell workstations.
Low-End
| All-in-One | Desktop | Laptop | |
| Name | OptiPlex 3030 | Precision 3620 | Precision 15 3510 |
| Price | $789 | $775 | $949 |
| Processor | Intel i3-4160 2 Cores at 3.6GHz + HT | Intel I5-6500 4 Cores at 3.2GHz | Intel I5-6550HQ 4 cores at 2.3GHz |
| Memory | 1x 4GB 1600MHz DDR3 | 1x 8GB 2400MHz DDR4 | 2x 4GB 2133MHz DDR4 |
| Storage | 500GB HDD 7200RPM | 500GB HDD 7200RPM | 500GB HDD 7200 RPM |
On the low end a laptop is by far the most expensive, but has the slowest processor. As for memory, the laptop does beat out the All-in-One for performance, although it’s still slower than the desktop.
High-End
| All-in-One | Desktop | Laptop | |
| Name | OptiPlex 7450 | Precision 3620 | Precision 15 3520 |
| Price | $1,269 | $1,412 | $1,362 |
| Processor | Intel i5-7500 4 Cores at 3.4GHz | Intel i7-7700 4 Cores at 3.5GHz + HT | Intel I7-7820HQ 4 cores at 2.9GHz + HT |
| Memory | 1x 8GB 2400MHz DDR4 | 2x 8GB 2400MHz DDR4 | 1x 8GB 2400MHz DDR4 |
| Storage | M.2 256GB SSD | M.2 256GB SSD & 500GB HDD 7200 RPM | 500GB HDD 7200 RPM |
On the high end, while the All-in-One is the cheapest option, its performance suffers with only an Intel I5 and only eight GB of memory. The laptop and desktop are close in price, but the desktop processor is about 17 percent faster, has twice as much memory, and has a solid state drive (SSD) which greatly improves loading times.
There are many factors and considerations to make before purchasing workstations for your business. Whether you need mobile workstations or high performance helps determine these decisions. Make the right decision for your business model, performance needs and budget constraints.