I initially thought that the price paid column in the review of devices under the HCL was a real cool feature. Now I think otherwise.

You see, prices of computer hardware are changing all the time, and they are coming down. So, the price paid by users to buy their device is of not much use to users who plan on buying the device now.

I understand it helps them see how much the prices have dropped in recent times, but it nowhere suggests to them what the current prices are. I believe that this is what the HCL needs now, a constant update of prices of devices.

This can be very tough to handle I understand but the mere price paid listing is of no use. I love to read how the device has or has not worked for people but what is the point of reading the price paid by them 4 months ago.

Please understand that I am not criticising the HCL, I am simply making an observation.

------------------My Second Point------------------

I feel that the HCL should be further categorised if possible. That is by the price. EXAMPLE: I wish to buy a graphics card. Now the only option I have under the HCL is to look through all/many categories, select the product from under there,
see the prices and user recommendations and then proceed any further.

According to me this task is very cumbersome. I feel that it would serve me much better if I could see all the graphics card under $50 or $100. It would suit me(a user) decide better and efficiently.

This is just a suggestion and I know how difficult this can be to incorporate but this is my view and so I am discussing it with you all.

Regards.

Hi LinuxLala - Are you familiar with Pricewatch ? It provides both up-to-the-minute prices on just about any PC component, as well as searches by price range, and I think it might give you everything you're looking for. It's a great resource, but I think that trying to replicate it within LQ and/or the HCL would require a tremendous level of effort, and I'm not sure how well this functionality would fit in with the main purpose of LQ.

To say it another way, as I see it, I've always considered the HCL to be a resource to check after the basic research has been completed regarding a possible equipment purchase. Where I think the HCL really shines is when you've already narrowed things down to list of final candidates (all of which you've already decided would fit both your functional needs as well as your budget) and then to use it to make that final decision as to which one would work best within your own Linux environment. At least, that's how I use it, and so far it's never steered me wrong. Naturally, this is just my opinion. -- J.W.

I agree with yo J.W. This was just my observation to help users if they still have to decide the budget or the company and stuff.

I agree that this is not the main purpose of LQ or HCL, it was merely a suggestion and like I explained I am not criticising the HCL. I love it nad have used it extensively for buying some stuff.

Thanks for the link.

Cheers.

The option of categorizing by price would definitely be a nice idea, and I see how that would not be accurate if the prices were not continually up-to-date. However, I think that the price paid has nothing to do with cost, regardless of the time in which it is purchased. A fine example is e-tail versus retail right now. I could easily pay 100 bucks more for a video card from bestbuy than if I went over to pricewatch and hunted down that same chipset marketed under a different name. So the price paid really shouldn't be a category to search by, as was mentioned. I'd instead think that simply a link to pricewatch, possibly something to do with the meta-keyword option, for the product would be a feature to request; then when you have narrowed it down to the cards you are interested in, you can find them in the HCL, and click the link to then compare prices. Good ideas though, it's great to see people are enjoying the resources LQ offers.

Cool

Well I was not aware of pricewatch. It really is cool

I think that linking to pricewatch using the meta words is also a good suggestion. The reason why I suggested searching by price is because at times one needs to. Like I am interested in buying a dvd-writer. But I don't wish to pay more than $200. So, it is an obvious choice to search by price rather than go through hundreds of entries and look for which suit my budget.

Like I said, I didn't know about pricewatch and so now the ability to search by price is good

I just thought that it would be good to see our HCL with that feature. But there is no point in reinventing the wheel. The best option would be to link to pricewatch as suggested by MasterC.

Cheers.

A small code update for the HCL is in the works. It least being able to sort by price would be a useful option. I'll see if it can be added. Thanks for the suggestion.

--jeremy

well although these are good points, in the end i dont' think it matters personally ... cause
for instance i am from canada, and so if i go and pay 115 dollars for a piece of hardware
then the next person who is american only pays 85 dollars because of conversion rate...
and i forget what place it is overseas, but there money is worth double of what americas
is .. so basically something that costs 85 american is like 40 dollars in the place i am
thinking of overseas, which i think their currency code is GBP or someting ...

so i guess my point is, that maybe in the "price paid" part of posting a new HCL entry,
there should be a drop down menu to select your currency type ... because like i said
the prices i see in the HCL are basically meaningless cause i know that 9.8 out of 10
of the posts in the HCL are not in canadian prices, and i have no idea what currency
they actually are ...

That's a good point Drozz. I believe that $US should be set as defualt for mentioning prices, so that even if you paid canadian$ you convert it to US$ and then submit.

And if someone pays in pounds, convert it to $ again. This would lead to simplicity. But I believe that this system is already in use and so all the price paid you see are in $US.

I would have to second that we use only one currency - US dollars would be good, especially since this site is based in the US. It may even be useful to have a conversion rate (with a note to say that this is a very broad conversion rate and may not reflect the current rate).

I just bought a load of dollars at $1.78 to £1 - so I'm happy

The price paid input box in the HCL says "Price paid (in USD $)" (with USD being a link to an online currency converter), so all entries should already be in US Dollars.

--jeremy

Thanks for further clarifying that jeremy. Like I said, I knew this system was at work

Cheers.

Oops - apologies, it's been a while since I've been to the HCL.

cd XavierP
./configure --with-memory-on
make
make install

Yeah, when building the HCL, we didn't know what kind of support to expect, so Jer and I haggled over everything. I wanted everything short of blood type in the entries and in retrospect it works better this way. Blame a lot of the sillier stuff one me The price index doesn't work that great but at first we didn't know what to expect, the idea being if one motherboard ended up with 30+ reviews as time went on the intial new price would be diluted to current by subsequent reviews, but the HCL is a little more 1 post per item then we initially expected. There's a lot of guesswork that goes into the dynamic and we did a lot of research into what was missing on other HCLs.

Right now the price point is a lot like those lesser used options to "ps", as time goes on I'm confident they'll get more relevant. Also there might be categories, sorts, etc... that are just glaringly missing, keep the suggestions rolling.

Cheers,

Finegan

to all on this post; lowly member me just shops till finding an affordable component then buy with according to HCL recommendation. which I find extremely useful with decision between market components. so far LQO &
LQO-HCL rules supreme! thanks for opportunity with input.
as an after thought if eu are producing complete linux system , why not us
in Us with all those discarded PC available for retrofitting new LQO Linux - systems. small cost + new components = more cash flow.