my needs are as follows. emailing, web searching, online chatting with camera, some gaming. My buget is from $350 to $700. Not clear on operating systems ram and all that. any good suggestions? thanks

Buy dell, i3 processor, notebook, with 4GB ram, 500gig hd, 17inch, and run linux. With good built in Cam.

when it comes to wi fi. why pay for it twice.
use your cell as a hotspot. and have unlimited on it.

You can watch netflix no problem

Just check a number of PCs to learn what they have these days to get an idea of requirements.
Also, over here the Aldi regularly sells PCs brand Medion. These are really good. And also give an idea of what's in a good pc at the mo.

- RAM: I've got 8GB RAM. Someone saying 4GB... not nearly enough in this day and age. Slow PC. I suspect even 8Gb RAM is low these days.
I don't have a (serious) gaming PC, if you are into heavy gaming you likely need more. Check out a few gamer's PC online to see what these got. You probably need 16Gb for newer heavier game play.

- GRAPHICS: Also, a good graph's card is important.

- Operating system: Do NOT go for Linux unless you're really good with PCs. I had one laptop with Linux, someone went wrong with it and then your bleeped. Windows is much easier, also when something is wrong, unless you're a computer geek.
Since you don't know what PC to get I suspect you're not one. Get Windows.

- HD: Think about how much disk space you want. Do you save photos? Movies? Images? Music? That all does add up quite fast!
My current PC only has 500Gb HD, which is remarkably low. I used to have 1TB.
I have a 2 TB external HD as the built-in one is not enough.
I think these days 2Tb is pretty standard.

- COOLING: think about cooling fans, esp if you live in an area that gets stinking hot. Do you require a separate cooling fan on the graphs card or not etc etc.

Again, find a few gaming PCs online and see what they got inside to have an idea. Gaming PCs are usually more than the average person requires, but it does give an idea.

The life of average PC is about 2 to 4 years. Especially with no computer experience.

Tech Support Alert (Gizmo's Freeware) https://www.techsupportalert.com/ offers tips, tricks and freeware program reviews for a variety of platforms. There is a comment section where you can read people's personal recommendations and reviews as well. If you're new to PC, it can help lessen the confusion.

I've had a personal computer in my home since about 1995. I bought my current one at Best Buy in 2012. Its getting pretty old but still works with regular maintenance. I am thinking about getting a new one so this thread is also pertinent to me.

Processor and RAM are what control the fastness of the computer. If you run programs or have peripherals which have great demand, you want to spend more money on better (higher) components.
You should have a fairly high power supply as well, especially if you run lots of USB and specialty cards (sound and graphics cards).

Graphics and sound come in two flavors.
Motherboard embedded and add-on.
Add-on cards usually give better performance and offer more features.
Some sound cards offer 5.1 or 7.1 surround with enhancements and most graphics cards offer HDMI and DVI as opposed to VGA.
Most better televisions offer HDMI which allows you to use an HDMI connection to the TV as a video and sound connection.
This allows you to use your TV as a monitor which in turn allows you to spend that monitor money on pc components.

I currently have 10GB of RAM in this PC with one more RAM slot available.
I have a 2TB WD internal hard drive and 12TB of external hard drives. I also have 4 TB of assorted USB thumb drives.
I have a Logitech camera w/mic, A dedicated 2GB ready-boost thumb drive and a Logitech mouse and keyboard.
I have a wireless HP printer/fax/copier
I have AT&T unlimited broadband internet

Using CPU-Z program, my system is as follows:
Processor:
AMD FX-6100 Six-Core Processor
Package:
Socket AM3+ (942)
Core Speed:
2992.32 MHz

Motherboard:
Gigabyte 2AC8
Chipset:
AMD RD9x0 rev 0.2

BIOS: (Basic Input/Output System)
AMI Ang-713 12/29/2011

Memory: (RAM)
Type:
DDR3 Dual Channel 1994.9 MHz

Graphics:
AMD Radeon HD 7400 Series
100 MHz core @ 1024 MBytes

I'm running Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit SP1
Fully up to date.
(Windows 7 is no longer supported by Microsoft)

This PC was an out of the box model.
My next PC will be home built.

With the out of box PC you get a lot of programs you won't use.
The first thing I do is uninstall all the junk they preinstall.

You will need a good quality Antivirus program. (Consult Gizmo on what to look for)
You will need a good quality Ad-Blocking program
A good quality anti-spyware program.
A good quality cache/registry cleaner
A good quality disc defragmenter.

If you will be doing some light gaming a mid-grade PC will work if you use the game settings to turn down some of the graphics.
If you are a heavy gamer - you will get best graphics from a gaming system.

The biggest hardware problem with PC is dust/heat. If you have pets, it can also get clogged with pet hair. Heat destroys electronics. If you hear the fans running constantly, use some canned air to blow it out. Especially around the processor and graphics card heat sinks and the power unit.

For software related performance issues the most common is fragmentation.
Defragment regularly and clean the cache.

Spyware, trojans and viruses can also mess up your PC.
Keep that software up to date and run the scans regularly.
Also, don't click on stuff online randomly.
You are not going to win anything for free by clicking.

Most mounted antivirus software is a free trial.
I uninstall it and opt for a fully functional program of my choice.

If this is your FIRST PC, you might want to look into renting one to see what is involved. Those rental stores used to have PCs you could rent (I dunno anymore because I stopped renting stuff).

Using a properly protected, properly configure PC with the right browser and video player you can watch or listen to anything you want when you want it.
I haven't paid for TV services for 15 years. No cable bill, no satellite bill, no rental fees. Just one single broadband service bill per month.
I can read any book I want (or listen to it), I can upload my photo collection to the cloud and share with anyone. I can make my own music, my own videos and my own art.
I play games with my mouse and keyboard and I actually prefer it that way.

If you go out of box, plan on spending closer to your $700 limit but remember you can use your current TV and stereo for monitor and sound.

Best Buy
Fry's Electronics
Tiger Direct

Tiger Direct:
https://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/category/category_slc.asp?Lprice=500&Hprice=999.99&Nav=|c:2627|&Sort=3&Recs=10

Example:

HP EliteDesk 800 G4 SFF Desktop PC - 8th Gen Intel Core i7-8700 3.2GHz, 16GB DDR4, 512GB SSD (Solid-State Drive), USB-C, GigE, Win 10 Pro 64-bit, Grade A Refurbished, 1yr Warranty, vPro - RB-724962756576
Item#: 42133584 | Model#: RB-724962756576

List Price:
$1,499.99
Instant Savings:
- $800.00 (53%)
Price:
$699.99
$9.99 Shipping

Fry's Electronics
https://www.frys.com/template/pccomponents
Build you own PC with Barebones & Components (This is what I will be doing next time)

Best Buy
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/desktop-computers/all-desktops/pcmcat143400050013.c?id=pcmcat143400050013

Mine last me 10+ years
I don't need a new PC every couple of years, nor do I have the money for that.
I had a laptop which I thought would be handy. it turned out to not be handy at all and I set it up like one would a normal PC, with normal mouse & keyboard plugged in as well :)
I even build and maintained my webshop on and with it and for that had to do a lot of heavier proggies for the photos for the webshop.
I watched movies on it and so on.
It's normal for me to have at least some 5 pages open at once and often proggies on the PC, at the same time too.
I used it for some 12 yrs!!
It still works, although the lights of the screen have gotten real bad. I've used it for an addition 6-7 yrs with my drum kit to play music :)

The PC I bought after that also lasted me forever, 10+ yrs. Okay, I did have some parts replaced. But that's easily sorted with a PC.

I'm calling all those things dinosaurs these days. My last desktop tower died years ago, I have 3 working old school laptops.

What I have a few of and use are little credit card sized ARM machines like the Raspberry Pi. https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/raspberry-pi-4-model-b/ Base price is $35. They're designed around phone CPUs so they run on a watt or two. Most things connect by USB, I have a USB printer, sound card, DVD drive, cameras. You'll need a monitor or two, mouse, keyboard, but most people have some around anyway. The Pi was designed to be an affordable first computer for kids, by a nonprofit in the UK.

You can't upgrade the RAM because it's built in so start with the max you can afford.

Storage by default is SD cards which is OK except they only last a couple years. I have a few USB-connected hard drives (laptop drives in a tiny box really) which has advantages: it only runs when you're storing or retrieving something and you can plug it into anything with a USB plug and transfer files. I have a couple solid state drives which have a mean time before failure of 180 years I've set up the same way.

I surf the web, write programs, watch videos, write documents, edit photographs. The OS is mostly versions of Linux but some can run Android and other things. And guess what, change the SD card and you can change the OS, switch back and forth. If the storage is a USB hard drive or SSD you can still access it. The SD card mostly just holds the OS. And there are Linux desktops and programs that look and work very much like Windows ones because it's more flexible that way. Under the hood it's different but most people don't go there.

gigabyte motherboard
if you going to custom build it
Windows 10 home or Pro

just wondering....

why don't newer model laptops get any faster than the old ones?
quad cores, fast ram and seems like dial-up even with fast internet

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ODROID

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ODROID