Gear I Actually Recommend
Honest picks, no upsells. I recommend what causes the fewest headaches — not what makes me the most money. Half of good tech advice is talking you out of spending.
A MacBook Air, a Samsung 4K monitor, a UniFi Dream Router for WiFi, a Brother laser printer, and please cancel your paid antivirus. That covers most people.
Laptop
For about 90% of folks — email, web, photos, Netflix, taxes — the base MacBook Air is simply the right answer, and everything fancier is money you don't need to spend. Silent, no fan, all-day battery, and far fewer virus and slowdown headaches than a cheap Windows laptop. Skip the “Pro” unless you're editing video or running heavy software. Buy the Air, keep it six-plus years, be happy.
Phone
Full disclosure: I'm an Apple guy, so my daily driver is an iPhone and that's what I'll set up fastest. But I'm not going to pretend Android is bad, because it isn't. If you like Android, the Samsung Galaxy S series is genuinely great, and the Galaxy A budget series is a lot of phone for a little money. Either camp is fine — pick the one your family already uses. Sharing a system with the people you call for help matters more than the brand.
Monitor
A good 4K Samsung is the sweet spot for most desks. The real benefit isn't bragging rights, it's readability: on a sharp 4K screen you can size the text up nice and big and it stays crisp instead of going blurry. Easy on the eyes, dependable panel, sensible price. You do not need a curved gaming monster for email and QuickBooks. Two tips: make sure your computer can actually drive 4K, and have the display scaling set right so everything isn't tiny out of the box.
WiFi / Router
The best home WiFi I know of — real coverage, modern WiFi 7, and actual controls instead of the locked-down box your internet company hands you. Honest caveat: it's a bit much to set up yourself, so it rewards having someone (hi) install and tune it. If you want dead-simple do-it-yourself instead, an Eero mesh is the easy button. But if you want it done right and done once, the Dream Router is what I run in my own house.
Printer
The whole internet agrees for a reason. A Brother laser printer runs for a decade, the toner is cheap, and you skip the inkjet nightmare of clogged heads and $70 ink. Boring, reliable, cheap to feed. Just buy the Brother.
Power protection
Hill Country power is dirty — little dips and blips are constant, and they quietly wear out electronics and scramble data. A roughly $70 battery-backup unit protects your computer and gives you a few minutes to shut down cleanly when the power flickers. Cheapest insurance in tech.
Backup
Two copies, two kinds: an external SSD you plug in, plus an automatic cloud backup like Backblaze humming away in the background. If your world is Apple, turn on iCloud too — it quietly keeps your photos and files safe across your iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and it's about as easy as it gets. Just remember iCloud is sync, not a true backup, so treat it as a great extra layer rather than your only net. Every drive eventually dies; the only question is whether your photos die with it. Don't wait until after.
Passwords
Stop reusing the same password, and stop keeping them on a sticky note. A password manager remembers strong, different passwords for every site, so you only have to remember one. 1Password is what I use; Bitwarden is a great free or low-cost option.
Antivirus
Cancel your paid antivirus — the McAfees and Nortons of the world. Modern Macs and Windows PCs have solid protection built in. What actually keeps you safe is good habits: don't click sketchy links, don't trust scary pop-ups, keep things updated. Paid antivirus mostly just slows your computer down and charges you for it.
PC cleaners
Skip the “speed up your PC” and “clean your registry” apps — CCleaner, MacKeeper, and every pop-up like them. At best they do nothing; at worst they slow you down or make a mess. A modern computer doesn't need them — if yours feels slow, ask a real person (hi).
Web browser
Firefox with the free uBlock Origin add-on is the gold standard — it blocks the ads and trackers that bog the web down, and it isn't owned by an ad company. Brave is the privacy-first pick; Edge is a fine runner-up if you use its built-in Copilot. Just don't run plain Chrome with no ad blocker.
AI assistant
For an AI that genuinely helps — writing, explaining, planning, thinking a problem through — Claude (by Anthropic) is the one I reach for. Free to try, worth paying for if you use it daily. Full transparency: a lot of my work, this site included, runs on it.
Media player
The free little orange traffic-cone app plays any video or audio file you throw at it — no codecs to hunt down, no “upgrade to Pro.” Install it once and never fight to open a file again.
Office apps
If you live in Outlook, Excel, and Word, Microsoft 365 is worth it — it's the real deal and I run it myself. If you just need basic docs, free Google Docs or LibreOffice cover it. Pay for it because you use it, not out of habit.
Linux (if you're curious)
Got an older PC that Windows has left behind? Linux Mint can give it years more life — free, light on tired hardware, and familiar enough that you won't feel lost. (For tinkerers: yes, I run Arch — but if you have to ask which distro, you want Mint. 😉)
That's the whole job. Call a neighbor, not a call center.