DUBLIN, Calif. — Lori Jantulovich stands in the middle of Best Buy's computer section, flagging down a sales clerk. She's trying to buy a laptop for her nephew. "I have no clue," she says.

Jantulovich, 51, is surrounded by displays touting the merits of dozens of similar-looking PCs. "Superior performance with 3 GB of system memory," one says. "Powerful discrete graphics," another advertises. "Blazing fast performance with a next-generation Intel Core 2 Duo Processor." "On-the-go multi-tasking." "Limitless performance and response."

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"For the average person, this is a lot to dissect," she says.

Computer buying used to be relatively easy. Shoppers generally bought the PC with the fastest processor, or computer "brain," they could afford. That wasn't tough, since most were numbered. (A 486 was faster than a 386.)
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Now, "The story has changed," says tech analyst Richard Shim at researcher IDC. Processors aren't numbered like that, and other components, such as memory and graphics cards, have become far more important. "It's definitely hard now" for non-technologists to identify the desktop or laptop that best meets their needs, says Glenn Jystad, a senior manager at PC maker Gateway.

That's a big problem for the PC in