Can we as the consumer identify improvements in personal computers?

Being that personal computers are cheaper now then they was five years ago, what effects does including them in the CPI market basket have on the inflation rate?

Can we as the consumer identify improvements in personal computers?best antivirus software

These are two different questions.

Consumers can identify improvements in PCs or other products. Products are always being marketed to consumers as new and improved, even when the improvement is slight. The mid-market product of today is significantly better than the mid-market product of 5 years ago, and this is especially true of computers, whose memory and storage capacity keeps growing exponentially, even as the costs to make them fall, as do their prices.

If they are in the CPI and their price goes down, it pulls the CPI down. But they are only one of many things in the CPI, so it is more accurate to say that falling prices for PCs offset some of the increase in prices for other goods in the CPI market basket.