Buying a PC for dunces

[thegreatsoprendo]

I'm looking to buy a basic-ish PC for home use, and since the last time I bought a PC it was a 286 (I think) before I went to university, my knowledge is a little rusty!

I’m after a decent, reliable, inexpensive desktop system for surfing the net, word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, burning CD’s and doing some simple fiddling about with digital pics. I also want a flat screen monitor – 17” would be nice, but 15” will do!

So, with all that in mind, what do people think of this from Dell?

http://tinyurl.com/55f7s

[RobDickinson]

For what you want a dell would be ok, but I;d want a minimum of 512mb mem, prolly 1gig.


For internet, word processing, burning cd's etc any PC will do (so long as it has a cd burner lol).

For messing around with pics you want a fair bit of memory - and if your going to do a lot of heavy photoshop processing a decent cpu always helps.


Edit - I'd spend more money on the monitor and memory, especialy for what your after.

EDIT2 : Fek, Dells memory upgrades are a total ripoff, get your extra memory elswhere....

>> Edited by RobDickinson on Tuesday 5th October 15:35

[alexkp]

The DimensionTM 4700 is pretty good for the money. Has 512DDR Ram, 160GB HDD, 15"TFT (a 17" is mucb better - pay for the upgrade) 128Mb Graphics card is ok....Reasonable machine for a reasonable price.

The 3000 is rubbish. Forget it.


The best way to buy is go to a local independent computer shop that has been established for a couple of years and have them build you one to order. Cheaper, and you get a machine that is geared toward what you want to do.

Hope that helps.

[.Mark]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Agreed, all my computer stuff comes from www.novatech.co.uk I've always found them reasonably priced and very helpful.

[Mutt K]

Dell are great when things go right delivery wise, but when they go wrong, they do not want to know. I have had about 8 computers off them for home and business use, but I will never buy from them again

[RobDickinson]

For dell have a look round here :

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/default.aspx?c=uk&l=en&s=dfh

Personaly I'd build one myself , but your not tech savvy and prolly could do with a warrenty.

[sadako]

If you want a hald decent PC you could do worse than going to Novatech for one of their bundles, then find your local compsci student and get them to earn their weed money when you need it fixed

[jimmyc412t2]

sadako said:

If you want a hald decent PC you could do worse than going to Novatech for one of their bundles, then find your local compsci student and get them to earn their weed money when you need it fixed

so very true

[RobDickinson]

Even a local computer shop wont charge more than £50 or so to screw it together / install, thats if they'll do it.

[bga]

I picked up a recon apple emac from a company called Cancom the other day. My computer illiterate wife and mum both took to it straight away. Does everything you need at a shade over 500 notes with a bit of extra memory thrown in. Looks pretty good too

[annodomini2]

lots of deals going about, last i checked i could sell a decent machine to do what you're asking for about 350-400, getting v cheap.

[thegreatsoprendo]

Cheers for all the replies so far, very helpful indeed!

What do you guys reckon to this from carrera (www.carrera.co.uk). It has won a load of awards including PC Plus Editors Choice in Sept 2004:

AMD Athlon 64 3000 HT Processor
Carrera G Case (Black)
Foxconn K8S760MG-6LRS Athlon 64 Motherboard
17inch TFT Carrera monitor
512MB DDR (400Mhz) memory
80GB 7200prm HDD
Sony Combo DVD/CD-RW Drive & 1.44 FDD
ATI Radeon 9550 256MB Graphics
5.1 Sound System
2.1 subwoofer speakers
Broadband Ready via 10/100 Lan
Carrera Keyboard
Carrera Mouse
Microsoft Windows XP Home
Microsoft Works 7.0
5 year warranty (3 Year On-Site, 2 years RTB)

£680 inclusive of VAT. Plus they do interest free credit which is handy for me at the moment!

Sounds like good value to me?

A couple of questions:

I can upgrade the processor to the 3200 version for £31. Worth it?

Any idea whether the monitor will be OK? I can specify a Sharp LL171A, but it's an extra £33....


For those who are interested, you can see the specs and options here:

www.carrerassc.co.uk/carrera_sysconf2.asp?systemvar=u


>> Edited by thegreatsoprendo on Wednesday 6th October 13:56

[cirks]

looks ok for the money but does't have a particuarly large drive which you will need if you start fiddling with digital videos etc. Also no DVD writer (has CD-RW but DVD player). The HDD is also not a SATA one.

[RobDickinson]

CPU upgrade wont be worth it, you wont notice the difference.

Monitor upgrade - no idea.

As for spec - how much digitalk photography will you be soing - a little messing around with 3-5mp jpegs or serious work on 6pm raw images with multiple layers?

If the latter then a bigger drive and dvd driter and more memory will be needed (can get 8mp photoshop pics over 300meg each easy). If not that'll be fine.

CAn always add more memory, dvd writer or whaterver later if needed anyhow.

[thegreatsoprendo]

Thanks folks! I won't be doing much in the way of digital imaging, so it should be OK for my purposes, and like you say, I can always add extra memory/drives at a later date.

cirks said:

The HDD is also not a SATA one.

That's a bad thing?

[RobDickinson]

thegreatsoprendo said:

cirks said: The HDD is also not a SATA one. That's a bad thing?

not particulaly.

SATA is a new interface for hard drives, over the old IDE one. Cable is neater, but they both perform at prety much the same speed for now.

I would have thought it'd be SATA with that machine tho - mebee ring them and clarify, wouldnt put me off if it was IDE tho, and carrera are ok from what I hear.

EDIT : That motherboard will almost certianly have SATA interface on, just not used, so you can always add a SATA drive later.

>> Edited by RobDickinson on Thursday 7th October 10:51