Is this refurb desktop PC suitable?

[Dinoboy]

Have managed for a number of years using my iPad and smartphone but looking to do desktop publishing using Adobe Indesign or similar(recommendations anyone?).

Are these refurbed desktops any good for this sort of thing?

Any other recommendations?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/enabled-Complete-Dell-Opt...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/OPTIPLEX-DESKTOP-MONITOR-...

[The_Jackal]

Well I was installing those PCs in hospitals nearly 15 years ago, so I'd say no.
For 75 quid you may as well do it on your tablet.
How important is this desktop publishing? InDesign is an industry standard. If it is for work, get a proper PC, spend at least £400

[sgrimshaw]

Well one of them doesn't meet the minimum system requirements for InDesign, the other only just meets them.

Affinity Publisher, replacement for Serif Pageplus, is not quite so demanding but 4gb RAM is the bare minimum just to run Win10.

i'd look to spend a bit more.

Affinity Publisher would be my choice over Adobe InDesign, if nothing else it's a one time cost of £48.99 and not a monthly subscription.

[Dinoboy]

Thankyou very much for your responses, very much appreciated as I know nothing about computers.
Would something like this brand new with 8gb be more suitable?
https://www.argos.co.uk/product/8957083

[sgrimshaw]

If you want to go the InDesign route, they recommend 16GB RAM!



Affinity Publisher is not so demanding:



All-in-one PCs can seem attractive, but their main drawback is that they are rarely upgradeable. You can normally get more for your money by buying a base unit and adding a monitor.

Just as an example, you could get this:

https://www.palicomp.co.uk/genius-amd-350-gen1

and add a keyboard, mouse and monitor all for around the same price as that Acer All-In-One and you end up with a much more powerful PC which more importantly perhaps is upgradeable.

For example increasing the RAM to 16GB would only add £50 or so, especially if you did it when you buy it.

If you were to stretch to £500, you could add an SSD boot drive which will make a huge difference to the general performance of the PC.

[mmm-five]

InDesign files can become very large, very quickly when you're working with hi-res images.

I'd recommend:

• a recent mid-range quad-core processor - Intel i3/i5 (or AMD equivalent where you'll get more for your money)
• 8-16gb RAM
• 2-3 USB 3 ports to connect all your external disks/devices
• 256GB SSD for the OS/apps/scratch disk (i.e. big enough SSD to have the OS, design apps and temporary files)
• 2-4tb HDD for storage (and similar external one for your backups - and even a 3rd to rotate your backups)
• 21" full-HD screen is fine to start, but you'll soon want something bigger & higher resolution to save you having to zoom in & out so much
• discrete graphics card (i.e. one that doesn't share computer memory and built into the processor) - but this is mainly to speed up screen redraws when you start rendering your embedded graphics at full resolution

Some of that spec will not be immediately necessary, but if you start off with a lower spec, make sure you have a simple upgrade path for when you do need to or can afford to upgrade. Speak of that, I'd avoid an all-in-one solution unless you're space-limited, and even then I'd go for a small desktop with a separate screen so that you can upgrade the components individually as need arises/funds allow.

Don't forget that your subscription to Adobe InDesign is about £20/month, plus whatever the costs of your stock photo/art/fonts are, and another £20/month each if you decide you need Photoshop/Illustrator/XD/etc.

[Harpoon]

£300 inc VAT would get you a HP Core i5 refurb from Gigarefurb:

https://www.gigarefurb.co.uk/hp-prodesk-400-g3-int...

£300 includes adding a 256GB SSD and 8GB (total RAM).

[Dinoboy]

Wow, so glad I asked on here. Thanks very much for such comprehensive replies, saved me wasting money on something not up to the job. Also apreciate the advice re the software.
I'll take my time doing a bit of research over the next few days using the guidance here.

[Brother D]

I run a Z800 at home similar spec to this:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HP-Z800-2x-Xeon-X5675-3...
Although this one has a high end grahics card (and mine only has a paltry 128Gb of RAM).
Anyway point is these boxes are easily upgradeable vs the small desktops if you have the space, and honestly this box is a bit of steal.