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Treacle Toes

Treacle Toes

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Hello all....need a bit of advice.
Am looking for a new computer, nothing too fancy....be able to use the net, watch dvds and listen to music etc..decent sound etc.

Anyone had dealings with Dell and their seemingly amazing offers?
Anyone had dealings with PC world and their fab offers?
Laptop or Desktop?

Cheers in anticipation of lots of great advice. :D
 
Buy a PC from PC World at your own risk and don't expect a lot of sympathy if you do.

Dell are usually ok for home users, though, with quite good after sales support. I don't like their machines, personally, but that's a techy thing.

Laptop or Desktop depends on what you're going to need and want to do with it, surely?
 
Iam said:
Buy a PC from PC World at your own risk and don't expect a lot of sympathy if you do.
Click to expand...

I hear ya! Will not go to PC world!

Dell are usually ok for home users, though, with quite good after sales support. I don't like their machines, personally, but that's a techy thing.

Laptop or Desktop depends on what you're going to need and want to do with it, surely?
Click to expand...

Well yes, obviously your right...........Laptop would take up less space and of course it's portable. Someone suggested that laptops are pretty much all their money, meaning it's easier to sup-up a cheaper pc... Whereas the laptop would be harder to improve, performance wise...makes sense?
 
Tell us your budget and we can look for some good deals for you. I wouldn't go for Dell or PC World if I were you. There are a number of places that I could recommend but it would be easier if you just said roughly what your budget was and then I could have a look around and makes some concrete suggestions.

If you want some quick examples have a look at the PC Pro magasine "A list" http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/alist/ under:
* Value PC
* Mid Range PC
* Value Notebook
* Mid Range Notebook
 
To be honest, Dell are quite hard to beat. Lots of techy types don't like them for various nebulous reasons but they are good - I have one of their laptops and recommend them to the rest of my family too. Having said that there are lots of small manufacturers that do similar deals - Evesham, Mesh etc

Whatever you do though, don't attempt to build your own - these days it really isn't worth it. Financially you won't save much and you may get untold hassles with all the bits not working.
 
If you buy off the shelf, you'll be paying around £60 for Windows XP so you should ask the supplier to reduce the price and leave it out if you don't need it (e.g. PC stolen or damaged but you've got a valid licence, or you run Linux).

Magneze said:
Whatever you do though, don't attempt to build your own
Click to expand...
I sort of agree. Although I've built loads, I've also bought some ready-made. If I've already got a significant amount of stuff I can use then I'll build. Although you may not save, by building your own you can also avoid crap motherboards and/or systems that are near impossible to upgrade.

I once put a PC together then a few weeks later looked on Ebuyer and found the exact choice of components is a ready-made Esys so I saved nothing and could have got the user a 1 year RTB warranty for the box :(. Also, SharkyExtreme do a "value" system each month for $1,000 (£550?). It is well worth reading as it helps you avoid being sold soon-to-be-obsolescent kit.
 
Rutita1 said:
Hello all....need a bit of advice.
Am looking for a new computer, nothing too fancy....be able to use the net, watch dvds and listen to music etc..decent sound etc.
Click to expand...

Why not get a Mac Mini...? Cheapish, decent little computer and v portable... Apparently you get a free hedgehog cub with each one bought before the New Year*. Much better than a PC, obviously...

* Offer may not apply in reality

:D
 
Dell are hard to beat in price and are rock solid. When you just want to use it and not playing around with it you can't go wrong with them. I had some clients where I set-up mini office stations a while ago ....

Once set-up, never needed my service since :( but at least they buy me a pint when I see them. Impossible to live on. Customer support, depends, call centre in India. Never heard about any hard-ware issues or crashing/freezing systems. Sad but true.
 
jæd said:
Why not get a Mac Mini...? Cheapish, decent little computer and v portable... Apparently you get a free hedgehog cub with each one bought before the New Year*. Much better than a PC, obviously...

* Offer may not apply in reality

:D
Click to expand...

or an ibook for around 600 i think, and they look sooooo good aswell as being so much more effecient and productive than any windows based machine.
 
Had no problems with Dells I've bought for relatives. So cheap it almost doesn't matter. (My mum's was £250!)

Considering buying a high-end one for myself, would be interested in hearing nebulous techy problems experienced.
 
Don't, dell only use p4s for the CPUs for a start. AMDare faster, cheaper and cooler, the new pentiums will be roughly equivalent, but the current generation is crap.

Then there's the issues with dells in general, they aren't designed for high end users in mind. If you want to buy a PC for gaming then there are much better places out there. If you want to buy a pc for graphics/sound editing then there are better places out there.

If you want to buy a PC to run word and explorer then buy a dell, high end is a no go.
 
Some examples then:

Mesh: Matrix 3000+ NY £499 (inc vat)
PCNextDay: Zoostorm 2-3301 Value PC Package
Watford/Aries: They have a lot of systems: here's an example
Dell: --- I would like to link to a system, but their website is completely fucked: the prices for systems are different depending on what page you look at. Basically its their Dimension 1100 and Dimension 3100 systems.

Personally I don't think Dell offer very good value at all - none of their systems for under £500 (inc vat) seem to offer a decent sized (ie 17") TFT for example, whereas with the Mesh special offer can even get a 19". Dell are also a pain to upgrade in the future as they have a habit of using their own special designs for stuff - for example their power supplies and/or motherboards etc.
 
Rutita1 said:
Thank you everyone for responding! :)
Somebody sent me this link for a package offered by Woolworths of all people... :eek:
Could you guys have a look and tell me what you think...
Click to expand...
It's not very good at all - it's got a slow processor and XP will crawl on just 256 mb RAM unless you're just sticking with basic word processing.

For a little bit more, this machine will piss all over the Woolies model, and be far more 'future proof'.

Mesh Matrix Inspire (03)

FREE Upgrade to 19" TFT
AMD Athlon™ 64 3200+ Processor
Genuine Windows® XP Home
ASUS A8N_VM PCI- X Mainboard
512MB DDR400 Memory
160GB Serial ATA Hard Drive
128MB GeForce 6100 Graphics
19" DVI Flat Panel TFT Display
Sony 16x Dual Layer DVD Writer
5.1 Channel Surround Sound Audio
Logitech Desktop KB & Optical Mouse
Classic Warranty-3Years parts & lab.

http://www.meshcomputers.com/
 
editor said:
It's not very good at all - it's got a slow processor and XP will crawl on just 256 mb RAM unless you're just sticking with basic word processing.

For a little bit more, this machine will piss all over the Woolies model, and be far more 'future proof'.

Mesh Matrix Inspire (03)

FREE Upgrade to 19" TFT
AMD Athlon™ 64 3200+ Processor
Genuine Windows® XP Home
ASUS A8N_VM PCI- X Mainboard
512MB DDR400 Memory
160GB Serial ATA Hard Drive
128MB GeForce 6100 Graphics
19" DVI Flat Panel TFT Display
Sony 16x Dual Layer DVD Writer
5.1 Channel Surround Sound Audio
Logitech Desktop KB & Optical Mouse
Classic Warranty-3Years parts & lab.

http://www.meshcomputers.com/
Click to expand...

Thanks ed...will check it out :D
 
I'd personally avoid Evesham. I bought a high spec machine from them a couple of years ago - it's meant to be all singing and all dancing, but struggles when I throw anything demanding at it... Their support isn't all it's cracked up to be either...

I chose them over Dell at the time, but I've just set a new Dell up for my dad and it worked a dream straight away...

Maybe it's the luck of the draw...

Expensive business though :(
 
If I was choosing a brand pc I'd go for a dell, they're fairly solid although can be difficult to upgrade but for what you want they should suffice, I've got a dell laptop, stood on it, dropped it on the floor twice etc and it's been fine.
 
Buds and Spawn said:
I chose them over Dell at the time, but I've just set a new Dell up for my dad and it worked a dream straight away...

Maybe it's the luck of the draw...

Expensive business though :(
Click to expand...

just out of curiosity...what system did your dad get?
 
Nobody has mentioned Compaq. My current two computers are both P4 Evo's and I have to say the build quality on them is superb. Both are 3 years old i simply have upgraded the memory and hard drives.

I don't do gaming of course but the P4 is more than adequate for my needs for the moment.
 
Batboy said:
Nobody has mentioned Compaq. My current two computers are both P4 Evo's and I have to say the build quality on them is superb. Both are 3 years old i simply have upgraded the memory and hard drives.

I don't do gaming of course but the P4 is more than adequate for my needs for the moment.
Click to expand...
HP should have gotten a mention you're right, better component choice than Dell at the moment as they do offer some A64 based builds.
 
Rutita1 said:
just out of curiosity...what system did your dad get?
Click to expand...

One of them Dell Dimensions - 9150 I think. Apart from the fact it worked straight away (I burned loads of CDs no problem - sounds a bit basic but the same gave me months of endless headaches on my Evesham). I was very impressed with how quiet it was (there's a fan mounted at the front - you can't see it in the pictures in their publicity).
 
Whilst laptops are nice the ones worth buying to have them cope for a while always seem to hover around the £700 mark. Desktops obviously are way more expansible aswel as being significantly cheaper.

Personally of those offered Id side with the Editors choice, the graphics is onboard and pretty weak really, but its a recent chipset so while performance wont be high it will support most graphics features. However, being as you haven't mentioned games that more than likely wont be a problem really.

Theres always a free 16X PCI Express port for expansion anyway. Plus Id imagine theres probably a spare RAM slot for another 512Mb if you ever find its getting sluggish for an relatively inexpensive upgrade.
 
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