What 'puter ?

[Scoosh]

I need to update my current Mesh pc as Win ME just doesn't do it these days . Win 7 seems to be required.

I use the machine for general home stuff: t'interweb, email, Word, Excel, a bit of audio, photos, some video editing (only from a Muvi , tho'), maybe into gaming (not done any yet - but what can one do on ME ).

I have a keyboard, mouse and speakers which can be transferred and Mrs Scoosh would like a flat screen monitor. I hope to bring it all in for around 500 smackeroos.

Thus far I've read a few computer magazine website reports etc and have identified these possibilities:
COMPUTERS
Overclockers Primo Oren which, with Win 7, costs £430 and comes without monitor, keyboard, mouse

Novatech Realm at £360/410 which has no OS but has keyboard, mouse

MONITORS
BenQ G2220H at £130. Based on PC Pro website's A-list Reviews - but I note the suffix change from E to G. Wassa diffrance ?

I submit these options to the combined wisdom of CC's tekkies and ask for your help.

Any further ideas (especially if they save more ££ ) will be gratefully considered.

Thanks in advance folks, whom I hope were unable to get to work and are idling the time awayusing their time constructively on CC

 

[cisamcgu]

Overclockers Primo Oren which, with Win 7, costs £430 and comes without monitor, keyboard, mouse

- This has only inbuilt graphics - fine for "office" type use, but may fall short when playing more "modern" games.

 

[chris667]

If you just want a simple desktop PC and want to save money, why not buy secondhand? You'll get change from £100.

Something like a Pentium 4 running Windows XP would be fine, or you could embrace Linux and install Ubuntu to see if you like it.

Of course, if you want to play games, all bets are off. But chasing technology is really a fool's errand with computers. State of the art is quickly out of date, sometimes within weeks.

 

[PpPete]

What he said ^^^^^

They've become almost consumable/disposable now, so buying from a specialist is less important now IMHO

I've bought 2 computers from Tesco, one Sony laptop direct(online) the other instore (a Dell desktop). No problems so far. Don't expect any support though - but if something ain't right they give you your money back without argument.

Here is one option.

 

[swee'pea99]

+ another one. I've bought two excellent PCs recently off ebay - one for £46, t'other (this one) for £35. Look for decent RAM (1gb+ ideally, certainly no less than 500Mb) and a proper installed and licensed copy of XP, then send an email or three with queries to the seller, to see what kind of person you're dealing with. If they're ok, you can be reasonably sure the PC is. A 'run-in' computer is likely to be less trouble than a new one - all the computers that have caused me grief over the last few years have been brand new.

 

[accountantpete]

Aldi (don't snigger) have a deal on tomorrow

http://www.aldi.co.uk/uk/html/offers/2827_12578.htm

 

[Scoosh]

Aldi (don't snigger) have a deal on tomorrow

http://www.aldi.co.uk/uk/html/offers/2827_12578.htm

I'm not sniggering - I have looked at that one but was put off by some of the reports of customer support.

 

[nigelb]

Customer support for something like a pc is always going to be hard.

The Aldi certainly looks tempting, but I'd also buy a 500GB sata drive (I'm not convinced that the 1TB drives run cool enough yet to have a decent in use life), and in fact install Windows 2000 (which still meets my needs fine!).

You can get some really modestly priced flat screens, but do look for a fast one (2msec is great) and check out the resolution it wants to run at carefully, and make sure the pc's graphics card will do that specific resolution (flat screens are very picky about resolution, needs to be right, unlike crt's).

Nige

 

[woohoo]

The Aldi desktop I bought in 2003 was better built, used an industry-standard rather than proprietary mother-board, used branded components and had a beefier power supply than the Dell desktop (bought in same year). It's still going strong and I dumped the Dell when I needed a new machine.

 

[rh100]

If you want games, you need a dedicated graphics card, not onboard or shared memory graphics - although these are fine for office/web general 2d use. dedicated cards however can be pricey - i tend to use older one's for gaming as they are cheaper and still quite quick - I have two geforce 8800's.

If it's customer service and after sales support you need, then it's either a local shop you've been recommended, or maybe a large specialist such as Dell or HP. I quite like HP myself. Aldi and such like may not be up to decent after sales support, as PC's are commodities to them. Would you expect decent support on a bike you bought from them for example?

Have you thought of getting a laptop instead, prices are cheaper now, and you can use a seperate monitor, keyboard etc when at home.

I bought my monitor from a computer show off a trusted trader (there are some iffy ones at these places), a 21" widescreen HannsG for just over £100 last year. It was cheaper though because it only had an analogue input, the ones with DVI inputs cost a little more.

PS: Make sure you have at least 2GB ram for Windows XP - maybe 4GB for Win7?

 

[Coco]

I quite like HP myself.

You've got a PM Scoosh.

 

[goo_mason]

I don't know about the PC, but I got a great 21" flatscreen monitor from dabs.com two years ago for under £100. It was one of the "dabs value" ones.

Worth looking there or on savastore if you haven't already.

 

[accountantpete]

You could always build you own for that money - they are like putting a bike together without quite so much swearing!

 

[Deleted member 1258]

I got mine last summer from these people
http://www.dinopc.com/
brought this one here
http://www.dinopc.com/shop/pc/20-302-AMD-Dual-Core-PC-95p520.htm
I am running Ubuntu on it and its been very good.

 

[threebikesmcginty]

You could always build you own for that money - they are like putting a bike together without quite so much swearing!

Other way round for me - the first sight of a computer component and I start effing and blinding like a navvy!