PC opinions

[reverendgrim]

I'm looking at PCs for my uncle who wants to enter the digital age. Not being a PC user, I'm not up on the preferred makes. What's the general opinion on Dell? He's not looking for anything too high specced and doesn't want to spend too much cash on it.

Comments

[xencat]

My eMachines box has run nicely for a few years now, trouble free (touch wood).

Dell desktops apart from the small form factor ones I have had a mercifully good experience with. V.little hassle.

The only thing I'd recommend is the usual plenty of RAM (512Mb min, fine for web and office) and as good a monitor as you can afford.

Long term, I'm surviving on processing power, just on RAM (only a problem when running programming stuff or playing with video). The biggest impact for me is having a 15" screen.

Looking on the Dell site there are some incredible bargains under 500gbp. These things are several times as powerful as my computer.

Oh and get a copy of F-Secure to go with it. I'd say that bit isn't optional any more. :)

Alternatively a mac mini. ;)

[reverendgrim]

Mac Mini would be great however, my aunt and uncle live near my parents. My dad has used Windows for a while so I'd rather my uncle be able to talk to my dad for support than me. Also, I'm not sure he has the budge for a Mac Mini.

Thanks for the advice though, supports what I'd already supposed.

[mrod]

Beware of the specifications!

If it says "Windows Vista Ready" it means that it will just about run Vista but won't run it very well. If the machine says "Windows Vista Premium Ready" then you know that the system has enough memory, processing power and, more importantly, a graphics card which doesn't share main memory. A great deal of the desktop graphics has been handed over to the graphics chip in Vista.

Dell machines are generally fine if you go for the corporate versions, however, the retail ones are generally very cheaply built with very cheap components.

I've just looked on the Dell site and the Dimension C521 with the Athlon 64 X4200+ processor (inc. 1GB RAM) looks OK. (Add an upgrade toe Windows XP Media Edition + option for Vista Premium "free" upgrade to the mix).

[reverendgrim]

I'm going to get him to wait until Windows Vista has been released. I seriously don't fancy going through an upgrade procedure.

[mrod]

Maybe you'd like to wait until the Autumn when Vista service pack 1 is released then?

DRM crippleware

[fascicle]

I think I might skip Vista (cf scare stories over crippleware display of
"non-approved" media source data).

Acer now make machines for Dell, and their ad on p41 (Business Pages)
of today's Times blurbs "With its ultra compact form, the Acer Veriton
1000 occupies less than ten times the space of modern tower PCs". The
spec is similar to a modern tower's, and the graphic shows the V1000 as
about a tenth the volume of a tower. Oops.