View Full Version : PC help please...........what to go for!
Pete and I are thinking that it might be about time to get a new pc..........but to say we are totally clueless about them is an understatement.:help:
We don't want to spend a huge amount, and neither of us are into online gaming. We just want something user-friendly, but we haven't got a clue about the new operating systems, or even what most of the blurb actually means.
The two we are looking at are the Inspiron 531 and the Inspiron 530, as shown in the link. If any pc expert would give their opinion about these, and also tell us which they think is the better one, we would be very grateful.
http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/results.aspx/desktops?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&s=dhs&~ck=mn
Also, if they have a better recommendation, that would also be gratefully received. We don't want to spend more than £400.
Im the same as you re pc,s however aldi are doing a sale at the minute and of the guys at work was saying that the specs for the Medion they have up for sale at the moment is pretty good, £399 if memory serves.
northwind
28-07-07, 02:32 PM
Dell are solid for the money, usually, but also very easy to deal with, good information etc. Though their customer service isn't usually great. I'd get Windows XP to be honest, Vista looks nice but adds nothing and doesn't work right yet... Dell actually reintroduced XP on public demand :D Also, this might have changed but when I got mine the call centre staff had the power to haggle, which was hilarious-
"I want this"
"That'll be xxx amount"
"Really? That's good. I'll maybe have that, I need to check with other shops first"
"In that case, I can offer you it for this"
"Hmm"
"With a free upgrade to this!"
"HMM. OK, that's ace, if I call back in an hour can you guarantee me that deal"
"Yes, if you speak to me"
So, I phoned back and asked to speak to that person, the salesman I got said "What's she offered you", I told him, and he said "I can beat that by £25 if you buy it from me"!
So, I saved £100 off an already very good price, and got a free soundcard upgrade. Which they forgot to send me, so I then got the full cost of the soundcard refunded, which was about £20 more than what I paid for it from another shop. Competition in action :)
Try here:
http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/default.aspx?c=uk&cs=&l=en&s=dfo&~ck=betafrbsd&~ck=mn
This is their factory store, warranty refurbs, distance selling act returns etc. You can sometimes find some ridiculous deals here, not always but it's worth a look... I couldn't find one that quite fit when I got mine, but if I could have I would. Sometimes you can get a whole system for less than the OEM price of a couple of the components, I've known people to buy the recon Dells and break them for parts!
Dell are solid for the money, usually, but also very easy to deal with, good information etc. Though their customer service isn't usually great. I'd get Windows XP to be honest, Vista looks nice but adds nothing and doesn't work right yet... Dell actually reintroduced XP on public demand :D Also, this might have changed but when I got mine the call centre staff had the power to haggle, which was hilarious-
"I want this"
"That'll be xxx amount"
"Really? That's good. I'll maybe have that, I need to check with other shops first"
"In that case, I can offer you it for this"
"Hmm"
"With a free upgrade to this!"
"HMM. OK, that's ace, if I call back in an hour can you guarantee me that deal"
"Yes, if you speak to me"
So, I phoned back and asked to speak to that person, the salesman I got said "What's she offered you", I told him, and he said "I can beat that by £25 if you buy it from me"!
So, I saved £100 off an already very good price, and got a free soundcard upgrade. Which they forgot to send me, so I then got the full cost of the soundcard refunded, which was about £20 more than what I paid for it from another shop. Competition in action :)
Try here:
http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/default.aspx?c=uk&cs=&l=en&s=dfo&~ck=betafrbsd&~ck=mn
This is their factory store, warranty refurbs, distance selling act returns etc. You can sometimes find some ridiculous deals here, not always but it's worth a look... I couldn't find one that quite fit when I got mine, but if I could have I would. Sometimes you can get a whole system for less than the OEM price of a couple of the components, I've known people to buy the recon Dells and break them for parts!
What he said, actually Ive got a dell myself and tbh its been great, just a bit more than £400 thats all
Both our current pc, and the previous one have had Windows XP, and I have to admit, I've always been happy with it. All of the PC's we've looked at now though seem to have Vista.
Can anyone explain what the difference is between Intel Celeron®, Pentium dual-core, and Core™ 2 duo processors and AMD Sempron™, Athlon™ 64, and Athlon™ 64 X2 Dual-Core processors
The pc we are currently using is AMD Athlon, but I haven't got a clue if that's good or not:confused:
Can't help you with the processor differences, though if you're not planning on doing anything special with the PC, I doubt it matters.
We use Dell for our business PCs, and you can still buy XP machines from them. You have to select the 'small business' menu rather than 'Home' .
eg Dimension 9200 (http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/4x_dimen_9200?c=uk&cs=ukbsdt1&l=en&s=bsd) . Choose the customise with Windows XP button, and if you change the support level back down to minimum, you can get a pretty good spec for your price range: 2Gig Ram, 320Gig Hard drive , 22" monitor.
I must point out that I'm not recommending this for you, simply because I don't consider myself any sort of expert in home PCs. You might be missing out on something that a home PC user would take for granted. It looks OK to me though, and we've always had good experiences dealing with Dell at work.
northwind
28-07-07, 04:12 PM
Can anyone explain what the difference is between Intel Celeron®, Pentium dual-core, and Core™ 2 duo processors and AMD Sempron™, Athlon™ 64, and Athlon™ 64 X2 Dual-Core processors
I'm not very good at AMD, but... Celeron = cheap Intel, usually. Lots of the ones that are still out there are Pentium 4, Netburst chips, old and rubbish- they were pretty poor when they were new tbh. Pentium Dual Core is similiar, but with an extra processor core, but don't be tricked into thinking they're twice as good. Still, this PC has a Pentium D 2.8ghz chip, and it's alright. If you were overclocking a PC (tuning, basically) they go like stink, but most budget PCs won't allow that and it's a hassle. Pentium 4 and Pentium D are really only a viable option if they're seriously cheap these days.
Core 2 Duo has been pretty much the daddy since it was launched, which is why I don't know anything about current AMDs :) But they've just changed all the product codes, I lose track of what's new and exciting. A Core 2 E6300 or £6600 is a very good processor and quite cheap.
Question is, what are you actually going to use it for? Even the worst modern processors are still very powerful, but then, the COre 2s are excellent and not actually all that expensive (at high street prices, the top-end Pentium Ds are still more expensive than the bottom-end Core 2 Duo, even though they're slower).
Question is, what are you actually going to use it for? Even the worst modern processors are still very powerful, but then, the COre 2s are excellent and not actually all that expensive (at high street prices, the top-end Pentium Ds are still more expensive than the bottom-end Core 2 Duo, even though they're slower).
Pretty much what we use this one for........storing photo's and info, browsing the internet. We don't have a DVD drive at the moment, that would be a must. I have to admit, maybe just upgrading this one would be a better option. I've just looked at the specs, and apparently it has 80 gig hard drive, an AMD 2000+ processor, and an ASUS motherboard...............all of which means sod all to me:D How difficult would it be for total numpty's like us to upgrade?
kwak zzr
28-07-07, 04:49 PM
id go for xp if at all possible, makro are doing the medion bundle with 17tft and printer for £299 + vat but this one comes with vista home.
kwak zzr
28-07-07, 04:50 PM
try a high street pc shop who put there own together that way they could install either xp or vista the choice is yours.
northwind
28-07-07, 04:55 PM
Pretty much what we use this one for........storing photo's and info, browsing the internet. We don't have a DVD drive at the moment, that would be a must. I have to admit, maybe just upgrading this one would be a better option. I've just looked at the specs, and apparently it has 80 gig hard drive, an AMD 2000+ processor, and an ASUS motherboard...............all of which means sod all to me:D How difficult would it be for total numpty's like us to upgrade?
Pretty easy... That's not really enough info to ID the processor, there's an assortment of 2000+ AMDs, but for what you're doing there you really don't need cutting edge, really only video processing and gaming needs a really fast processor if you ask me. If you can find the exact model of the board and processor then you could probably find something faster that'd fit, if you felt the need.
The hard drive's wee, though... Well, for photos and browsing alone it'd be fine, but if you want to do more- music, videos etc- it's probably too small. But that's dead, dead easy to sort really. DVD players are dead cheap.
What does your PC not do at the moment that you want it to do, is the question?
Doesn't play DVD's, and we've never had sound, bizarre though that may seem. I guess we're just looking for something a bit better, that will last us a few years. We're never going to be pc-literate enough to put any to full use anyway:D
Doesn't play DVD's, and we've never had sound, bizarre though that may seem. I guess we're just looking for something a bit better, that will last us a few years. We're never going to be pc-literate enough to put any to full use anyway:D
Its not a sinclair spectrum you,re using is it ? ;)
Its not a sinclair spectrum you,re using is it ? ;)
You know what, it might as well be, for all my capabilities:D
northwind
28-07-07, 06:16 PM
Nah, they had sound :)
Weeeell... If it's supposed to have sound, but doesn't, that could be fiddly. If it's just never had sound, less fiddly. You could get a DVD player for under £20, no probs, and a cheap soundblaster card of some sort for much the same... And I suppose, you might need speakers too :) This stuff is all fairly easy to set up, assuming your PC isn't way older than I think it is. Hard drives are easy enough too but you need to know you're buying the right thing, for which you really need to know exactly what the motherboard is.
But then, there does come a point where there's no point in upgrading, to be honest. I'd watch it though, most of the really cheap PCs scrimp big-style on hard drive space and RAM, a small hard drive's easy to upgrade (just add another) but it's something to budget for. My MP3s take up 80gb, frinstance, that's the entire of the drive that came with my PC :smt120
What does your PC not do at the moment that you want it to do, is the question?
Best Question in the thread, this one - if you're not experiencing sluggishness when browsing your photos or whatever else you want to do, I wouldn't recommend upgrading the processor (and the motherboard, as it tends to need to be swapped as a pair). RAM (Short term memory) is probably a much more economical upgrade (between £30 and £40) to get more performance if you've got 512Mb or less, and a second HD for storage.
A DVD writer would cost you around £20, and there are options on the sound front - one I found was a plugin piece to let you use hi-fi speakers with your PC for £30. If you want surround sound, you'll have to lay out a bit more cash though - I'd budget about £80-100 for the internal card and speakers.
The other option is to go with one of the dells suggested above. At work, we go with them because of the support (we had a laptop with a dodgy screen, which was taken away and sorted in one business day). Don't know if home support is as good as that, mind. Also, special offers at dell rotate fairly regularly, so if the one currently on doesn't suit you, hang around for a fortnight for the next one.
Hope thats useful to you - finally a subject on here I can speak with some authority on ;)
rwoodcock01
28-07-07, 07:48 PM
Best Question in the thread, this one - if you're not experiencing sluggishness when browsing your photos or whatever else you want to do, I wouldn't recommend upgrading the processor (and the motherboard, as it tends to need to be swapped as a pair). RAM (Short term memory) is probably a much more economical upgrade (between £30 and £40) to get more performance if you've got 512Mb or less, and a second HD for storage.
A DVD writer would cost you around £20, and there are options on the sound front - one I found was a plugin piece to let you use hi-fi speakers with your PC for £30. If you want surround sound, you'll have to lay out a bit more cash though - I'd budget about £80-100 for the internal card and speakers.
The other option is to go with one of the dells suggested above. At work, we go with them because of the support (we had a laptop with a dodgy screen, which was taken away and sorted in one business day). Don't know if home support is as good as that, mind. Also, special offers at dell rotate fairly regularly, so if the one currently on doesn't suit you, hang around for a fortnight for the next one.
Hope thats useful to you - finally a subject on here I can speak with some authority on ;)
Good post mate :-)
I can't really add much as I tend to build my own PC's (Most people have covered the bases). The one thing I will say is make sure you get a decent amount of RAM, with Vista 1GB is ok but I would say 2GB is a nice sum to have. (If you like the eye candy that can go with it).
I have recommended Dells and they are running fine including my grand parents that just use it for a little web browsing, sending e-mailes to family and some web cam talks to family overseas.
Cheers
Rich
the only thing i can say . . .is dont go for dell.
Luckypants
29-07-07, 09:05 AM
I'm a fan of the 'if it ain't broke, leave it alone' school. My home PC is over 6 years old, runs Windows 2000 Pro, 1.5Ghz Pentium 4, 750 Mb (ish) if Ram and 80 GB HDD - does everything I want, fast and reliably. It has two faults I can't seem to fix, despite what my PC guru's recommend, so it may be coming to the end of it's life...... What I'm saying Lissa is that you need to think about why you want to upgrade before junking your current one.
The question has already been asked, what do you want your PC to do that it don't do now?
Blue Flame
29-07-07, 09:39 AM
If you are buying now then get this on Thursday
http://www.aldi.co.uk/special_buys/special_buys_pid_56411.html
Great value and a good package.
the_runt69
29-07-07, 05:48 PM
If you are buying now then get this on Thursday
http://www.aldi.co.uk/special_buys/special_buys_pid_56411.html
Great value and a good package.
doesnt include keyboard, Mouse, speakers, monitor etc
good price if you can source decent bits though
sorry does include Keyboard and mouse
Can anyone explain what the difference is between Intel Celeron®, Pentium dual-core, and Core™ 2 duo processors and AMD Sempron™, Athlon™ 64, and Athlon™ 64 X2 Dual-Core processors
Different types of processors, each having a different set of capabilities, mostly varying in terms of how fast they are. That's really about as much detail as anyone needs to know about processors (BTW, out of those, probably the Athlon 62 X2 Dual Core's would be the fastest, but only if the operating system you're using supports both 64bit and Dual Core technologies).
If you want surround sound, you'll have to lay out a bit more cash though - I'd budget about £80-100 for the internal card and speakers.
I reckon you don't need surround sound personally, in which case £5 will sort out your lack of sound. If you want surround sound (and say have it on the TV), you can run a wire between your PC & TV, and heypresto, surround sound.
If your machine is running slow, you don't usually need a new one, you just need to do a little spring cleaning. If there's something missing that you want it to do, but it doesn't, it can usually be added. You don't need to upgrade.
That said, if you're eager to spend the money, and you're looking at those Dell's, buy the cheaper (they'll both do what you want), and haggle with the staff on the phone (don't buy online with Dell). Get the big stick out if you have to so that you can drive the price down, and don't touch Vista. Stick with what you know for operating systems, which is XP from what's been said.
IMO, if you spend £250, you've probably spent too much.
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