Mungler Posted December 28, 2007 Report Share Posted December 28, 2007 I need a new home PC for browsing, email, music/MP3 and a bit of work. Don't want to spend more than £500 to £600 and for that I would like a tower PC and a monitor. I would like something out of the box from a large local retailer - something easy to take stuff back to. What's the current recommendation? P.S. I used to be on top of all of this, but now I have no idea and in 10 years time I will be asking my kids and be hopelessly lost in the world of technology just as my parents are now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
salisburykeeper Posted December 28, 2007 Report Share Posted December 28, 2007 prob best to go in store and opt for the highest spec machine for the money Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mungler Posted December 28, 2007 Author Report Share Posted December 28, 2007 Problem is, they all look the same but some brands are better than others and some stores have good sales deals on now.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MC Posted December 28, 2007 Report Share Posted December 28, 2007 Mungler, Staples were doing some cracking deals before Xmas, you can take anything back to them as well. And I doubt their highest spec PC will be more than 600 notes. I bought one about 18months ago for £270 complete apart from a monitor. All the brands have the same Honky Ponky components made in Mr Wong's factory in taiwan anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taz24 Posted December 28, 2007 Report Share Posted December 28, 2007 I need a new home PC for browsing, email, music/MP3 and a bit of work. Don't want to spend more than £500 to £600 and for that I would like a tower PC and a monitor. I would like something out of the box from a large local retailer - something easy to take stuff back to. What's the current recommendation? P.S. I used to be on top of all of this, but now I have no idea and in 10 years time I will be asking my kids and be hopelessly lost in the world of technology just as my parents are now. You would get a good PC for £600 and have change left over. PC world do have advertised a good spec PC for about £400. Why not get a good laptop and keep mobile. You could get a good Toshiba laptop for about £500. Cheers taz. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith Posted December 28, 2007 Report Share Posted December 28, 2007 Go for a Fujitsu-Siemens - get it direct from their website. v good machines and great value. K Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hardy Posted December 28, 2007 Report Share Posted December 28, 2007 Tesco do have some incredible deals on pc's at present - I bought my laptop from them for about £1k less than I buy them for work! You can get a decent spec PC for £450 here Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rjimmer Posted December 28, 2007 Report Share Posted December 28, 2007 http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/pcranges.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spaniel Posted December 28, 2007 Report Share Posted December 28, 2007 Well I would go with a Dell...cheap and reliable..alot of our customers are purchasing these for Business Cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mungler Posted December 28, 2007 Author Report Share Posted December 28, 2007 Cheers lads, I have my evening's research laid out before me, thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
al4x Posted December 28, 2007 Report Share Posted December 28, 2007 another vote for Dell, their backup packages are pretty good as well, touch wood we use them at work and my home pc is one that used to be a work PC and never had problems so far. That budget should get you a good spec plus 19" flat screen monitor Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jayward Posted December 28, 2007 Report Share Posted December 28, 2007 just google pc world customer service , its appalling and there computers are built from cheap **** !!! try this for a spec Price total:exc. £ 508.45 Chosen Components: Assembly Charge Arianet Xen MIDI case Asus P5K-VM Intel G33 LGA775 Core2 Quad / Core2 Extreme / Core2 Duo Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz 95W G0 Stepping (Retail 775) Patriot 2GB PC2-6400 C4 Extreme Performance (2x1GB) 500Gb HITACHI SATA Hard Drive 20x Samsung SH-S202 20X IDE DVDR-W Black 17" Arianet AH Multimedia Wide TFT Microsoft Black Keyboard Logitech RX1000 Laser Mouse OEM Windows Vista Home Premium 64 OEM http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Systems/ or Gladiator Trojan PCP3600 PC Package Quickcode: #27473 Quickcode: AMD Dual Core X2 3600+, AMD 690G, Radeon X1250, 2048MB PC5400, 320GB SATAII, 19" Widescreen, 2.1 Speakers £398.99 inc. VAT http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Systems/Gla...productId=27473 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dazzyboi Posted December 28, 2007 Report Share Posted December 28, 2007 just google pc world customer service , its appalling and there computers are built from cheap **** !!! try this for a spec Price total:exc. £ 508.45 Chosen Components: Assembly Charge Arianet Xen MIDI case Asus P5K-VM Intel G33 LGA775 Core2 Quad / Core2 Extreme / Core2 Duo Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz 95W G0 Stepping (Retail 775) Patriot 2GB PC2-6400 C4 Extreme Performance (2x1GB) 500Gb HITACHI SATA Hard Drive 20x Samsung SH-S202 20X IDE DVDR-W Black 17" Arianet AH Multimedia Wide TFT Microsoft Black Keyboard Logitech RX1000 Laser Mouse OEM Windows Vista Home Premium 64 OEM http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Systems/ or Gladiator Trojan PCP3600 PC Package Quickcode: #27473 Quickcode: AMD Dual Core X2 3600+, AMD 690G, Radeon X1250, 2048MB PC5400, 320GB SATAII, 19" Widescreen, 2.1 Speakers �398.99 inc. VAT http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Systems/Gla...productId=27473 Well, seeing as i work in the IT field i have built all my own pc's, but if you can, and if you are lucky enough to know anyone who knows about computers, get them to build one for you. You can get so much better quality components at such smaller prices if you do it this way, also its custom built, to your needs, to your budget. Also, you dont have all the awful useless applications etc that they pre-load onto the machine. If you build your own you can start from scratch, put there bare minimums on there which is alot better! I will never walk into pc world again, yuk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dazzyboi Posted December 28, 2007 Report Share Posted December 28, 2007 just google pc world customer service , its appalling and there computers are built from cheap **** !!! try this for a spec Price total:exc. £ 508.45 Chosen Components: Assembly Charge Arianet Xen MIDI case Asus P5K-VM Intel G33 LGA775 Core2 Quad / Core2 Extreme / Core2 Duo Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz 95W G0 Stepping (Retail 775) Patriot 2GB PC2-6400 C4 Extreme Performance (2x1GB) 500Gb HITACHI SATA Hard Drive 20x Samsung SH-S202 20X IDE DVDR-W Black 17" Arianet AH Multimedia Wide TFT Microsoft Black Keyboard Logitech RX1000 Laser Mouse OEM Windows Vista Home Premium 64 OEM http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Systems/ or Gladiator Trojan PCP3600 PC Package Quickcode: #27473 Quickcode: AMD Dual Core X2 3600+, AMD 690G, Radeon X1250, 2048MB PC5400, 320GB SATAII, 19" Widescreen, 2.1 Speakers �398.99 inc. VAT http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Systems/Gla...productId=27473 Well, seeing as i work in the IT field i have built all my own pc's, but if you can, and if you are lucky enough to know anyone who knows about computers, get them to build one for you. You can get so much better quality components at such smaller prices if you do it this way, also its custom built, to your needs, to your budget. Also, you dont have all the awful useless applications etc that they pre-load onto the machine. If you build your own you can start from scratch, put there bare minimums on there which is alot better! I will never walk into pc world again, yuk Sorry if im making your post look bad but this is a prime example of what im talking about.. "Asus P5K-VM Intel G33 LGA775 Core2 Quad / Core2 Extreme / Core2 Duom Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz 95W G0 Stepping (Retail 775) Patriot 2GB PC2-6400 C4 Extreme Performance (2x1GB) - Patriot? iv never even heard of there brand of RAM? 500Gb HITACHI SATA Hard Drive - Hitachi do not have a good reputation in the storage market, they have a similar reputation as some maxtor drives which are known to fail, would you want to trust the cheaper end of the hdd market with your precious documents? you want to have something like a seagate or western digital drives. 20x Samsung SH-S202 20X IDE DVDR-W Black 17" Arianet AH Multimedia Wide TFT" - again own cheap brand of monitor For the same price you could defenatly match that, probably beat the performance, but with top class pc hardware. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamC Posted December 28, 2007 Report Share Posted December 28, 2007 I am an IT Geek by trade and a lot of people ask we what PC they should get. Most want my advice on building their own, and my answer is always the same. Get onto Dells website and order something. If I were to buy a PC for home I would buy Dell for sure. We buy them in their hundreds at work, they are cheap, reliable and backed up well with support. A few of the lads in my team build their own PC's but these chaps are pretty nerdy and spend way too much time playing World of Warcraft or whatever is the big thing these days. As I am sure everything you purchase now will come with Vista, get as much RAM for it as possible. I would not bother trying to run it on less than 2Gb and I will cut down an OS I run to have the smallest footprint on system memory. Agree with dazzyboi, off the shelf systems come loaded with a lot of useless rubbish, but nothing you cannot uninstall or disable. It is easy to forget that a lot of home users might like all the added extras, so this may not apply. I spend a good 8 hours a day on a PC, so am pretty picky about what I want to see and have available to me. I would also recomend going for a 19" monitor. They seem to be hardly anymore expensive, are much nicer to use and seem to be becoming more popular. If you are keen to buy from an outlet then an HP from PC world would be a safe bet. Otherwise you could upgrade the support package on a Dell so that they get out to you sooner. Good luck with it and remember, it is all just a load of 1's and 0's! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fortune Posted December 28, 2007 Report Share Posted December 28, 2007 XX World are a load of poop. Most of their systems don’t come with any recovery discs so if you get a problem >( and more than likely you will) You have to take it back to their tech guys to charge you a small fortune to fix an anonymous Problem. My Sister bless her went there and bought a pile of poop. It’s been in dock more than out. And they don’t pay you any compensation for loss of use or traveling backwards and forwards with the damn thing. I’d launch it over their counter and into box 13 and get my cash back if it were mine. But there again I wouldn’t go there in the first place. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
col s10 Posted December 28, 2007 Report Share Posted December 28, 2007 dell are the smk of the air rifle world Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dazzyboi Posted December 28, 2007 Report Share Posted December 28, 2007 dell are the smk of the air rifle world They are not though are they? we have 35+ dell servers in work which together manage an entire coporation of over 1000 users, and it does the job very very reliably, with very good support. I can think of brands that are bad *Cough HP Cough* If you are someone who doesnt know much about pc's then save yourself the bother of going to somewhere like pc world and instead get it through dell. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dunganick Posted December 29, 2007 Report Share Posted December 29, 2007 had 2 fujitsu siemens computers, both faultless, used to build own machines, but its not worth it any more. Give Mesh a look in, all reasonably spec'd machines for decent money. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jayward Posted December 29, 2007 Report Share Posted December 29, 2007 just google pc world customer service , its appalling and there computers are built from cheap **** !!! try this for a spec Price total:exc. £ 508.45 Chosen Components: Assembly Charge Arianet Xen MIDI case Asus P5K-VM Intel G33 LGA775 Core2 Quad / Core2 Extreme / Core2 Duo Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz 95W G0 Stepping (Retail 775) Patriot 2GB PC2-6400 C4 Extreme Performance (2x1GB) 500Gb HITACHI SATA Hard Drive 20x Samsung SH-S202 20X IDE DVDR-W Black 17" Arianet AH Multimedia Wide TFT Microsoft Black Keyboard Logitech RX1000 Laser Mouse OEM Windows Vista Home Premium 64 OEM http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Systems/ or Gladiator Trojan PCP3600 PC Package Quickcode: #27473 Quickcode: AMD Dual Core X2 3600+, AMD 690G, Radeon X1250, 2048MB PC5400, 320GB SATAII, 19" Widescreen, 2.1 Speakers �398.99 inc. VAT http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Systems/Gla...productId=27473 Well, seeing as i work in the IT field i have built all my own pc's, but if you can, and if you are lucky enough to know anyone who knows about computers, get them to build one for you. You can get so much better quality components at such smaller prices if you do it this way, also its custom built, to your needs, to your budget. Also, you dont have all the awful useless applications etc that they pre-load onto the machine. If you build your own you can start from scratch, put there bare minimums on there which is alot better! I will never walk into pc world again, yuk Sorry if im making your post look bad but this is a prime example of what im talking about.. "Asus P5K-VM Intel G33 LGA775 Core2 Quad / Core2 Extreme / Core2 Duom Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz 95W G0 Stepping (Retail 775) Patriot 2GB PC2-6400 C4 Extreme Performance (2x1GB) - Patriot? iv never even heard of there brand of RAM? 500Gb HITACHI SATA Hard Drive - Hitachi do not have a good reputation in the storage market, they have a similar reputation as some maxtor drives which are known to fail, would you want to trust the cheaper end of the hdd market with your precious documents? you want to have something like a seagate or western digital drives. 20x Samsung SH-S202 20X IDE DVDR-W Black 17" Arianet AH Multimedia Wide TFT" - again own cheap brand of monitor For the same price you could defenatly match that, probably beat the performance, but with top class pc hardware. ok lets see it you do that then ? whats the saying put up or ....Mung wants the best he can get i guess ,so any improvement will be a bonus !!! plz note this is a built and tested price inc a two-year return-to-base (RTB) warranty provided by a long established company !!! Good luck never heard of patriot Website Established in 1985 and the monitor made by Digimate Website established in 1996 for the price there reviews are good !!! as with all the aforementioned components , ................................................................................ ............................................................................... hahahah i got laugh your comment below show your ignorance !!! keep digging lol post the spec and price you can build a better im genuinely interested (but with top class pc hardware.) your gona struggle genuinely Aria Technology are very competitive !!! im not trying to be difficult i just cant genuinely see it ! did you see "plz note this is a built and tested price inc a two-year return-to-base (RTB) warranty provided by a long established company !!! " not nocked up @ home and pray it all works well !! (With regards to patriot, its a generic brand) ehhh im lost taken from To meet the growing global demand for its products, Patriot manufactures its Extreme Performance (EP), Dual Channel (DC) and Signature Line (SL) products in it own state-of-the-art manufacturing facility with highly skilled staff in Fremont, California USA. there sold all over the world by top Distributors hardly generic there branded and well known but WTH !!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dazzyboi Posted December 29, 2007 Report Share Posted December 29, 2007 just google pc world customer service , its appalling and there computers are built from cheap **** !!! try this for a spec Price total:exc. £ 508.45 Chosen Components: Assembly Charge Arianet Xen MIDI case Asus P5K-VM Intel G33 LGA775 Core2 Quad / Core2 Extreme / Core2 Duo Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz 95W G0 Stepping (Retail 775) Patriot 2GB PC2-6400 C4 Extreme Performance (2x1GB) 500Gb HITACHI SATA Hard Drive 20x Samsung SH-S202 20X IDE DVDR-W Black 17" Arianet AH Multimedia Wide TFT Microsoft Black Keyboard Logitech RX1000 Laser Mouse OEM Windows Vista Home Premium 64 OEM http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Systems/ or Gladiator Trojan PCP3600 PC Package Quickcode: #27473 Quickcode: AMD Dual Core X2 3600+, AMD 690G, Radeon X1250, 2048MB PC5400, 320GB SATAII, 19" Widescreen, 2.1 Speakers �398.99 inc. VAT http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Systems/Gla...productId=27473 Well, seeing as i work in the IT field i have built all my own pc's, but if you can, and if you are lucky enough to know anyone who knows about computers, get them to build one for you. You can get so much better quality components at such smaller prices if you do it this way, also its custom built, to your needs, to your budget. Also, you dont have all the awful useless applications etc that they pre-load onto the machine. If you build your own you can start from scratch, put there bare minimums on there which is alot better! I will never walk into pc world again, yuk Sorry if im making your post look bad but this is a prime example of what im talking about.. "Asus P5K-VM Intel G33 LGA775 Core2 Quad / Core2 Extreme / Core2 Duom Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz 95W G0 Stepping (Retail 775) Patriot 2GB PC2-6400 C4 Extreme Performance (2x1GB) - Patriot? iv never even heard of there brand of RAM? 500Gb HITACHI SATA Hard Drive - Hitachi do not have a good reputation in the storage market, they have a similar reputation as some maxtor drives which are known to fail, would you want to trust the cheaper end of the hdd market with your precious documents? you want to have something like a seagate or western digital drives. 20x Samsung SH-S202 20X IDE DVDR-W Black 17" Arianet AH Multimedia Wide TFT" - again own cheap brand of monitor For the same price you could defenatly match that, probably beat the performance, but with top class pc hardware. ok lets see it you do that then ? whats the saying put up or ....Mung wants the best he can get i guess ,so any improvement will be a bonus !!! plz note this is a built and tested price inc a two-year return-to-base (RTB) warranty provided by a long established company !!! Good luck never heard of patriot Website Established in 1985 and the monitor made by Digimate Website established in 1996 for the price there reviews are good !!! as with all the aforementioned components , If mungler wants me to build him a pc then i would be more than happy too, at no extra cost. With regards to patriot, its a generic brand, it's like walking into tesco's and buying a tesco value lcd tv. Does the job ok, but you could get much better for the same price. When pre-build pc's hit the market the prices were extremely high, now things hve changed, there is so much better performing hardware on the market available, and if you dont know how to build a pc i bet there is someone in the family that does, this means mainstream retailers like pc world spend less money on the hardware that they are putting into the pcs thriving on people walking through the door thinking "that costs £500 so it must be good". These days it really is so easy to just build your own pc, its just no one makes the effort to find out how. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
col s10 Posted December 29, 2007 Report Share Posted December 29, 2007 dell are the smk of the air rifle world They are not though are they? we have 35+ dell servers in work which together manage an entire coporation of over 1000 users, and it does the job very very reliably, with very good support. I can think of brands that are bad *Cough HP Cough* If you are someone who doesnt know much about pc's then save yourself the bother of going to somewhere like pc world and instead get it through dell. fine by me he is not a company where it does not matter enjoy your smk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pushkin Posted December 29, 2007 Report Share Posted December 29, 2007 Mungler, spend £4 and buy the latest edition of PC Advisor. They do a test every month and print what is the best buy for your pounds. They are categorised so you can check just the price range you want. Each month, the ones they are recommending are guaranteed to be available at the price they give. I've had 2 Mesh computers and have been lucky as I've had good service from the company - not everyone does though. They do however provide great spec for the money. Dell is a company supplier and their systems are geared mainly toward industry users - mainly low spec and not geared up to cope with games of any reasonable standard because you aint supposed to be playing things like that at work! They will supply gaming machines but you gets what you pay for. The biggest bugbear with their machines is that they are really difficult to upgrade when the time comes around. all the best mate - you have just started on the most confusing trail ever Pushkin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisNicholls Posted December 29, 2007 Report Share Posted December 29, 2007 all the best mate - you have just started on the most confusing trail ever Pushkin and now he's even more confused fwiw I have a couple of Dell laptops and have had no bother at all, if I was to replace either of my 2 desktops they would be my first port of call, and they still offer XP as an option, that's got to be a bonus Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave-G Posted December 29, 2007 Report Share Posted December 29, 2007 My lad had a dell for Christmas 2003 - still going great and he does those tactical wargames with it online. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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