NEW DESKTOP PC WANTED

[Marks adventure]

Hi

I know that there are lots of PC's out there but i want to get a complete setup for my son

He wants to downlaod music etc.

Any bargins out there or does anyone know where there are any??

been told the minimum i need i have been told is

512 ram, 80 gig+ hard drive, dvd writer, 4 gh'z cpu, wireless card.

' Driving a truck - No Problems - buying a PC sh*t '

thanks

mark

 

[Iain Hogg]

Try Dell , plenty to choose from and they deliver direct.

Beware though, the headline price is usually only achieved after going through the select details section and deleting al the service contracts etc.

You may, of course, want that peace of mind?

Iain

 

[Banjaxed]

Now it really depends...

If your son wants to do the usual teenage stuff such as play games, download music, ogle teenage girls on MySpace, that sort of thing, you really don't need to splash out on a monster PC. All the dealers will be delighted to relieve you of massive amounts of cash, but I'm afraid you do need a LITTLE bit of homework.

Probably the most important question is playing games. Modern games stretch a PC in a way other programmes don't, so does he need a game-playing rig? If so, be prepared to splash out on a better video card and (somewhat) better processor. If not, nearly all modern PCs will do just fine.

If you're not a PC whiz, reliability and security become very important. How will he connect to the internet - and more importantly, what will he be doing there. You MUST consider parental controls, antivirus, antispam, antispyware, a firewall and... the easiest (but not cheapest) is to get a fully integrated package from a company such as McAfee, Norton or similar. Then, you'll need to check up on what he's doing. Believe me - there's stuff out there you do NOT want him to see...

Your specs? Memory - up to 1gig if possible, disk is OK, processor WAY too high (AMD 3200 should be fine, Pentium 4 2.8 likewise), DVD fine.

So sort out the possibility of the gaming situation and look at a few well known manufacturers - might be better to buy it locally, rather than mail order - that way you have a real person to talk to! Alternative is to get your son to make friends with the nerds...

Try here (cheap, no games, no monitor), or here (average, play simple games, monitor included), or here (whoa neddy!!).
Good luck...

 

[ianf]

http://www.apple.com/macmini/

 

[wessie]

I bought a PC from http://www.meshcomputers.com/ last year. I was quite happy with the value of the package and everything worked straight from the box: well apart from the Logitech wireless keyboard (I must have some local interference on the frequency as it keeps losing comms so I've gone back to a wired job).

15 months after purchase the machine would not boot up. No problem, Mesh collected the PC, replaced the graphics card and returned the PC to me. All part of the 3 year back to base warranty included in the price.

The £499 Elite D805 system (plus £20 for the wifi card & £45 delivery) does everything you want. Processor is 2.6GHz which will be fine as it comes with 1024MB of RAM.

The Sony DVD writer in particular is very good and the Cyberlink software bundle should do most of what he wants. 15 months ago I paid almost £200 more for a similar package.

As someone else says, if you are going to let him loose on the web with a broadband connection then make sure you have the PC set-up with a load of protection against malware. Make sure everything, including Windows is set to auto update at frequent intervals. Microsoft's own Windows Defender is free and a very good product. Use that in conjunction with an anti virus package and you should be protected to a pretty good standard. I use the free version of Avast.

If your son wants to play games then get him a console: it will be cheaper and you can use the PC when he's winning the world cup or killing goblins.