New system?

[Banger]

As i stated in my other post i am about to buy another system.
Looking in the PC mags is a nightmare and although they have their TOP10 you cant help feeling thats there is a little bit of skullduggery there with the manufacturers and in my view the best advice with most things is from the people who buy them.

£1000 is my budget


I am not looking at a perticular model as this could go on for ever but realibility and quality is what i want.


So What Brands.......Dell Mesh??

Thanks ahead for your opinions

 

[Cheesy Mike]

Dell are excellent value. Family have bought Dell desktops and were satisfied.

I have bought from Evesham and had good results.

I have built PCs myself and had the local back-street computer shop build them from components that I specified - again with good results. £1000 will buy you a lot of computer from these guys!

I would never ever buy from Tiny or Time. I would go back to using an abacus or counting on my fingers rather than buy from them.

Mike

 

[needlongerlegs]

1000 Quid bimey

You need a Parker Networks Fandango 500

Or a Dell might be a bit better

By you monitor elseware though lots of saving to be had.

Time, Tiny and horrible one off shop builds make me lots of money sorting them

G..

 

[MasterDabber]

I've had Dell, getting a bit aged but still used within the family.
That has been good and we've had no problems.

I recommended Dell to a friend and unfortunately it was a bit of a disaster. The main problem is that it wouldn't recognise and configure other devices. Dell were not very helpful in resolving the problem. The bottom line is that I took it into work and a couple of really good techies reinstalled/rebuilt the system and all has been Ok for him since.
I have a generally good feel about Dell still but that put me off a bit.

Our current main household machine is a Mesh. It came with a 3 year onsite waranty. I've been pleased with both the machine and with dealings with Mesh. The machine has needed two drives replacing... the DVD drive and CD/RW drive.. can't really blame Mesh for that, the were major manufacturers components - Sony and TEAC. The service from Mesh was excellent with an engineers at the house within about 48 hours as I remember.

However, I don't think the onsite warranty is now standard but an additional extra... but worth it IMHO.

 

[Fanum]

I've had MEsh and Dell and a few others.....my next one (once i've recovered financially from PLYMDAK) definately won't be a big name supplier though.....

Try looking for a similarly specced machine to this;


AMD Athlon XP Barton 3200+

1024 MB DDR 400 Corsair Memory (PC3200) - The FASTEST Memory That Can Be Used!

200 GB 7200 ATA133 8MB Cache Hard Disk - The FASTEST Parallel IDE Hard Disk Ever Made!

ASUS Motherboard With nVidia nForce 2 Chipset - Probably THE Best Motherboard Available Today!

16x48 DVD Player With Bonus Media - The FASTEST DVD ROM Available today!

NEC ND3500A 16x DVD Writer Dual Format (+ &-) & Dual Layer - Probably THE Best And Certainly The FASTEST DVD & CD ReWriter In The World!

nVidia FX5500 256MB Graphics Card With DVI & TV-OUT - The BEST In It's Class!

Sony Floppy Disk Drive

6 Channel Audio (5.1 Surround Sound)

6x USB2 Ports

10/100 Ethernet LAN Adapter

Midi Style Case

17" TFT Screen (3 Years Onsite warranty) - The FASTEST TFT SCREEN IN THE WORLD!!

Multimedia Keyboard

Scroll Mouse

Speakers

----------------------------------------

£848 INCLUDING VAT

============================


And from any of the big names you'll pay 3-500 more than that for it.

850 quid for that ffs!!!

(I bought a machine for Dani from that company two mionths ago and it was a good deal...fast delivery, no problems with it at all)

If I was ordering a new machine for a grand or less todfay, this is what i'd be getting......(for £840 inc vat )

 

[nadeem]

Get yorself a 17" imac - looks great, performs brilliantly ...

http://store.apple.com/Apple/WebObj...09leE2kxRcPGf/0.0.11.1.0.6.21.1.2.1.1.0.0.1.0

 

[Deleted account 220427002]

Have you every looked at the ones that lidl have on offer every now and again..... Real high spec the last one was.
For about £800
Used all good brand name stuff asus board, western digitial HD, nvidia graphics card with TV out and remote control.

The last two times me and a mate looked at a lidl pc we figured it would cost us more to buy the bits not to mention build and install the operating system and software on the thing.

The other thing is that if you haven’t bought a PC for two or three years you’ll find some of the cheaper PC’s are well fast enough for all but the intense gamer or someone dealing in graphics rendering or some other processor intensive task.
But for anyone who downloads a bit, surfs a bit, burns a cd or DVD here and there you could get a good system for around the £400 pound range.

Oh and remember the faster the processor and the graphic card the more heat they produce so you need more cooling ……so more faster fans and bigger PSU’s
Basically the faster the HD, processor and graphics card. The noisier the PC. I bought a quiet PSU and fan but my PC is still a bit too loud for my liking. Some people this will not bother other will be driven mad by the background noise.

 

[cookie]

mate's just bought one from . i was confident i could out spec it cheaper. i couldn't. much cheaper than dell & i hear customer support is pretty good (not from him).

£467 inc. scanner/printer & proper uk keyboard

course, it won't play (modern) games but will do everything else you're likely to need. they might do a better one?

 

[Cheesy Mike]

I would never ever buy from Tiny or Time. I would go back to using an abacus or counting on my fingers rather than buy from them.

Seems lots of you heeded my wise words. Tiny / Time have gone titsup today.

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2005/07/27/time_goes_administration/

I feel sorry for the 1600 people who will lose their jobs, but the company and their product gave the computer industry, the industry that I work for, a really bad name. They will not be missed.

Mike

 

[scud]

what brand? money to spend?

Forget about the brand for a bit.... ask yourself a few questions and spend your money like this.....

1. What am I going to use it for?
If it's up to date 3D gaming , get it custom built by a small computer shop....they should all know what is required. It'll all be a foreign language to you anyway. Tell the you have "X" amount to spend on the base unit. end of story. I can always tell someone "for an extra £20, you could have....." and so it goes on...and on...and on....
If it's photo manipulation, video editing etc.... same as above. But tell 'em thats what you're going to do.
If it's writing a few letters, letting the kids mess around online and nothing flash in the 3d gaming way, by something like Tesco, Aldi, or wherever. DON'T BUY A BUNDLE WITH A PRINTER ETC.....

2. The Printer. What are you going to print out? YOU CAN'T UPGRADE A PRINTER. You have to flog it or bin in and buy again.
If you will print photos, get a photo printer, if you want BIG things get an A3 printer. If you print bulk, get a laser printer. Just consider the refill costs. A very cheap printer may share 1 colour ink cartridge instead of several colours, therefore costing ££££ after a small amount of printing.

3. The Screen. If you spend alot of time in front of it, GET BIG.
If you play 3D gaming. SPEND LOTS! if not, don't.

DONT EVER BUY A COMPUTER ON "BUY NOW PAY IN 6 MONTHS"... it's depressing when you start to pay for your "out of date" computer!!!

NOW you've really spent your money well, got a decent machine that will do what YOU want it to, and you haven't had to learn all the CR*P that us OEM builders have had to!!!