Desktop Computer Recommendations

[LadySmith]

After many years, my home computer finally crapped out. It was an eMachines 633-something or other (don't laugh, it was da bomb back in the day). Now I'm ready for another one, just the tower (CPU?) since I already have a monitor, keyboard and mouse. I'm not going to spend more than $500 for something that'll probably be obsolete the minute I plug it in. I won't do much with it besides net surf, email and share photos (maybe). Any recommendations?

[LAK]

Recently bought a used Dell system - everything for $150 from a local seller who fixes, sells etc from home. Works fine and if it dies, they'll fix it.

My advice is, unless you want to run programs that demand a very fast system with alot of RAM - buy modest and used. As you say, anything you buy new and pay good money for will be worthless six months down the road - which is why used systems can be had so cheap.

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[lee n. field]

If it's an older E-machines, it's probably the power supply.   $50 for a replacement for PC Power and Cooling, and you're back on the road.

Not that that's my recommendation, mind you.

You should be able to find something in that price range easily.

[roo_ster]

Under $500 will buy LOTS of desktop.

My relfelx suggestion is to buy an entry Dell business desktop and spring for the Gold level service, thus assuring that you will speak to someone in the CONUS for support, rather than "Bob" in India.

If it were me, I would pay a local white-box PC builder to build me a box.  MUCH easier to just bring the PC to him & drop it off in case of problmes than wait for a Dell repair rep to show up or ship it off to Dell.

[HankB]

I won't do much with it besides net surf, email and share photos (maybe).

The MOST demanding applications home users are likely to encounter are high-end computer games - if you rule those out, you substantially cut the price of your machine.

Will you be copying DVDs? Will you be running office applications (Excel, PowerPoint, etc.) a lot? If not, that further cuts your requirements.

In that case, I'd look for a used computer (Goodwill Industries, your local paper's classifieds, local computer discounters in the "tech" or "business" section of your paper) and get a used PC with a Pentium IV or AMD Athlon processor with a clock speed of at least 2 GHz.  

To get an idea of what used/refurbished PCs go for, you can check the Dell outlet at http://outlet.us.dell.com/ARBOnlineSales/topics/global.aspx/arb/online/en/InventorySearch?c=us&cs=22&l=en&s=dfh

[Waitone]

www.tigerdirect.com

Huge bang for the buck.

[Sindawe]

Another vote for Dell refurbished machines for an inexpensive PC.  I've put four of such boxes into service over the years, all still chugging away happily at their tasks.  The only gotcha is that there is a very limited warranty on 'em (30 days or so).  One friend purchased one for his wife, and it had a bad video card.  Replaced free since it was discovered w/in that 30 days.

[Ben]

Whatever you get, I recommend choosing more RAM over faster CPU speed if you have to make a choice.

[Standing Wolf]

I recently bought a Macintosh: horrendously expensive mistake.

[Sindawe]

Why so Standing Wolf?  What hassles have you had with the Mac?  I've been thinking about adding a mini-Mac to my pool of machines.

[Vodka7]

If you feel comfortable fiddling around with something new yourself, you can build an incredible AMD based machine for around $500 these days.  Newegg's running a special where you can get an AMD 64 3400+ (socket 939) and a motherboard for $99.  Throw in a gig of ram (~$120), a big HD (SATA 300-400 giggers go on sale regularly for 90-100 if you keep an eye out, maybe $130 regular), a cheapo PCI-e video card (as much as you want, but ~50 on the low end), a tower (~50), and a power supply (~30) and you're good to go.

At $500, depending on what you can harvest from the emachine, you could even be getting into C2D range, which is the best bang for the buck out there, and easily overclockable.  If you can use your same video card, hard drive, case, and power supply, you can upgrade the RAM, motherboard, and CPU for about $400. (Less if you don't want to go with overclocking, because you can substitute a much cheaper motherboard.)

With Intel offering a great price/performance ratio on its Intel Core 2 Duo line and AMD madly slashing prices almost daily to compete, now is an excellent time to be in the computer market.

As a bonus, either option is Windows Vista ready, so you're future proofed (for a given definition of future, anyway ), which you may not get with a refurbished Dell.  Of course, this may not even be a concern for you.

[Gewehr98]

Corporate lease turn-in Dell or IBM professional machines, particularly workstations.  Bulletproof, cheap, and you can still get parts and documentation easy.

I've been running a small business reselling those very same systems, and have a lot of satisfied customers.  One place to find them:

www.pcsurplusonline.com

[Brad Johnson]

Whatever you get, I recommend choosing more RAM over faster CPU speed if you have to make a choice

BIG plus one on that.

Also, the Dell Store has some decent stuff from time to time. These are the machines that people return under the 30 day guarantee, that were misbuilds or canceled orders, or that are pulled from the production line because they failed diagnostics for some reason. They can't be sold as new, so Dell runs them back through a repair/refurbish line and sells them through the Dell store. Full factory warranty in place, too. Be aware that most of them do NOT come with a monitor.

The page takes a little getting used to, but a quick search by Dimension series and sort by price should get you some pretty good deals.

http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/category.aspx/desktops?c=us&cs=22&l=en&s=dfh

Brad

[Vodka7]

If you, or any member of the Smith family qualify, this Aafes deal is by far the best around:

http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/messageview.php?catid=18&threadid=663689

Some people are saying this specific upgrade to the X2 3800 processor is a pricing mistake, but even if you choose another processor from the list, the discount is incredible compared to Dell's regular rates, and the warranty can't be beat.

Note to non-military readers who may be interested, you can get the same or similar deals if your company is part of Dell's EPP corporate discount program.

[HankB]

I recently bought a Macintosh: horrendously expensive mistake.

Just out of curiosity, why? Lack of performance? Lack of applications, interoperability, or

I'm not a fan of Macs myself - for a time I worked in a lab that was largely committed to Macs (the lab manager loved his Betamax, too!) and learned that the name meant "Machine Always Crashes, If Not The Operating System Hangs"   - and the less said about that wretched, buggy, "Appletalk" networking the better.

[Mannlicher]

all I am going to say, is don't waste your money on anything by Compaq or HP.  Garbage equipment.

[Kestrel]

I'm not a fan of Macs myself - for a time I worked in a lab that was largely committed to Macs (the lab manager loved his Betamax, too!) and learned that the name meant "Machine Always Crashes, If Not The Operating System Hangs"  - and the less said about that wretched, buggy, "Appletalk" networking the better.

Hank,

The technology you're referring to, is a good many years in the past. For a number of years, Macs have been a completely different OS architecture than the older System 7/8/9 OS.