FOAK: New PC for the kids

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/desktops_good?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&s=dhs

http://tinyurl.com/y8ulnl

I thought the one for £379.00 seemed about right but before I buy it
I'd be interested to read a load of conflicting opinions and advice.

Is this a good deal?

 

It's got Windows Vista. I've a suspicion that this tightens up on
software theft. If so, I'm not sure it's really you.

 

heh, funnily enough Vista is the only bit I'm not entirely happy about
but as it's just for the kids to use on the network at home I'm
prepared to take a chance.

 

Seems to be reasonable, get it with a gig of Ram though, not 512Mb...
and you might want to see if they'll do it with XP instead, as some
things might not be compatible with vista.

 

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/desktops_good?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&s=dhs

http://tinyurl.com/y8ulnl

I thought the one for £379.00 seemed about right but before I buy it
I'd be interested to read a load of conflicting opinions and advice.

Is this a good deal?

I'd go for the £449.00 one myself. Kids are likely to want a gaming
capability and that's the only one sporting a PCI express card and it's the
only one with a gig of RAM.

Resonse time on the monitors isn't brilliant though, but probably just aobut
good enough for gaming.


--
Beav

VN 750
Zed 1000
OMF# 19

 

I suspect you'll be buying more RAM real soon if you're running Vista
on this. I've got it on a lappie and it uses the best part of 512MB at
idle.

This evalue code is a bit cheaper at £339 305-D03E05b. It has a 320GB
HD, 3.06GHz Celeron but only DVD-ROM/CDRW. Use the difference to buy
some more RAM.

If Vista is a big problem then look at the Small Business section,
where you can choose XP if you so desire. The prices are generally
pretty much the same.

Alternatively, let me sell you a nice laptop

 

IIRC if he gets a new pooter before March 25th-ish with WinXP Media
Centre Edition he gets a 'free' (£14) upgrade to Vista Home Premium
instead of Home Basic.

 

You'll need to buy a PCI Express graphics board if you want anything
other than 5fps out of that 19" monitor.

<http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/123119/rb/25977166084>

This pooter seems to be the same spec, but without a monitor for £350
so the Dell one does seem to be quite good.

That processor is a Dual Core, so it's best to upgrade the RAM with
two modules at a time. The 1Gb that's in it already will be 2x512Mb
modules, so stick another 2x512Mb modules.

If the Dell is the same as the Acer I linked above then 256Mb of the
1Gb of ram will already have been nicked by the on-board graphics
board, leaving you with 768Mb of which Vista will pinch 512Mb in idle
mode.

If you stick another graphics board in it you should get that 256Mb
back, OR you can stick another graphics board in it and run in 2-head
mode.

 

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/pcrange.html?ICO

Seems competetive to me. In particular, sans OS and screen which may be
good points. Dell has good after sales service and includes delivery.
Novatech are by Portchester/Portsmouth and you can pick them up rather
than have them delivered.

Just my tuppence worth, I've dealt with both Dell and Novatech, and had
no problems with either.

 

he does nice laptops!
--
Adie
(replace spam with nickname to reply)

UKRM FAQ: http://www.ukrm.net/faq/
keeper of the ukrm faq for my sins

YZF-R1: ZX9R E1

MRO#11 BOTAFOF#7 BOTAFOT#130 DIAABTCOD#17 MIB#24 YTC#16 BOB#15 ex-UKRMMA#22 BOMB#11

 

He certainly does.

 

lol

 

Running Vista for a while now, and I've *cough* not noticed it objecting
to *cough* my software.

 

A long article on Vista and it's 'premium content' protection; not a
problem atm but it's going to be......

Article is somewhat technical but easy to grasp the relevancies from.

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html

 

Fabulous. The finest corporate lunacy in the known universe.

--
platypus

"Merely corroborative detail, intended to
give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise
bald and unconvincing narrative."

 

Technical descriptions written by lawyers and PR-specialists.

http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windowsvista/archive/2007/01/20/window
s-vista-content-protection-twenty-questions-and-answers.aspx

I tried to read this, but I'm just a power systems engineer with 30
years experience in the public and private sectors, so it is beyond my
comprehension. (An alternative is that the semantic content is zero.)