New Tower up to £350

sweetnest

As the title says, i need the best tower only for up to £350

This is for my parents, in their 60s, who use a computer for normal surfing, emailing, photos, nothing too strenuous.

I need it to last a good few years, i cant see them wanting to play any games like battle field etc, mother just likes her match 3 type games etc. They do family trees a lot etc.

I told them they can get a nice cheap one for about £180, but dad wants something good to last, a bit future proof, so to speak.

Apart from the normal pc worlds, comets etc, has anyone seen a great spec tower for this money

Windows XP would be perfect for them, as this is what they are used to. But they are prepared to go for vista if xp is not around any more

Thanks for any ideas

Tracey

Pobby

Hi Tracey, another silver surfer here. £350 should buy them a very good rig and the £180 should do the trick if it`s only for the apps you have stated. Imho, unless you are a game player mega fast processing is not really required.

flang

why not buy this? its sooooo cheap you could by a another one each year!
http://www.hotukdeals.com/item/352458/gateway-e-machine-e4231-computer-ce/

fwor

I'd second what Pobby says - you are right and you Dad is not, though convincing him of that may be another matter. I bought my Dad an entry-level Dell three years ago or so, and it still does everything he needs.

Have a look at http://www.dmxdimension.com/ and see if any of their offers fit the bill. The basic prices are quite good, but when I last looked Dell's upgrade prices are a bit steep compared with getting any extra hardware you need from Scan, Ebuyer, etc.

If you go for something ultra-cheap like the one flang posted, it would be worth checking if you can downgrade from Vista to XP (IIRC you can't with Basic?) as XP is fairly happy to run in 512M of memory but Vista won't be.

sweetnest

Thanks every one so far

this is the pc i recommended to them earlier (the one with out the monitor)

what do you all think

http://www.novatech.co.uk:80/novatech/range.html?t=pc&c=home&r=ION

sweetnest

or

has anyone had any dealings with powerc.com

have seen this http://www.powerc.com/uk/ps/At%20Home%20-%20AMD%20Base%20Unit/1/act/gpage/code/cs-home-ela

and can still get it under £300 with windows xp

are they a good firm ???

Pobby

Suggestion. I like indie computer shops. I have a good one where I buy most of my stuff and I am well known there. Advantage is that they will always give me free advice on anything wether I am buying or not. Sure I can get better prices online but that`s not everything.

I design my own tower. In my case it`s simple stuff like surfing, pics and so on. It needs to be fast for 3d gaming and it also has to be able to run powerful music software so my current box is like this. Quad core processor, 2gig of memory ( I run xp ) 500 gig hard drive, 3d effects card and enough usb ports so I can add all my other stuff, printer, camera and so on.

DatabaseError

I know a lot of people recommend Dell...but a very large chunk of hardware issues discussed on this forum are with Dell machines.
...I won't bother putting 2 and 2 together

bookduck

Tracey, another option is to give your parents your computer and you buy an upgrade?

chunter

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/156175
Acer M1610 Desktop,Intel Dual Core E2160 1.8GHz, 160GB HDD, 1GB RAM, DVDRW, SIS Mirage, Keyboard and mouse,Vista Home Premium +19" widescreen Monitor

£280 delivered.