Got quite a bit to spend on Computer stuff-need help.

eBayaddict_2

Hi,

I have been given some money to purchase some Computer equipment.

The age range of the user is from as young as possible to teenager.

I need to purchase the following:

A monitor, a tower, a keyboard, headphones, a printer, a speaker system, a laptop.


I have £2,800 to spend.

For the first time in my life it's not about saving money, but I would of course like to get the BEST for my money.

I haven't the first clue about what to buy.

Any help would be gratefully received.xx.

posted_2

You could get a decent laptop and desktop for a grand or less, and pocket £1800+

[Deleted User]

What do you want to use the computer(s) for?

eBayaddict_2

posted wrote: »

You could get a decent laptop and desktop for a grand or less, and pocket £1800+

I have to spend the whole lot on computer stuff-I don't want to waste it by getting say an £800 laptop when I could get the exact same thing for £500.

The computers will be for children in all age ranges, before school, after school and in school holidays.

Forgot to say many thanks for your prompt replies.

[Deleted User]

How many PCs do you need to buy?!

eBayaddict_2

1 of everything.

seadee

Are there particular things you want them to be able to do, like gaming or audio and video editing?

Does it need to be a laptop or would a netbook be an alternative?

What will the printer be printing?

Would you consider Apple Macs?

eBayaddict_2

seadee wrote: »

Are there particular things you want them to be able to do, like gaming or audio and video editing?

Does it need to be a laptop or would a netbook be an alternative?

I need it for the children to use for homework, games - 1 can be using the laptop while other is using the other computer.

posted_2

Is this a present or insurance? £2800 buys a lot of computing power, possibly more than you need, you could cut the budget in half easily and get a decent desktop and laptop that will do the job.

MX5huggy

I would start with a HP colour Laserjet printer. Then I would spend £1k on the Laptop and the remainder on the desktop getting the biggest monitor. I would just go to Dell and get 3 year (seem to be offering 4th year warranty free) warranties.

clickclash

Even if you are going for the best you do NOT need to spend £2,800, you could buy 3 top of the line computers for that price. Buying the top end hardware only means you end up paying double for about a %10 increase in performance, its not worth it at all, and regardless of what people say, there is no such thing as 'future proofing' your machine.

What you want to aim for is buying what you need right now instead of thinking about years down the line, or 'future proofing' and instead putting the money you save toward buying a new computer in say, 4-5 years, no harm in that.

Right now there arent that many uses for things like a quad core or 8 gigs of ram, computer hardware is optimizing better then it use to so just throwing raw numbers around itsent really the best gauge of what you should be buying.

Most places will push a quad core for example. unless you have specific applications (like video encoding or 3D rendering) which will benefit from having more than 2 cores, it doesn't make sense to go with Quad Core or i7. Its totally useless for you, you will get a better price to performance ratio out of dual core chips.

You should also look closely at the extras that rack the price up on bundles that will never be useful for you, all those bells and whistles like HDMI ports, Integrated HDTV Hybrid Tuners, Crossfire, raid features, 1080p definition. All of these are pretty useless to people who dont specifically want them.

If you want any suggestions on bundles that I think will get you the best value for money I would be happy to post a few examples of ready made systems that are under £1000 and not only provide everything you listed but will be pretty much top of the line.