Aldi Medion MD880 vs Lidl Targa 3700+ PC's

norm_diploom

I'm looking to buy a mid-range, reasonably future proof desktop PC for home and small business use, will be used for home wireless multimedia and broadband besides the usual office tasks - and comparing the current Aldi special (Medion MD880 - £750), and the Mon 3rd April Lidl special (£699), I'm finding it difficult to work out what's the best value. The Medion has Intel dual core 3.0 processor, while the Targa has Athlon 3700. Both have good-sized hard disks (250 / 300 GB), and 1024 Mb RAM. The Aldi one seems to be particularly user-friendly, with good reviews, although with the Lidl one it's hard to tell because they don't give any information on the website other than a short specification list. I would really appreciate any feedback from anyone who knows about this stuff or has direct experience. Thanks in advance!

Roger_Rampant

Firstly the Quick! Grabbit forum is for posting things you've found that are so low in price they won't last very long

Secondly it depends on what you want your PC to do, but you'd probably be better off going for one of Dell's special offers. You can buy a lot of PC nowadays for the sort of money you're thinking of spending, and those two products probably don't offer the best value-for-money

fifo_2

You say home and small business use ? Are you playing games ?

The only reason to spend £700 on a PC is to play games. If it is for business activities, then the cheapest possible.

OH used to have a policy of not spending more than £300 / 350 on a base unit. He said that this was £1 a day for a year to his business, and if he got any more out of it, it was a bonus. Once the year was up, and it died or there was a problem, with it being out of guarentee, time to get a new one, let somebody have the old one and waste their time trying to fix it.

Nothing computer wise is "future proof" ! Think of it as "dead money", the depreciation on a PC is massive. Once you have spent the money it's gone, so don't think oh it will be worth X second hand.

However, he did invest in an Aldi for about £800 two years ago, which had a 3 year guarantee. It broke and the service was very good.

However to be honest all facilities are wasted, as it is being used for a small business, to the expensive graphics and TV cards are a waste of money, he does not use it for games.

If I were you, Aldi are doing a £380 machine with a 3 year guarantee. If it is for small business and no gaming, then that is an ideal purchase. Three years guaranteed small business usage for £380, then in three years it will be time to get a new one anyway.

norm_diploom

Thanks for the constructive replies - what you both say makes sense, and I'll have a look at the £380 Aldi vs Dell specials. Cheers!