TESCO 3GHz Athlon PC AND phillips 17" TFT monitor

john-boi

Bear in mind that this PC is a very basic spec in the sense that it has a Fast processor to get your intention then it has a £30 hard drive £40 worth of RAM.The graphics are the worse you can get at the moment 64mb of shared onboard graphics.

This will not run any of the latest games adequately.

You would have to add £100 to this price (for a decent graphics card) to get an adequate system that will run games.

I have a foot in both camps here I can see Krakens point that building your own is the only way to get a high overall spec PC for the cheapest price.

But paying a bit more if you know what to specify means you can get a good PC with an adequate spec including warrenty and someone to hold your hand if it goes wrong etc.

If you haven't got the time or inclination to build your own PC be prepared to pay a bit more to get a soilid system and don't be taken in by these cheap offer PC's unless all you need it for is emails,internet and a word processor

TeamMCS

Bear in mind that this PC is a very basic spec in the sense that it has a Fast processor to get your intention then it has a £30 hard drive £40 worth of RAM.The graphics are the worse you can get at the moment 64mb of shared onboard graphics.

This will not run any of the latest games adequately.

You would have to add £100 to this price (for a decent graphics card) to get an adequate system that will run games.

I have a foot in both camps here I can see Krakens point that building your own is the only way to get a high overall spec PC for the cheapest price.

But paying a bit more if you know what to specify means you can get a good PC with an adequate spec including warrenty and someone to hold your hand if it goes wrong etc.

If you haven't got the time or inclination to build your own PC be prepared to pay a bit more to get a soilid system and don't be taken in by these cheap offer PC's unless all you need it for is emails,internet and a word processor

..But saying that you can have teh best of both worlds...

..Get a local computer centre (the kind which deals with the local community only) to build a customized pc for you. Get them to go through everything with you, make sure you are happy with the outlay they have suggested.

You'll have to pay a little extra but you can be assured you're getting what you want. However i still stand by the point that unless you know exacltly what you're doing and dont need to rely on anyone else - do not buy a home build (or friend built ) machine however much your son my sing

culpepper

Well I build my own but this sounds lke a good deal to me.
I wouldnt build for outside my family because its just too much hassle.Things dont always go right first time and I wouldnt want to guarantee everything they are expecting is what they're going to get.
Retailers lay it all out in black and white and you read it ,like it,then go get it if . You are paying for someone else to take the hassle if things are not right first time.Some people would just rather do it that way.

Tils

Even building a PC can be hassle even when you know what your doing when bits dont work!

Tils

reddyman

If you buy decent quality parts, I dont see how building your own will be a problem.

You can mix and match components to suit you. Who wants that !!!!!! hp printer that tesco are supposodly giving for "free" anyways?! What if you want a laser printer, what use is theirs to you?

Also these days the chances of components failing are so low that most components will become working obselete and outdated before they actually burnout and stop working.

Any muppet can build a PC. All the info is on the net, its like putting together a simple jigsaw puzzle. Can be a bit fiddly but worth it in the end.

The technical support that tesco and others offer is practically useless. Unless you are completely computer illerate.

Majority of ppl who use these support lines do so for the software side and not the hardware side. Cos most simple computers simply dont stop working on the hardware side. It most likely always the sofware side and settings etc that cause problems.

With the internet any person with comman sense can fix the sofware side of a PC. Thats what search engines are for. I dont know enough about PC, yet whenever I get a problem I dont go crying to PC world to tell them to fix it for me. A simple search and someone somewhere has already had your problem and will show you how to solve it.

Last resort if you can stil get it to work then make backups and do a full format on your harddrive and re-install.

Why rely on someone else taking your PC away to sort it out. They take ages and even then sometimes cant solve your problem. (EG stupid idiots at PC world) Rather sort it myself in a few hours or a few days than wait a few weeks.

ALL IMO of course!

JPS

Even building a PC can be hassle even when you know what your doing when bits dont work!

Tils

Hear hear! ::)

Brown_Hacker

Hear hear! ::)

What's the lowest that an identical spec machine could be built for? I would guess about £380 max. I may not be great at computers but I'm certainly not idiot enough to throw away good money!

krakan

Krakan - you're starting to bore me now.

Starting to bore you? With what, pray tell? How many of my other posts have bored you, may I ask?

People want to buy computers that are high spec and ready to go and carry a reassuringly recognisable brandname

They want to buy them as high spec as possible so that they last longer.

They want them from big, recognisable names that carry with them a certain reassurance that Krakan Computers seems to be missing!

They want a national phone number when things go wrong - not a friend of a friend who thinks he knows what the problem is but "be prepared to buy a new hard drive"!!

People do indeed want to buy a high spec ready-to-roll machine with a brand name, but surely even you realise this is the con - the things is only branded Philips because they decided to build it, do you really think they do it any different to how I or countless other OEMs build their machines? Just because they use cheaper components and slave labour to do the assembly doesn't mean you're getting as good a machine at a lower price! I'm prepared to accept the TFT Screen is probably Philips branded, bt I'd be rather surprised if another single component was Philips, and indeed to the people who don't know/need to know about their PC, it's worth bearing in mind that the components inside the machine are often the cheaper ones with the impressive numbers which we honest syste builders have learned to avoid - selling rubbish with a fancy description is a sure fire way to go bust as many of my competitors have discovered.

Any what makes you so certain that 'krakan computers' offers less reassurance? OK, I'm just a bloke on the internet but I wasn't genuinely sugggesting people starting cutting cheques here and now and pouring their money into my bank account! What I was trying to bring to you attention was that you will get a MUCH BETTER DEAL from your local PC dealer, who does the job because he loves it and knows it inside out, and more importantly, will be able to fix your problems properly. How often do you imagine Tesco will sit down and spend 4 hours (or indeed take the machine home and sit up all night) attempting to recover those pictures from your holiday last year? Sound likely? Or more likely they'll simply replace it with another one, another box, another 'unit' because after all, all our hapless consumer wants is a high-spec machine which works out of the box, right? No need to worry about 'servicing' it when you sell them and treat them as 'units'. Fact is, e-Machines, the brand Tesco and a few others have been pushing of late, do break down as often as other PCs because THEY'RE STILL BUILT FROM PC COMPONENTS! When you take them back, they'll reaplace the broken component and, if it's a HDD then they'll reinstall Windows for you. They won't recover your work, they won't attempt to do it while you wait, they won't offer suggestions as to how you might prevent problems occurring again or at least predict them if they do. They're no more interested in any of that than the spotty kid at Dixons is going to show you how to get the most out of your new Microwave.

And as for the telephone support line, why must everyone pick their designated 'IT Genius' for advice? Why not phoned the place you bought it, where there is real IT expertise? Buy your PC from a small builder in town, and you'll get much better advice than this 'national phone number' you espouse. You think that's help you're getting? That call centre in Bangalore you've phoned is staffed by people working to a required number of calls per hour, working from a script. PC Users seem to have a fixation with asking someone they feel comfortable with dealing with every time something goes wrong - ie a family member, close friend, a pet perhaps, but what they seem to miss is that the 'expert' whose help they're enlisting is no more an expert than he is an astronaut, and this is where most of the problems lie. You have this conception that support from anyone without an 0845 number is going to be 'shady' - when in fact this is based soley on the fact that the help you've tried to get in the past hasn't been from an IT professional, and therefore is quite obviously not going to be as good! If I get a local engineer to fit my new gas cooker instead of British Gas, because I wans a 'national phone number' when things go wrong, would I phone a 'friend of a friend...' when they do? No, of course not, I'd phone the engineer. If you want to call a 'friend of a friend' then go right ahead, but you're just being a fool here because you know very well you'd phone the person who built the computer, rather than this 'friend of a friend...' of yours.

Before you jump down my throat btw, 'you' in the preceding text refers not to YOU per se, rather it means a great number of people I have seen in the past, rolling up with small problems execerbated enormously by people who were 'helping' because the customer was too short-sighted to bring it in to us first.

Don't be ridiculous about not needing the speed if you can't build one yourself - that's simply idiotic! They want them to run the latest games or handle DV or multi-task lots of different progs all at the same time - what else would you need the speed for?
What specialist use are YOU going to make of 3 ghz that they are not?

Don t be so bloody patronising! ::)

Yes, you're absolutely right, and I take your points about the latest software etc. requiring high-end PCs. But two points need raising here:

1) This isn't a high performance machine. It's an incredibly cheap machine with a fast CPU.
2) Game players are mainly (MAINLY) fairly young, certainly younger than I. These people aren't stupid enough to buy a PC from Tesco. PCs aren't, I reapeat AREN'T simply cute electronic boxes which just 'work' in the same sense a hi-fi, television of cooker do. Have a look on the internet, see what difference the year of manufacture of the same brand of RAM can make to system performance. These PCs are built to sell, with flashy numbers in place of Specs and a nice shiny box. But they're not very good at all I'm afraid.

And tell me, oh sage, how many of the people who come and buy these PCs will use the for 'the latest games or handle DV'? Or will most of the use them for internet access, playing the odd bit of music and creating xmas cards every year in publisher? For these people, we sell PCs for under £300 all in and they do the job just as well. Are you seriously telling e that if you wanted a PC for Video Editing then you'd go to Tesco and buy a boxed PC??!? No, didn't think so. These machines are deliverately targeted at people who don't know what they want. To use an analogy from another poster..

And ye Krakan I have never heard such nonsense as what you said....why on earth do you need to know how a computer works in order to make full use of it?! What you are saying is so silly! If someone doesn't know how a car works but has a driving license, and is given a really nice fast car to drive, should they not be allowed to go as fast as they want because they don't know how it "goes together"?!

No that's not what I'm saying, don't be short sighted. What I'm saying, is that it's a little unethical to be selling an MG Roadster to an old lady who wants something reliable, which has this sacred 'brand nae' and which 'just works out of the box' to go down to Tesco once a week in. Understand?



If you want to know how much this things should cost, take a look at the specs.

It has onboard Graphics, says john-boi.
Onboard graphics eh? So 64MB of your 512B System RAM is already taken up by your graphics adapter, and worse yet, your RAM is now segented because it has to serve as both Video RAM and System RAM. Great. Also, the RAM used by the system is a fraction of the speed of proper video RAM, so there's a huge performance dip for starters. Add to this the video card is rubbish and already we're ruled out the latest games - see how good Doom 3 looks on this PC compared to one your local PC shop could build for the price.
512MB RAM - about £45 or so
80GB HDD - about £30
3GHz Athlon processor. Firstly, it's an Athlon 3000+ so don't be fooled. These run at 2.16GHz but alledgedly can perform as well as a Pentium 4 3GHz so that's how they're named. Look it up on google if you're unsure. Secondly, it's a shocking waste of a powerful processor to put it in such a poor quality machine! But, £87 inc. VAT at Scan.
17" TFT monitor, £120 + VAT or so last tim I checked, and don't give me any rubbish about a Philips 'brand' TFT - you think Philips make LCD screens? At best, they supply the electroncs to calibrate the screen, but I assure you you won't find a difference.
Now stick in a DVD drive at about £15, and we're about ready to go aren't we? Legal copies of Windows XP aren't anyhting like £100. Indeed I'm guessing this Philips mahcine of your only has XP Home, so I'll add the same. £46.60 + VAT from Scan.co.uk right now. It's the OEM version, exactly the same as Philips buy.

So, add that up if you like. If you want, you buy the components and I'll come build it for you, and I'll also help you when it goes wrong (they do, you know)

bleugh

OH, GOOD GOD,

I dont know the exact spec, where does it say on board graphics?, where does it say the clock speed of the processor?

where does a review say that a phillips LCD is superior to a no name cheapy from scan?

the lCD costs around £200 to purchase seperatley, phillips lCD's are reviewed well generally, regardless of the actual panel used, you can be assured a philips LCD will be 'good'

i have no idea what brand the pc is, i don't care, i know that as a bundle, its a good deal, at this price i would not be able to make sufficient mark up to make it worth my while, i can offer a personal service, but i'm not going to be wanting calls on a sunday evening 18 months from now expecting me to pop round and sort out a configuration problem because i'm local.

there are arguments for and against these Computers,

for the 50% of the nation thats not at all tech savvy, go, buy a bundle deal!, preferably NOT from pC world, etc

for the 20% of the nation that are slightly tech savvy, go, shop round and get a better bundle deal from aldi/tesco/other NON PC specialist, you know a bit about computers and theres someone on the phone to help

for the other 30% of us that know a bit more about PC's, great, go out, buy the parts, put a coouple of days effort in, and be reassured in the knowledge you've spent the best part of a week reading reviews, comparing prices, purchasing, assembling and configuring the pc to your needs.

now, in work, lets say i get paid £300 a week or so

for some people, time is money, and the £150 quids worth of time (half a full working week, in hours) is better spent up front by getting a pre-made bundle!

some people just dont have time to build bundles,
some people get great satisfaction at building bundles
some people just want to swipe the credit card!

in summary, IF you can source a better equivalent bundle deal, post it, if you can't, shut up, people here know how to save money, heck, they found this website!

bleugh

incidentally, the cheapest PHILLIPS monitor is £215 at dabs

which leaves 370 for the base unit,

printer
keyboard
mouse
speakers
cables
case/PSU
motherboard
processor
memory
floppy drive
hard drive
DVD writer drive and software
operating system (XP)
extra software
warranty
graphics card (if its not an integrated one)