help to select new computer

terrierlady

my sister needs to upgrade her old computer any thoughts on what is best, she has windows 98 with xp and had various problems along the way, she keeps a fair few files does book keeping at home,and surfs the internet a lot, hers has Igb of memory apart from that Im unsure what machine she may need. I think she has about £600-700 budget

nickmack

When you say 'upgrade', it generally means you keep certain components in your current PC and replace others or you 'upgrade' the operating system to a newer version.

If she's happy with the speed and current elements of her PC such as available disk space, DVD drives etc, then she may not need a new PC.

She may however wish to put a newer Operating System. Generally it is better to install an new OS such as Windows XP from a clean disk, therefore she would need to back up any documents and ensure she has installation disks for any programs she uses.

If she is looking to buy a new PC, then it doesn't sound like she needs anything too powerful. You should be able to easily pick up a computer with P4 processor, 1Gb RAM, 200Gb Hard Disk, plus a DVD-ReWriter within her budget. Have a look at deals on Dell, plus I'm sure others will recommend any other good current deals.

T4i

Dell.....simply cant build p.c cheaper than dell anymore, and thats making 0% profit from the self-build.

You dont need owt super powerful to do browsing, office tasks. Get a £400-500 package from Dell with a nice Dell TFT.

zappahey

You don't say how old her current machine is. If it has 1GB of memory, then chances are that it's reasonably recent and may only need to be straightened out with a bit of updating. Does she not have access to "someone who knows", that could take a quick look at what she has?

As stated above, there are generally some good deals available on Dell kit, especially if you remember to reduce the warranty to 1 year.

britters

Dabs Direct (UK) are currently advertising an HP Pavillion PC with pretty good spec for £199 incl VAT. CPU only, but if you're replacing an existing machine, you probably have all the peripherals you need.

Only one problem, however, Dabs is gaining a pretty bad reputation for customer service. If the machine arrives and works, you should be OK (it is HP after all), but if anything goes wrong, you could find youself in a world of pain:eek: .

Before you make a decision, you'd better visit this web site:

http://www.letsfixbritain.com/dabsdirect.htm

The best of luck.

nickmack

britters wrote:

Only one problem, however, Dabs is gaining a pretty bad reputation for customer service. If the machine arrives and works, you should be OK (it is HP after all), but if anything goes wrong, you could find youself in a world of pain:eek:

It's a shame, a few years ago, Dabs used to be top for PC components and peripherals. You could call them and their customer service was good. Now although their prices aren't bad, they have email support only and they can be unresponsive at times.