Acer T180 PC & 17" TFT Tesco Offer 1 day only £299.97: Is this a good buy?

Nenen

Hi all techies

We are looking to buy a cheap but reliable computer for our teenagers to use (to keep them off the one dh and I use for work etc). They need it for coursework, internet browsing (especially MSN and Myspace) and play a few games (but not game mad). We'd like it to be suitable to take to University next year if possible.

I just got an email from Tesco 'offer of the day' for the Acer T180 PC & 17" TFT with £50 off until tomorrow (Tuesday) at 10 am. Spec mentioned is:
AMD Sempron 3200,
17" TFT monitor
512MB RAM,
80GB hard drive &
dual layer DVD burner all for only £299.97


I'd really appreciate anyone with any knowledge of Acer/Tesco deals to advise if this is a bargain or not! :beer:

Zagu

Its fine for internet use/coursework, but I wouldnt expect it to play new games too well. Still worth the money imo.

vetfred

It's advertised on their site for that price but no mention of a monitor thrown in, so I would think as long as the monitor is definitely in what you're buying, you can't go too wrong for the price to be honest: http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.200-1488.aspx

Probably not going to be able to handle new or more demanding games as Zagu said, but for some lower spec games and most general uses, it should be fine.

Blacksheep1979

£35 cpu
£15 mobo
£70 monitor
£20 memory
£25 hd
£20 DVD-RW
£25 case and psu
£10 mouse n keyboard

£220 roughly - also its acer, which on their cheaper models definately have issues with reliability.

If it doesn't have the monitor its def not that good and there are people selling the same spec acer for £20-30 less online.

rsykes2000

Acers are fine, I've bought 25/30 of the T180s with no problems - they also use standard components from decent manufacturers - gigabyte motherboards for example. It is definitely a good deal if it includes the monitor.
And for Blacksheep - I'd like to buy components at the prices you quote - let me know where your supplier is ? Cheapest for the Gigabyte mobo is around 35 (20 quid extra), you forgot the licenced copy of Windows (60 quid), speakers (7 quid), the case is far better quality than any 25 quid case I've seen etc, more in the 40/50 pound range. As for the monitor, if it's one of the Acer ones you can add another 30 quid on, not seen them for more than a few pennies under 100.

Blacksheep1979

well for £100 (monitor wise) I'd be looking at getting an ebuyer value 19" one...

The case is worth nowhere near £50, says it doesn't come with speakers and nowhere does it mention a gigabyte board and personally I wouldn't rate gigabyte boards in general as that good - there are far better manufacturers out there.

How long have you had these computers as in my experience Acer seems to suffer an unusually high failure rate?

Zagu

Blacksheep1979 wrote: »

£35 cpu
£15 mobo
£70 monitor
£20 memory
£25 hd
£20 DVD-RW
£25 case and psu
£10 mouse n keyboard

A 17" for £70 inc.? £25 for a case and PSU? Plus XP, and some sort of guarantee, Id still say its a fair price, especially as the OP appears to have no desire to home build.

Blacksheep1979

well you get as much of a guarantee from buying the parts seperately and in some cases more. I was just trying to give the op some indication of the retail value of the parts - which should indicate the 'value' of the package.

http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/cat/Cases/subcat/*Bundle-Deals

that covers the mous n keyboard as well (ok £5 more than I said)

and

http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/125346

£5 under budget with speakers, mouse and keyboard.

rsykes2000

Blacksheep1979 wrote: »

well for £100 (monitor wise) I'd be looking at getting an ebuyer value 19" one...

The case is worth nowhere near £50, says it doesn't come with speakers and nowhere does it mention a gigabyte board and personally I wouldn't rate gigabyte boards in general as that good - there are far better manufacturers out there.

How long have you had these computers as in my experience Acer seems to suffer an unusually high failure rate?

For £100 I'd rather have what I consider a decent Acer 17" (got and installed around 15) that an ebuyer 'value' 19". Yes the screen size is smaller but the quality is higher - I've also bought dabsvalue ones and they aren't as well made, cables they come with are inferior etc.
I've had 10 or so of them for a year and a half, the rest around 8/9 months. In my experience, PCs tend to either fail very soon after purchase (normally HD or PSU) or not for a long while after. I've no complaints aout the Acers. As for the cases, I've looked at what you get for 40 quid from ebuyer/dabs and these are better quality, yes you can get decent ones for around 30 quid but they tend not to come with PSU - eg Antec SLK300B from ebuyer - 31 quid + PSU (20 for a halfway acceptable one). All the T180s I've got in the past have come with speakers. Pretty crappy ones I will freely admit, and the Tesco one might not come with them, but you can get speakers for under a tenner nowadays that will do the job for most office work (not gaming or serious music listening obviously). All the Acers I've got come with gigabyte motherboards - can't quote exact models as not got one in front of me as I'm home now but could check tomorrow. As for the bundles of case/keyboard etc, they are poor in comparison to the ones the Acers come with. The Acer case is *excellent* for the money IMO and far better than the cheap ones from ebuyer.

Blacksheep1979

My reasoning behind the ebuyer value one compared to the acer one was the couple of acer monitors i've seen were terrible, blurring on the screen (ie v poor response time) and generally very plasticy and nasty.

jamalfatty

You can get better specced systems with a 19" TFT for same amount or even less if you use Quidco etc from Dell