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ABH_3

chaucer wrote: »

thanks for comments...are you suggesting vostro due to higher spec CPU?

Yes.

what sort of applications / PC use involves encoding/decoding?

Just about all of them, if you're likely to want to display any hi-def material on your pc for instance, you could upgrade your gpu so it outputs hdmi in which case you could require your pc to do some scaling to get the image to display correctly on your chosen tv. It's quite complicated topic to break down. There are a lot of 'ifs' as you never know what your specific requirements are untill you're faced with them.

Generally however, if you wanted at a later date to install a dual-tuner card so you can record and watch a channel on your tv that would require processor (and ram) intensive work, likewise if you wanted to rip a dvd to convert to divx\xvid the processor would come into play in reducing the amount of time it could take. You could for instance setup your pc so it displayed a selection of your ripped movies using something like MyMovies http://www.mymovies.dk/screenshots.aspx or you may want to covert vhs to dvd at some stage as I said you tend not to know untill you are faced with it.

If you're not personally going to be playing games on the system, I would focus more on what you want to do and less on the grandchildren afterall, they'll probably have a pc\xbox at home. Or you could as f1charlie says upgrade at a later date as it's a bit easier to upgrade a gpu than it is a cpu.

HTH

f1charlie

BillScarab wrote: »

The Vostro has the best CPU and Graphics Card. It may be worth looking carefully at the monitor though as it is a different one to the others and is described as being a "value" one so may not be such a good spec.

They have the same model number, apart from the S, which I assumed stood for 'silver'.

BillScarab

f1charlie wrote: »

They have the same model number, apart from the S, which I assumed stood for 'silver'.

Doh, I just saw the word 'value' and that the model number started with a different letter. Never noticed the rest of it. :embarasse

chaucer

vostro has best price, cpu and graphics

monitor mmm, need to look in detail

internal wireless...need to look in detail


also...worth pointing out another ....

vostro has vista ultimate compared to home premium in inspirons - is this a good thin given my likely usage?

ABH_3

chaucer wrote: »

vostro has best price, cpu and graphics

Decision made then

monitor mmm, need to look in detail

Why? If it's not suitable, stick it on ebay or sell it through the small-ads and buy another one.

internal wireless...need to look in detail

Why? b\g is quite fast, it's only going to be used for internet connectivity I assume? Wireless networking is s..l..o..w so I would avoid that, iirc 'n' standard is the latest, you can pretty much assume that either by firmware upgrade or by design it's going to be suported.

also...worth pointing out another ....

vostro has vista ultimate compared to home premium in inspirons - is this a good thin given my likely usage?

Apparantly according to this: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/editions/choose.mspx you can't get any better, so it had better be good enough. If you send it back to dell they will only give you about £13 for it then you'll have to find a copy of xp to replace it with.

HTH

BillScarab

Vista Ultimate includes all of the features of Home Premium and Business. Have a look here for details Vista Editions

It retails for around £270 so for me that would seal it, the Vostro is the best choice.

chaucer

ABH wrote: »

b\g is quite fast

don't know what this is ...?

it's only going to be used for internet connectivity I assume?

correct - through a Bt home hub and ... on that theme

Wireless networking is s..l..o..w so I would avoid that

will my speed be compromised if I go wireless through the Home Hub? .. the wireless card is an optional add-on .. maybe not necessary?

Is it worth the extra £15 ish from Dell?

you can't get any better (than vista ultimate) so it had better be good enough.

yes, that puts some perspective on it !! :-)


Beginning to see clearly now.........thanks all

ABH_3

chaucer wrote: »

don't know what this is ...?

Heres a technical wiki on the subject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11 and here's a less technical explanation: http://compnetworking.about.com/cs/wireless80211/a/aa80211standard.htm (it's about.com... turn on your popup blocker!)

correct - through a Bt home hub and ... on that theme

It shouldn't be a problem in that case.

will my speed be compromised if I go wireless through the Home Hub? .. the wireless card is an optional add-on .. maybe not necessary?

With wireless you've got to think about security, ie: WEP\WPASK but yes speed will be diminished slightly, it's not as good as a wired connection. But this really depends upon the speed of your internet connection anyway. My comment was more towards sending files over a home network, as that can be slow when using wireless at least it was for me using the Wireless 'G' standard.

Is it worth the extra £15 ish from Dell?

Yes, it will sell for around £15 even if you don't use it. If you don't buy it at the point of purchase then go back to dell and ask to purchase it afterwards, they'll ask twice that.

yes, that puts some perspective on it !! :-)

Beginning to see clearly now.........thanks all

You're welcome.

chaucer

Thanks everyone so far...

I am now looking at this as a purchase - offer ends today

Dell VostroTM 400 DT - £601.33 (inc VAT & delivery)

Intel Core2 Duo E6550 processor (2.33GHz, 1333MHz, 4MB cache)
Windows Vista Ultimate
2048MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x1024]
Dell Wireless Bluetooth Keyboard and Optical Mouse
Dell 19" Value Wide Flat Panel (E198WFP)
Video Card 256MB nVidia GeForce 8600GT Graphics Card
320GB (7200rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive with 8MB DataBurst™ cache
19-in-1 Media Card Reader
Integrated 7.1 Channel High Definition Audio
16x DVD+/-RW & 16x DVD Drives
Internal Wireless PCI Card
Microsoft® Works 8.0 - English


A few minor questions over the worth of some optional add-ons from Dell

RE: sound card (I do listen to music on PC)

I could upgrade from
Integrated 7.1 Channel High Definition Audio
to
Integrated Sound Blaster® Audigy™ ADVANCED HD software [add £10.00 + VAT]

RE: use of a PCI slot (I do want to be able to back up quickly to an external hard drive...I do not use a camcorder)

I could add:
IEEE 1394 PCI Adapter card [add £8.51 + VAT]


RE: photo editing software (I do some work with images and digital photos)

I could add:
Corel® Snapfire™ Plus - Full Version [add £9.00 +VAT]
Corel® Paint Shop Pro® Photo XI - Full Version [add £29.00 + VAT]
or both including 200 free online prints [add £39 + VAT]


These add-ons, if I included them all, would take the total cost to: £668.90

Are they good value?

Are they necessary?

Thanks in advance...

BillScarab

"Integrated Sound Blaster® Audigy™ ADVANCED HD software [add £10.00 + VAT]" Is this actually a card or just some software? If it's just software I wouldn't bother.

No point in getting a firewire card, most external drives connect via USB 2 which is similar speed to firewire.

Personally I wouldn't bother with the Corel software either, Vista has nice tools for managing photos built in and you can Gimp for free for image editing.