Advice requested to buy mid cheapish pc

katglasgow

My son is 15 and i think he could really do with his own computer for study (at the moment the whole family is sharing 1 very old laptop). He has a keyboard, monitor and mouse so he says he would prefer a hard drive unit to a laptop as we will get something better spec for our money. He doesnt need the machine for gaming as he has an x box already so this is purely for internet and Microsoft office but I would like to get his somethins reasonably ok that will last a while.
My budget is £300. Our laptop came from tracks and was a great buy I have been really pleased with it but I am not so sure where to go for hard drives or best advice on what does matters.
I would really appreciate some suggestion please.
Thanks in advance k

Neil_Jones

What do you mean by "prefer hard drive unit to a PC"? Do you mean a hard drive you plug into a USB port?

For purely internet use you can get cheapish laptops for £300 you don't need anything super super powerful to go on the internet.

katglasgow

What I meant is not hard drive but pc tower instead of a laptop. Sorry for the confusion!
We would like something copes with all the usual Microsoft office paxkahes but also a descent graphics card might be good as he is taking graphics communications and or sound card card also. I am going to encourage him to use ms one drive for storage so memory for own material not a huge issue.

Heedtheadvice

It is true that a desktop/tower system can be cheaper like for like and is easier to expand or update later (and I prefer to use on for serious usage) but has it's downsides too in terms of lack of portability.


There are refurbished bargains in laptops that are great and covered on several threads on the site. You can still use external keyboard etc if usb with plenty of usb ports on the laptop and one with a solid state drive would be much better than a hard drive in terms of speed but cost a little more.


Do however beware of some of the recent cheap offers of laptops with a limited drive size advertised as suitable and ready loaded with windows 10. Windows needs to update frequently and some with only 30GB drives fail to cope with updates. Something like 40 to 50 GB should be aimed for as a minimum.


If he needs storage for his work and backups (always a good idea!!!!) then an external drive can be used as well as online storage.


Edit:

Given your budget I would forget about extra video and sound cards. Not really necessary and money better spent on backup facility and memory/disk size.

debitcardmayhem

Dell refurbed https://outlet.euro.dell.com/Online/SecondaryInventorySearch.aspx?c=uk&cs=ukdfh1&l=en&s=dfh&sign=PXhcOSHtr1T4IOw%2fPR7UdaHHZ2DQZFUoSiWdCq9GHs1Oa8PfAQY9cCOITcOW4%2bPW97OglA4WoN3ASgBCLPp3k4OF3xvOiREHhApIljeuapKQ1y3ctNE1Rt5n28ym%2fhLLiyUFuKPGAX1jw0wfRuTR8QUwRaE0l%2fePwCsbXTRKJ5GzDuW1ZTryL7Vxd1f08SOshS1tPeJAt2nEN35NhpDJtWDAKErvqGeX


No Graphics card though but i5-7 series and 8GB of ram.

grumpycrab

katglasgow wrote: »

My budget is £300. Our laptop came from tracks and was a great buy

"tracks"? Sounds like minimal requirements but I'd always go for best processor you can afford. And an SSD makes a BIG difference to performance. The downside with SSDs is they're a bit small, but if storage size isn't an issue (music, pics, videos...) stick with them. A refurb will be best value but my processor knowledge is poor (you will get more useful suggestions from others). This for starters.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/HP-Professional-Antivirus-Certified-Refurbished/dp/B071YNPF12/
EDIT: 8GB memory (RAM) also recommended

Anthorn

katglasgow wrote: »

My son is 15 and i think he could really do with his own computer for study (at the moment the whole family is sharing 1 very old laptop). He has a keyboard, monitor and mouse so he says he would prefer a hard drive unit to a laptop as we will get something better spec for our money. He doesnt need the machine for gaming as he has an x box already so this is purely for internet and Microsoft office but I would like to get his somethins reasonably ok that will last a while.
My budget is £300. Our laptop came from tracks and was a great buy I have been really pleased with it but I am not so sure where to go for hard drives or best advice on what does matters.
I would really appreciate some suggestion please.
Thanks in advance k

Look at the "Certified Refurbished" deals on Amazon because you get a minimum 1 year guarantee. For example a Dell Optiplex box for £62.94p and if you add the recommended monitor, keyboard and mouse the total is £155.25p.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/enabled-Dell-Optiplex-Certified-Refurbished/dp/B01H5OFUIK/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1537006422&sr=8-8&keywords=dell+optiplex+refurbished

I bought my grandson a Certified Refurbished Dell Optiplex from Amazon and he loves it. Does the job for study.

Frozen_up_north

I too have a Dell Optiplex, mine came from an eBay refurbisher. Supply of refurbished Dells varies, quite obviously, but if you don't mind a second user office PC, they are good value.

In June I got an i7, 16GB RAM, 128GB SSD, dual monitor graphics card, fresh install of genuine Win 10 Home, £220 delivered with 6 months warranty. Unlike a new PC, which often come contaminated with junk software that can be tedious to remove, these Dells are usually clean installs of Windows. It runs like greased lightning and boots in just a few seconds.

Dell have a useful utility program that semi automatically updates drivers, bios, etc.

The points to check are, video output (mine has 2 x Display Port) and whether the CD/DVD is a writer as most office machines tend not to have DVD writers. However, monitor cables are only about £5~10 and an external USB powered DVD writer (if needed) is about £12.

DCFC79

katglasgow wrote: »

but also a descent graphics card might be good as he is taking graphics communications and or sound card card also.

What does graphics communications entail ?

that

Dell Optiplex box for £62.94p and if you add the recommended monitor, keyboard and mouse the total is £155.25p.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/enabled-Dell-Optiplex-Certified-Refurbished/dp/B01H5OFUIK/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1537006422&sr=8-8&keywords=dell+optiplex+refurbished

These above are quite old. At work we threw them away a few years ago. They were mainly core 2 duo, think 3ghz with hyper threading, Would suggest you get something newer, still they held their own compared to the first version of i3 series

Get a dell ebay refurb like a Dell 7010 about £120, or similar spec

John_Gray

that wrote: »

These above are quite old. At work we threw them away a few years ago.

It looks like the ones which you throw away are bought by our charity! If people just do a bit of Office and browsing there's no need for a new PC. Our oldest dates from 2007, and still works adequately (having been upgraded from XP to W7 some years ago).

Certainly +1 for second-hand Dell Optiplexes, and also for the HP dc7700/7900/8000/8100... series.