New computer - where to look?

penrhyn

None really, but they will probably want a wireless router to go with the laptop.

Nesima

Have bought 5 Dell's over the years (1 desktop, 4 laptops).

They have all been good value for money.

Buying a PC is a bit like buying a car, you need to decide how much you want to spend and what you want to use it for. The vast majority of new PC's today will do everything the average user needs.

A mid range Dell Inspiron 530 would be good value, have a look at this (remember to reduce the warranty to 1 year to get the best price):

http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&oc=d115010&dgc=AF&cid=5212&lid=122756

sihart68

Another site that seeks out the best deals is: http://www.pc-how-to.com/desktop-pc/new-pc.htm. You can get something really very good for £500 these days, just make sure you get 2GB of Ram if buying a Vista machine.

As for finding someone to set it up for them, word of mouth is always best. Get them to ask their friends and neighbours if they have used anyone they have been happy with. Another idea is to look in their local news sheet and get somebody local, doing a good job should be important to these guys because they want the word to spread.

spakkker

Try and avoid vista for the time being as there are conflicts upon conflicts. A five hundred quid machine will send your parents to the moon -unnecessary- get a box for 200 quid and a moniter that they like , eg. 19 inch- 99quid.

Spark

I got a destop PC from this place beginning of this year :
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/pcranges.html
Good company with excellent customer service.
They have a live chat facility so you can ask if they could install window XP instead of Vista if they got any Window XP available. Or any other question for that matter.
Only problem I've found is that the delivery came one week late because it showed as in stock when I paid online, but in reality they were waiting for some to be built. But I was informed of everything along the way.
The PC I have has worked straight out of the box and I had no problems with it so far.