Any opinion on the Aldi / Medion PC Base Station next Thursday

THE_AMATUER

hotmama wrote: »

Hi , i have had a Medion from Aldi for approx 6 yrs. I have had no problems that required Customer Services. However over the last 6 months it has slowed considerably, Excel & Media Player have dissappeared and i could cook a Roast in the time it takes to load up!

I have considered buying a Dell Inspirion 530s - i'm not too hot on the techie specs. However have been told that if any problems you have to go back to Dell whose service is not greatest.

Is this true? Does the product quality surpass poor customer service?

Any advice welcome - budget of 400 - use for everyday stuff, only need base unit.

You may not need another PC. Do you clear the temporary internet files, delete software you no longer need? Also the amount of RAM could be an issue, 512MB RAM minimum is recommened for XP (VISTA requires 1GB minimum). If you have less a quick upgrade of RAM would help you.

Also you need to defrag your PC. This should be done on a fairly regular basis and will speed your PC up.

Also download CC Cleaner. Its a free utility that scans your PC and finds all temporary and un-needed files and deletes them. I run mine regularly and it frees up loads of space.

Also things like checking your Windows Updates may help.

Inactive

Good advice;.. The Amatuer.;)

deanos

Reggie_Rebel wrote: »

The Dell i mentioned above has nexrt day onsite warranty included

But only for a year as opposed to 3 with the Medion and you quote was for VHB the Medion has HVP. What's the price of your Dell with 3 years warranty and VHP?

The Dell one is £444 including 3yr next day business warranty and a 19" Widescreen monitor, take off the monitor and its £356.03, then there is 5% Quidco to take off that

The warranty is far better than the Medion one as the Dell one is next day guaranteed, Medion is when they can fit you in which could be over a week in my experience

COMPONENTS D022012

Base Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E4500 Processor (2.20GHz,800MHz,2MB cache)
Microsoft Operating System Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium - English
Enhanced Service Packs 3Yr Basic Warranty - Next Business Day
Monitor Dell™ 19" Value Wide Flat Panel (E198WFP) - UK/Irish
Memory 2048MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x1024]
Hard Drive 500GB (7200rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive with 16MB DataBurst™ cache
Video Card 128MB ATI® Radeon™ HD 2400 Pro graphics card
Optical Devices 16x DVD+/-RW & 16x DVD Drives
Keyboard Dell™ Entry Quietkey USB Keyboard - UK/Irish (QWERTY)
Mouse Dell 2 Button USB Optical Mouse

Cantdance_2

Any of these Dell PCs have HDMI out, 6 channel audio output and the media player remote control? Those were the things I was really impressed by.

I'd also be interested to know how easy it would be to install an HD-DVD/Blu-Ray drive into one of these!

Cheers

James

P.S. LOL - just read my signature after posting this, looks like a new PC is the last thing I need!

deanos

Cantdance wrote: »

Any of these Dell PCs have HDMI out, 6 channel audio output and the media player remote control? Those were the things I was really impressed by.
!

The dell is 7 channel audio iirc, no HDMI or remote control, depends on your needs the base unit from dell is £260 so you are paying £140 extra for those extra bits from Aldi, alot of people wont need HDMI output or remote , i have a remote with my current Targa PC but ive only used it once with the freeview card, so its something i dont need.

Swings and roundabouts i guess

Cantdance_2

Thanks for the info!

I'd be using it mostly as a Media PC, firstly in my room where I'm living now (so remote would be really nice and handy as I keep having to get out of bed!) and then hopefully in my lounge when I move where I'd be connecting it to a 42" LCD (so HDMI is a must!)

It's all academic cause I don't have £400 right now but I'm going to keep an eye on what's out there for when my house sale goes through!

James

deanos

There are plenty of cheap Dell deals about quite regularly if you miss out on the Aldi one , you have the option of adding a tv card/remote in the spec when you order, dunno if they have HDMi tho

Cantdance_2

So did anyone pick up one of these today?!

Estherr

Hi
I bought the Aldi PC yesterday and spent today setting it up. I have two problems! One is my Samsung monitor which needs a connector (supplied) to connect it to the new PC, but it now has a vile yellow/green tinge - makes me feel sick! Any ideas anyone?
Also how do I get my ipod/itunes to work with my ipod library?
Thanks in advance!
Esther

Welliesorter

I bought one. They still had stock in the Syston (near Leicester) branch on Thursday afternoon.

The case is identical to that of my old Medion, except that it has a bay for one of Medion's weird external hard drives on top.

The keyboard and mouse are the boggiest of bog starndard, so I'm using my old wireless ones, which worked without the need to install any drivers. It seems fairly decent otherwise. The 2GB that you get is sufficient for Vista, but even that seems silly when you consider that 512MB is fine for XP.

The one drawback I've found so far is that it has no analogue output for the monitor. It comes with a DVI-VGA adapter but I can only choose between 800x600 and 1024x768, neither of which is correct for the small widescreen LCD TV that I use as a monitor. This is only really an issue when using it for TV or DVDs. My other PC monitor has DVI so I'll probably swap them at some point. I haven't got round to connecting it to my main TV so I don't know how well it works via HDMI.

Despite my reservations about Vista, I must confess to being quite impressed with Windows Media Center, which comes with Vista Home Premium. It's a huge improvement on the imitations that I've used before.

If anyone has any concerns about buying a Medion, have a look at http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/hot-topics/news/143826/ .