Advice re purchase of PC - Cheapest on Market at the moment

Princess_Fiona_2 · 19 July 2005 at 4:20PM

Dont know anything about megabytes, gigabytes. Just how to turn it off and on. Would like the internet at home. Dont want to play games just basic PC and then internet would do! Any advice as to which is the best/cheapest buy at the moment. Upto £500.

Also which is the best ISP (hope Ive got that right) on the market at the moment?

Thanks

PF

Rave · 19 July 2005 at 5:05PM

If you just want a decent PC for basic stuff you can't go far wrong with a Dell- keep an eye on the Shop but don't Drop and Grabbit forums where they regularly post up Dell special offers; recently for example you could get a PC with a nice 17" flat LCD monitor for £293 delivered.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=72749

Alternatively you can get a perfectly good laptop for under £400 now if you'd prefer to save space.

gemmaj · 20 July 2005 at 2:13PM

If the only thing you want is the internet then a second hand (but reasonable!) PC will do you fine. Don't know about in England but here in Guernsey I know someone picked up 2 Pentium 3s with 128mb ram (i.e. not new but not ancient!) for just a few quid at a local auction!!! These kind of PCs will run Word, Excel, and do dial-up internet with no problems. (as long as it has a modem and excel etc installed!)

Mind you, I wouldn't recommend you start editing your digital photos with it, it could get rather slow! On the other hand - my parents have a very old PC and they edit photos fine - mostly because they aren't very good with PCs so they say they go at the same speed as the computer!

As PCs are generally getting cheaper over time, you could use the old PC to get the hang of it, and upgrade later on if you want to start doing fancier things!