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My current Windows XP PC is giving up the ghost and needs replacing.
Currently this is the only PC in the house and it is used for all of the family needs, surfing, photos, music, e-mail, ipods, that sort of thing. It is also used for my wife for some light work duties from home, and I tend to dabble with spreadsheets.
I've got an idea of what I'm looking for now having done a little reaserch, that is, if I stick with a windows based PC - of course feel free to make any suggestions anyway.
Thing is, I'm old fashioned and looking at a desktop, tends to be a bit more bang for your buck, easier to upgrade etc. But it seems there are loads of laptops available now, and a growing range of tablets. Is it worth considering a laptop as a main computer? How much use might I get out of a tablet for surfing and e-mails, such that I would maybe then be fine with a slightly more basice PC alongside it?
I've only really got PC World local to me, but other than that, what are people's experiences of buying on-line? Mesh computers, Dino, that sort of thing. Are all builds fairly equal, or anythign to avoid? Same with the big boys that I'll be able to buy in the shops.
Oh, and just to really open the can of worms, a friend has suggested a Mac... I'm going to take a look and have a play for myself, I'd only really go for the basic version. Should I believe the hype? Or stick to what I know?
Any thoughts, opinions or experience appreciated.
Anything new will be different, WIndows because it's not XP, a mac because it's not a PC,so you will have to learn something new.
Budget?
Are you happy putting something together yourself?
I've been happy with Dell, at work and home, laptops and desktops, but you'll get many opinions here.
(How long before someone says Linux?!)
What do you mean by giving up the ghost? Getting slow? This is not the fault of the PC, it's the setup. Nothing's physically changed since the PC was new.
You can restore them to their original condition with a small amount of work.
Molgrips - PCI bus on the motherboard has failed.
richmars - I suppose budger up to £1k. And yes I would be happy assembling myself.
You'll get something pretty good for £1K.
There's been a few posts about new pc's over the last week or so. I think your big decision will be windows or mac.
I would have recommended Mesh Computers as I've bought a laptop from them in the past and the service was good when there was an issue.
But they've recently gone into liquidation and been bought by another company, so might give them a miss for a few months.
I've used Scan to buy computer parts and most recently an external hard disk....highly recommended.
Macs are nice I guess, I had one for two weeks till I took it back and bought a cheaper and better spec'd Windows based laptop instead.
You might consider a box at about £500 or so (say Dell desktop, or similar) plus a netbook for mobile browsing and so on.
In terms of spec, Intel Core i3 with 4GB of RAM and Windows 7 should do pretty much all you need; I'm afraid I don't know the AMD equivalents, but in theory you should get more bang for your buck.
For the netbook, £250 should get you something good; IMHO a tablet is very much a luxury - great fun if you have it, but not going to replace a real live proper computer. Samsung do great netbooks.
Have a look at an imac
£1k is way way more than you need.
You could get a great desktop for like £300, laptop for £5-600.