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After some advice from those more up to date with IT than me!
My Dad has been battling on with an old desktop PC I got from my work (looks like it is a 2010 model!) but it seems to be struggling and won't be Windows 11 compatible, the spec of it is:
- Dell Optiplex 390
- Intel i5-2400 @3.10GHz
- 8Gb RAM
- 230GB HDD Western Digital ATA 7200rpm (only 80Gb used)
- Windows 10 Pro
- MS Office Home and Student
I am interested in recommendations of a suitable spec desktop (maybe mini PC/NUC) that would be suitable for internet browsing, MS office letter writing etc. Not interested in a laptop or change to Apple/Chromebook as my father is in his 80s and I live overseas so looking for something that is familiar as possible to him whilst working better (current startup is 5min plus and applications take a long time to open).
I'm visiting the UK in a couple of weeks so wanting to get something that we can plug in and have up and running in a couple of hours as I am only with him for a few days.
Budget is not critical but open to new or secondhand and general recommendations of where to buy a PC. Does Dell outlet still exist?
Any advice appreciated.
Swapping that HDD for an SSD would fix 90% of the problems there if all he uses it for is the web and writing letters (who on earth is he writing to these days?) Granted he wouldn't have Windows 11 compatibility but 🤷♂️ does that matter in this particular use case?
Failing that, literally anything else. I've just bought a premium brand laptop for my OH for her birthday, it's the fastest ship in our fleet now by a considerable margin and it cost me £500.
As Cougar says, an SSD would make an enormous difference. Vacuuming the dust out of the case is always worth doing too.
Free Win10 security update will continue for at least one more year if you use One Drive backup. Otherwise you can pay $30 dollars for them for the first year, with the price doubling the second year.
You could probably hack it to run Win11, you can search online to find out how to bypass the system requirements.
On a 15yo machine I'd suck up the fact that it was no longer going to get updates and ensure that anything important was properly backed up (which of course it already should be). If I were that desperate to run W11 I'd be looking at a hardware refresh, as the OP is proposing.
You can probably get around the upgrade prerequisites with various hacks. Whether you should is a more complicated conversation.
Minisforum UM750l or similar. £280 complete and should do everything you need with any hassle.
I nearly opted for an around £300 pc from Currys for my dad recently. It would have been more than adequate for his needs.
Instead I went down the parts upgrade route which was as cheap but significantly more time consuming for me.
He now has a familiar PC in form but with windows 11 which he is getting better with. Starts up very quick with the nvme drive.
Thank you all, I like the look of the Minisforum UM750l. Very reasonable price and looks like plug and play though I would maybe prefer a few more USB ports at the back. Wow computers are cheap I think our first family PC was added to the mortgage in the 90s!
looks like plug and play though I would maybe prefer a few more USB ports at the back
as much as any PC is ‘plug and play’ I expect. More USB ports - add a hub of some sort? I’d been sceptical of folks needing many USB ports but realize that I typically use 1 to 4.
OP, you don’t mention the screen. I therefore assume that’s OK. Like PCs, modern screens can be a revelation in terms of performance:price and old eyes like a big, bright, contrasty screen.
5 minute boot up, yikes. Though I’m surprised at how pedestrian my 2025 work Lenovo is at getting to the point of me being able to use it from turning it on.
looks like plug and play though
Huh?
I would maybe prefer a few more USB ports at the back
1) Why? Keyboard, mouse... 🤷♂️ What else do you need in order to run Word and a web browser? If he's using a pendrive then the port needs to be at the front not hidden round the back. That little thing has five USB connectors.
2) What does it matter what you'd prefer when it's for someone else?
There's been a few OLED screen laptops on HotUKDeals in the last week for approx £400-650.
MIL is panicking about lack of Win11 support (and Win10 support ending) for her ~10 year old laptop that came from Tesco.
Tempted to suggest an OLED to her, if she uses it for streaming etc.
5 minute boot up, yikes.
Christ, I just revisited a PC I originally set up in 2010 for a friend. He's a Mac guy who needs a PC for one specialized app that is Windows only, so I set up an old (in 2010) Windows box for him to use offline (Core Duo CPU with 4GB RAM). He's moving so asked me if I could transfer that app to a laptop, which I couldn't because he lost his admin login password and has been logging in with a guest account for 15 years. I cloned it to an SSD and put that into a newer, smaller machine, but, Jesus, waiting for Win7 to boot up on an old, slow HDD was quite the experience.
Wow computers are cheap I think our first family PC was added to the mortgage in the 90s!
cos no one buys them these days.
Why would anyone have any use for a desktop pc at home these days apart from gamers or people with a business need?
MIL is panicking about lack of Win11 support (and Win10 support ending) for her ~10 year old laptop that came from Tesco.
To be fair, a lack of W11 support is at least the third worst issue in that sentence.
Thanks all, this is great.
Why more USB at the back? He has keyboard, mouse and printer (to print off the letters to the bank and send them. Realising that might not be what everyone is doing anymore it works for him). My preference is on his behalf as I know he would not be keen on things sprouting out of the front. A USB bus is an option as there are only two on the minisforum but have spotted more on another version
The same is true of why a desktop. His needs likely differ from those who prefer a laptop and he has a room with space for a computer and frankly doesn't want or need to use it anywhere else. A computer is something he uses but not central to his life. Also agree with the points made on a good monitor for older people so a 15" laptop less good. His screen is decent and recent 24"
By Plug and Play I just mean I can get it working quickly. Apologies if that was the wrong IT phrase. I only have a couple of days with him and would prefer most of that to be spent doing family focused stuff.
Interested in what software is used to clone a HDD? Also interested in whether I can transfer Office 2016 license without the original install media and possibly license details!
He has keyboard, mouse and printer
Does the printer support wireless printing?
If not...
(to print off the letters to the bank and send them. Realising that might not be what everyone is doing anymore it works for him)
What does he need to write to the bank for? Even assuming that things like Internet banking are beyond him, what cause is there for most people to actually contact the bank at all?
By Plug and Play I just mean I can get it working quickly.
What you've got there then is what we call "a computer," anything new is going to give you broadly the same experience as anything else.
What I'd do if I were you is have it delivered to yourself so you can set it up and faff at your leisure, then when you go visit it's just a case of plugging it in. Does he log in to the old one with a Microsoft account? Hell, is he running Windows 10 even, it's not still stuck on something older is it?
Interested in what software is used to clone a HDD?
You really want to avoid this if possible, it's not the 1990s any more. What is there to clone even, if all he uses is Word?
Also interested in whether I can transfer Office 2016 license without the original install media and possibly license details!
The short answer is "no" but there are ways around this. You can get the image file from Microsoft (indirectly). Licensing I'm not discussing here because whilst he does have a genuine copy other readers may not and I don't want to get STW into trouble.
Do you really want Office 2016 though? The current version of MS Office is free to use in a web browser, it's cut down compared to the full-fat version but what features does he actually need? Wordpad is a perfectly serviceable app for writing the occasional letter and it's been baked into the OS since Windows 95.
I appreciate that "change ==bad" in this use case but you're going to have to suck it up to a large extent because it's inevitable I'm afraid. My first car had a manual choke and the windscreen washer was a bulb on the floor next to the clutch pedal, time moves on. Not always for the better, but here we are.
How much are you spending?
This would do the job - I'd prefer a newer CPU but it's cheap, has lots of USB sockets on the rear, and will be fine for MS office & web browsing etc.
Edit to the above -
It doesn't have wi-fi though, it has 2 expansion ports and planty of USB so you could easily make it wi-fi capable.
It has Displayport cable to monitor, rather than HDMI so you may need a new monitor cable too, depending on what you already have.
Where are you in the UK? If you're in central Scotland I can sell you this with a free monitor...we can't seem to shift it, despite it being a very good machine, Windows 11 and way overkill for that you need.
https://www.gumtree.com/p/desktop-workstation-pcs/gaming-pc/1501584571
Mrs Zip has had to buy a new laptop with 11 on it to do the accounts. The old one with 10 will be mine to use for my music storage. It will be used for Apple Music and downloading radio shows on podomatic.
Obviously I will be logging in usung my Apple account. How open to hacking will I be?
Mrs Zip has had to buy a new laptop with 11 on it to do the accounts. The old one with 10 will be mine to use for my music storage. It will be used for Apple Music and downloading radio shows on podomatic.
Obviously I will be logging in usung my Apple account. How open to hacking will I be?
Just install apple music like you would any other media player I guess? I don't see why you would be open to hacking?
https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9pfhdd62mxs1?hl=en-gb&gl=US
Or are you talking about win10 being EOL and not getting security updates?
Figured if the bad guys got my apple password they could access all my other passwords. Could that happen?
we can't seem to shift it, despite it being a very good machine
You might fare better with your sale if you took an air duster and a cloth to it first.
How open to hacking will I be?
"Increasingly."
It's hard to see the future. But if you're no longer getting security updates then any vulnerabilities which come to light in the future won't be patched.
My hot take is that I can't afford to replace my entire estate, it is... quantity rather than quality, and only one of my machines is W11-capable so I have little option other than just to take the chance. I'm mitigating risk as best I can by backing up anything important - which I already do anyway because I'm not daft - and nothing confidential is held insecurely. My primary PC is locked down pretty hard (to a point where even I don't remember how it works).
Truthfully, random drive-bys are rare these days; the risk is non-zero but it's not 20 years ago any more. My partner's PoS laptop is going to be taken out back and shot come her birthday in a couple of weeks so that's one less problem, and I have a guest network for guests. My IoT stuff is broadly segregated off, though I really should redo all that properly at some point as it's evolved rather than been designed. I have a degree of network-level security which again has room for improvement.
If I get hit tomorrow then, my worst case scenario is hopefully just the inconvenience of having to rebuild. But my scenario may be wholly different from anyone else's.
Figured if the bad guys got my apple password they could access all my other passwords. Could that happen?
Is your 'apple password' the email account where all your "I forgot my password links" go to? If so then yes.
Is your 'apple password' the same password you use for everything else? If so then yes.
Has your 'apple password' already been compromised? Check here.
If no to all the above then probably not. Eh, probably. Activate MFA for anything you care about.
You might fare better with your sale if you took an air duster and a cloth to it first.
It's already had full wipe down and hoover out.. 🤢
On the OPs query - it might be worth looking at All-in-ones to suit your Dad's use. We had an HP Pavilion for about 10yrs till the hard drive gave up.(wasn't solid state) Nothing extra to wire in and very easy to use. Included nice speakers, decent webcam, bluetooth, SD card slots and wireless keyboard and mouse. They are always on sale on the HP website. Dell also do all-in ones.
We got an Dell Optiplex mini to replace it. It was just what the local store had in stock and probably I should have have paid more attention but it was a case of what have you got when they couldn't repair it and I have ended up with a separate webcam, bluetooth dongle, separate SD card reader(for camera) and wires and bits all over the shop!
I'm told the Optiplex is more robust but I kind of wish I had stuck with the all in one.
The all in one wouldn't suit those who wish to upgrade bits and may not be very repairable if something goes wrong. Tho maybe no worse than a laptop.
That's the problem as soon as you break away from a standard form factor. They can be full of proprietory crap and maintenance/repair varies between "mildly inconvenient" and "fit for WEEE."
It's also an age thing.
When I was young, building PC's was a thing and I did it all the time. As I age, I've progressed to buying a complete PC and only taking the case off to blow dust away. Now, in my 60's, I'm looking at all-in-ones, just because they look cleaner on my desk. (I don't want a laptop.) I totally get the lack of repairability and expandability with an all-in-one, but I'm prepared to put up with that. (Also, they come with more hard drive space then I'll ever need.)
I agree to a degree, yes.
Time was, building your own saved a fortune. Then it became the domain of the hobbyist / gamer, the last PC I built for myself was because I had an exacting set of requirements.
Today though PCs are almost consumables. People will buy a new one because "it's getting a bit slow," the people like me who still have a 2011 laptop in daily usage are outliers. The last cheap laptop I had on the bench was a write-off due to storage failure, the "drive" was a chip soldered to the motherboard.
My advice to most "what PC?" questions - and has been for some years now - is to buy an off the shelf box from a reputable manufacturer. It's hard to really go very wrong unless the brand name looks like someone rage-flipped the table during a game of Scrabble.
The fact of the matter is that we're all overthinking it, any suggestions posted here are likely to be fine for the OPs use case.