Too much choice...

[wotawoppa]

You know old henry Ford hit it on the head when he said "any colour you want as long as it is black"

 

I am looking at buying a new pc...I know I want a pent4 2.8 with 512 wotsits of ram and probably 80gigs of rom..with a 15 inch TFT screen and a cd and dvd re-write facility..

 

Anyone got any recommendations...make (dell, compaq etc) ..shops ...do's or dont's..pls help as I am very old and confused.

[davidP]

I have two machines - one is by Viglen and has been spot on. The other was built by a little shop round the corner and has also been excellent and cost 15% less than the Viglen. Suggest you get a copy of Computer Shopper and go though that and do some pricing. But also visit a couple of small local comp shops and see what they can offer. You can get some good deals where they take your old PC and strip the usable bits (ie floppy, CD, sound card, video card, memory etc) and use them to build a new machine. Can be big savings. You also have the advantage of knowing where he is and being able to pop round if there are any problems - much better than trying to do it on the phone.

 

BTW also keep an eye on the local supermarkets - Tesco sometimes have some extremely competitivly priced machines.

[Newt]

DO make sure that whoever you get it from includes a CD containing the operating system in case you need to do repairs later. Some of the biggies like Dell, Compaq, Gateway will often try to sell it to you with their "repair" CD.

 

In that case, if you have a problem and have to use that CD, it will set your system back to exactly it was the day you bought it. All settings you've changed and software you've added will be gone. Poof.

 

And XP has some great repair features to usually prevent your losing anything but you gotta have the real OS CD.

 

DO - if you are old enough your eyes aren't so great any more - spend the extra to get a 17" monitor. I am using a 17" at work and a 15 inch at home. Huge difference.

 

DO get a second and maybe a third opinion if a tech support person tells you to format and reload. Most problems can be solved but the clot-brains often hired for "tech supportstaff" don't know much and use that as an answer way too quick.

 

[ 14. March 2003, 12:00 AM: Message edited by: Newt ]

[chesters1]

quote:

---

DO get a second and maybe a third opinion if a tech support person tells you to format and reload. Most problems can be solved but the clot-brains often hired for "tech supportstaff" don't know much and use that as an answer way too quick.

---

i went for an interveiw at our local pc world as a pc technician , at the interveiw with the manager as i entered i detected definate raised eye syndrome , being 40 ish i was probably considered pc illiterate , the manager asked if i had any "experience" in the stripping ,rebuilding and reinstalling of windows os ,i wiped the smile of his face (and there was a definate sneer as he spoke) when i said that i had upgraded computers from 1982 and owned a brand new xt in 1986 ish (the power ooooh ,the result of a wealthy employer buying it and losing interest ) and had built my own machines from then on that i had used windows from version 3 and had played with alternate os`s as well , i didnt get the job as expected ,a school leaver did ,he nodoupt could be trained to blame "any" fault on the more expensive items in the pc such as video cards or harddrives wheres most are software related :mad:

a couple of months later and went back to the shop ,enquiring at the desk if they had a fan for a k6-2

the fresh faced youth went into the back room and came back with a puzzeled look on his face and the reply that the tech told him that a cdrom doesnt need a fan :confused: i left knowing the computer world was safe in their hands

 

[ 14. March 2003, 07:45 PM: Message edited by: chesters1 ]

[Colin Brett]

Davidp and Newt are spot on.

 

Colin