Computer shopping advice

[Jedi Master Carr]

I am going to buy a new computer once I get my money for my taxes back next month. I have been doing some shopping and was looking at what I should get. I have looked at three places, Dell, Best Buy and Comp USA. Dell has one for like 1159, but Best Buy has about the same model, be it a HP for about 700 and Comp USA has a similar model a Gateway for about 800. Should I go for the savings? Or is Dell really that good? I have gotten differenting opinions from friends so I figured I ask around here and see what you guys think. If you want specifics on the models I will provide them.

[Dasquian Belargic]

I would also appreciate any advice anyone could give on budget laptops that would be good for students.

[Morgan Evanar]

HP laptops are not really very good. I like IBM, Toshiba and Dell in that order for Wintel/AMD and, of course, Mac is sweet too. Look for a Centrino platform, and don't opt for stuff like a memory upgrade. It's much cheaper (and easy usually) to upgrade the RAM yourself. http://dealmein.net is a good place to look for deep discounts on Dell stuff. Don't get a large screen if you plan on moving it a lot. I personally prefer about a 12" but you'll likely end up with something ~14".

And for all things holy, don't get a P4. Terribly power hungry hot desktop chips make them the worst of the lot for a laptop.

Please post links specific models/deals. It's really hard to make a suggestion based on such sparse information.

[Khendon Sevon]

As an owner of an HP laptop, I can say I love/hate them. My NW8240 mobile workstation is slim, light-weight, and has great speakers for a laptop, an awesome screen, and tons of power (Then again, for a $3000 laptop, it better). However, it overheats, has a few little glitches (shuts down sometimes for no reason), and sometimes decides to be evil.

My friend has an IBM (he spent around $2000ish for his) and it seems to be fairly stable (then again, it's not putting out the crazy factor of my HP).

Dell laptops tend to be bricks and overpriced, from my experience (Our school now only buys the students HP laptops due to bad experiences with Dell laptops).

As a note: my laptop has a widescreen (15.4) and it's very, very easy to move around. In fact, it's more fun when watching movies than my friend's smaller laptop.

And, of course, don't get the P4. You might as well get a desktop instead.

[Jaime Tomahawk]

Dell support aint worth spit, keep that in mind.

First preference - Mac. You probably wont get a more durable machine and OS X is the best running around.

What I own - An Acer. Mid road in quality, but it proved plenty durable to be lugged around in a backpack across America. It's an Aspire 1644, 2.0Ghz Centrino, 1Gb memory, 100Gb drive, 15.4 widescreen TFT, wireless, good for about 4 hours on one battery, not too heavy. Not really a portable machine if the truth be told but the price for what it has was unbeatable, just under 2000 AUD (1500 USD). Maybe not quite as cheap as your lookign for, but look at the specs and see where Dell's or HP's prices start at soemthing like that.

Always get a three year warranty too. Laptops just will nto last as long as desktops.

I'm only missing Bluetooth and Firewire, but no biggie on either.

Acer's certainly not the best but so far it's proving to be pretty damn good and turning out to be worth every cent which I am most happy with.

These days a cheap PC is pretty much all you want for general usage, but it's worth spending a bit more with a laptop to get more features, more memory etc.

[Jedi Master Carr]

Well I am looking at desktops not laptops. I just prefer desktops as for model information
Best Buy
HP -749
64 x2 Dual Core processor 3800 15 flat screen, and color pritner
Windows XP Media center edition 2005 software
1024 MB DDR Ram
250 GB hardrive
double layer mulitform lightscribe DVDRW drive
9 in 1 media reader
Ati Radeon Xpress 200 graphics

Comp USA
Gateway -729
AMD athlon 64 processor 3500+
16x DVD+RW/CD-RW drive
1gb DDR Ram
200 GB hard drive
Microsoft XP Media Center 2005
GeForce 6100

Dell-1158
Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor 630 w/HT Technology (3.0GHz,800FSB)
Genuine Windows® XP Media Center 2005 Edition
1 GB memory
160 GB Hard drive
CD-RW/DVD-RW drive
128MB PCI Express™ x16 (DVI/VGA/TV-out) ATI Radeon X300 SE HyperMemory
I forgot to add most of Best Buy's savings are mail-in rebates, it actually 1049 before rebates.
By looking at this I would say Comp USA has the best deal on the Gateway because the rebates are only like 100 dollars. Of course I am not sure how reliable Gateways are anymore. Looking at that what do you think?

[Jaime Tomahawk]

Arent Gateway in financial trouble? I'd personally wouldnt touch it if that's the case, nor the Dell. The HP's got a few good interesting bits of spec but also with some crap.

(Media edition XP? This I'm going to have to look up, aint heard that version before - I get only XP Professional)

How on earth did I get the thought you were looking at laptops?

However bad some downside of the HP spec is, it's quite true just about any new PC is powerful and with the right amount of disk and RAM will last for quite some time. The only real reason to really go for upspec is gaming these days - but comments made about Macs before hold for desktops as well, Mac's are great.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Dasquian asked about laptops.

[Mu Satach]

Attention:

I like http://www.tigerdirect.com for stuff.

That is all. You may go about your business. Move along, Move along.

[Morgan Evanar]

I like Newegg better than tigerdirect for most things. I'll go with Tigerdirect sometimes because it's less than 2 miles from my house.

Carr, what are you going to be using the PC for?

[Jedi Master Carr]

Originally posted by Morgan Evanar
I like Newegg better than tigerdirect for most things. I'll go with Tigerdirect sometimes because it's less than 2 miles from my house.

Carr, what are you going to be using the PC for?

Well surfing the net, word processing, and casual gaming. My current computer is going on 3 years old and it is getting slow with some things. I can't play any of the new HD videos (like all the new trailers that have been coming out) and newer games I can't play. I am no hardcore gamer but there are games out there I like to play and most of the newere ones coming out my PC just can't handle, even counting the fact I have upgrading it a couple of times.

As for Gateway, what has happened to them is Dell. Dell just killed them in terms of online sales and Gateway hasn't been able to compete with them, for various reasons. They are now mostly sold in Best Buy and Comp USA stores. I am not sure how good their computers are now, I haven't heard anything one way or the other.

Edit Also I was checking PC world's best computers and this was listed #1
http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/dimen_9150?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd
829 isn't a bad price it has less memory I was looking for, but I could always get more later one if I need to. Also I see listed E Machines are conisered great value computers according to pc world here
http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/test_report/0,prodid,27585,00.asp
I see one in the best buy add that is priced around
500 bucks (after rebates) has AMD Athlon 64 processor 3200 15 inch flat screen moniter.
512MB DDR
160GB Hard Drive
8-1 media reader
DVD-RW
NVidia GeForce 6100
though you can upgrade for 100 to a 3400 processor and 1024MB ram and that Media center version of XP. I have no clue what that is either. Not sure if that is worth the extra 100 bucks though.

[Morgan Evanar]

Make sure whatever you get has either PCI-E (preferably) or an AGP slot, because the vast majority of machines have sucktastic integrated graphics, like the one you posted above. The 3400 and the extra RAM is worth it but Media Center is just a nonissue. Budget an extra 120 for a graphics card worth a damn.

Most flatscreen monitors aren't very good for gaming, but it may or may not bother you.

[Jedi Master Carr]

Flat screen doesn't bother me, I mainly would like it because it takes up less room., as for AGP or PCI, it doesn't mention which it has in the ad I have,but since it has GeForce shouldn't it have AGP? or do I have that backwards? Also how good is a GeForce 6100? I have a GeForce 5200 which is a little outdated, but I could always like you said put 120 in a good one.

[Yog]

as for AGP or PCI, it doesn't mention which it has in the ad I have,but since it has GeForce shouldn't it have AGP

Since this is a new computer, I would highly recommend a machine with PCI Express, simply because all the graphic card manufacturers are currently phasing out the AGP based cards and switching production to PCI-E. When you at some point in the future want do a graphics card update, it would suck to find the cards available on the market do not fit on your motherboard.


Also how good is a GeForce 6100? I have a GeForce 5200 which is a little outdated, but I could always like you said put 120 in a good one

The 6100 is an integrated graphics solution. I guess its ok, for entry level computer, but I would not do it personally. As a general rule, I avoid integrated graphics computers like the plague. If I were on budget, I would look for the GeForce 6600 as graphics card, possibly even the 6800.

Comparison chart of various leading graphics cards can be found here:
http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/12/02/vga_charts_viii/page5.html

1GB of ram is also recommended. Memory is dirt cheap these days, and 1GB is swiftly becoming the standard requirement for games.

[Jedi Master Carr]

So is ATI Radeon Xpress 200 or 300 the same thing?
I am not as familar with Radeon as with GeForce so I don't know the difference with them.

[Morgan Evanar]

The 200 is integrated, the X300 isn't but may as well be. You can get any of these computers, just be sure it has a PCI-E slot so you can add something like a Geforce 6600GT after the fact.

[Jedi Master Carr]

Originally posted by Morgan Evanar
The 200 is integrated, the X300 isn't but may as well be. You can get any of these computers, just be sure it has a PCI-E slot so you can add something like a Geforce 6600GT after the fact.

Ok that answers my questions, at least I will have good knowledge to grill these computer clerks with :) I will just buy a better graphics card and install it myself.

[Vega Van-Derveld]

I know I am bumping an old thread but it has come to the time when I actually have to buy my laptop. I have been kind of left to my own devices as to which laptop I get, and I am having a hard job picking one. I have a budget of about £800/$1500. Ideally I want 100GB hard drive, at least 1000MB of DDR Ram, and a 17" monitor. Can anyone recommend any models with specs thereabouts?

I looked at this one - http://laptops.timeuk.com/computers/power_laptops/17400/61319/TIME_TRAVELLER_M770_17 - but I am kind of dubious because I can't find much about them on the net... which is a shame because it looks like it has everything I need. Bluetooth, wireless, etc etc.

[Morgan Evanar]

Get something much smaller and lighter. Aim for a 14-15" screen, and slim. Less is more with laptops. If you want to play games, the money you set aside for a desktop will crush all but the most expensive laptops.

[Dasquian Belargic]

I'm not too fussed about being able to play games - not new ones at least. Most things I would play would be fairly old. I don't want something bulky, but weight/size isn't a huge deciding factor because I'm unlikely to be moving it around that much, just taking it to different places in our house.

I think I am going to go with this: http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/ASUS_A6KM-Q013H_A6KM-Q013H/version.asp

[Morgan Evanar]

That looks like a solid compromise between power and size. The 7300 shouldn't be TOO cringe-inducing.

[Dasquian Belargic]

Ended up getting a TOSHIBA SATELLITE A100-225 instead. Seems like a good piece of kit. Much faster than our PC.

[Morgan Evanar]

Niiiiice. X1400 and dual core. Hard to go wrong with that.