Advice on buying new desktop: paralyzed by all the choices!

Parent Cafe
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<p>Well, I just couldn’t take the indecision any longer, so I’ve gone ahead and placed my order for a “certified refurbished” Dell Inspiron 620 tower (their current high-end Inspiron model) with the following basic specifications:</p>

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<p>To me, 8 USB 2.0 ports will be helpful, given that my old computer has only 2 USB 1.0 ports, which has probably been its most annoying deficiency other than the lack of speed.</p>

<p>I didn’t order speakers, monitor, etc., since the ones I already have are quite new.</p>

<p>And I didn’t order Microsoft Office 2010 or McAfee security either, since Dell’s prices for them seemed quite a bit higher than what I’d pay if I bought them independently.</p>

<p>The price was $479, as compared to about $579 for a new machine with the same specifications. I read a lot of opinions saying that it’s perfectly OK to buy a Dell refurbished machine; they’ve certainly been tested and retested enough. And I read quite a few very positive reviews of the particular model, in computer publications. </p>

<p>I took the free 1-year warranty with in-home service, plus “complete care” (accidental damage) coverage for $49 extra, but am considering upgrading to a 2-year warranty.</p>

<p>It’s supposed to be delivered in about 3 days; no waiting for to be built, unlike with a new Dell machine. </p>

<p>If it lasts even half as long as my old desktop, the Dell Dimension – which would mean it’ll last 6 years – I’ll be quite happy. I sort of think of the Dimension as being like a car with 200,000 miles on it!</p>

<p>It’ll be only the third desktop I’ve ever bought; the predecessor to the Dell I bought in 2000 was a Compaq with a 3GB hard drive, bought in 1997. (My son was 7, so my ex and I figured it was time, because we had heard tell of this Internet thing going on and decided we’d better get in on it.) That machine froze all the time and finally gave out after 4 years or so. I don’t have any idea what kind of computer my ex has now. </p>

<p>My son bought a small, 13-inch HP laptop a couple of months ago for under $300 and seems quite happy with it (especially because it’s very light and easy to carry around). He decided that it was time to replace the full-sized Dell laptop I bought him when he started college in 2008 (which cost quite a bit more than what I just paid for the new desktop!), although he still has it.</p>

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<p>dstark…if you only need it for excel, just go get the clearance model laptop at best buy–or some such place.</p>

<p>i love macs and would only use macs, but if you only need a pc or only need to use the laptop for a particular reason, i find the cheapest one i can find does just great. i have to have a pc for work and i just get the cheapest one i can find.</p>

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<p>dstark should get a Mac so that he can watch AAPL and then make a killing on it so that the Mac is then free.</p>

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<p>I’d only go this route if you’re prepared for the possibility of having to deal with best buy tech support and/or serving as your own tech support. From what I’ve heard from friends who dealt with best buy tech support and seen at best buy…I wouldn’t recommend it.</p>

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<p>I bought a Dell laptop at Best Buy several years ago. They keyboard was defective and I had to spend about half-an-hour explaining to them what the problem was. The mechanism for the spacebar was in the middle of the spacebar. So if you hit the side of the spacebar, you get nothing. The Geek Squad couldn’t understand why this was a problem - the workaround was to always hit the middle of the spacebar. They couldn’t fix it either.</p>

<p>I convinced them to send it to Dell for repair and I got it back about 10 days later. I purchased it for a trip and fortunately I bought it in plenty of time for the trip to get it replaced.</p>

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<p>I’ve been through a lot of desktops and laptops over the past ten years or so, between my office and my family. I’ve replaced RAM, screens, power supplies and more. I have a few observations.</p>

<p>First, every time you get a new computer you have to buy new software. The software costs can rival the hardware cost, particularly if you get MS Office, etc. If you’re willing to go the Open Office route, that’s fine, but you’re going to create work for yourself. So getting a machine that will last a while saves money in the long run. </p>

<p>Hard drive size is unimportant. You can always add an external hard drive for your data files. They’re cheap. (And two means you won’t lose your files.)</p>

<p>I tried an Atom-based netbook a while back. I liked it, but it wasn’t strong enough to do all the stuff I wanted at the speed I wanted. I have an HP dm1 now which was still pretty cheap and is about the same size but is much more powerful (and still has decent battery life.) I’ve hooked that up to an external hard drive, keyboard and 20" monitor; and I’m keeping my desktop as essentially a backup. I bought 4 GB RAM for the laptop and 8 for the desktop. RAM is good. </p>

<p>Most of what you read on the interwebs about computers is for gamers. It’s pretty much irrelevant for those of us who don’t spend hours shooting at virtual enemies.</p>

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<p>Tha mac pro…looks very good…but I think it is overkill…</p>

<p>I think i will go with a cheaper pc laptop…I really just need it for excel…</p>

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<p>“Most of what you read on the interwebs about computers is for gamers. It’s pretty much irrelevant for those of us who don’t spend hours shooting at virtual enemies.”</p>

<p>Honestly, I don’t think I’m even looking for the “Honda Civic” of the computer world, I’m probably on more of a “Hyundai” budget. Something to surf the web, and run the home version of Office.</p>

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<p>One of the other CPU hogs out there is video editing. With video editing, more cores and more threads gets your work done faster.</p>

<p>There are nice-to-have things too. An SSD means that the computer boots up faster and shuts down faster. Windows updates get processed quickly. A virus scan runs much, much faster.</p>

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<p>You can buy this one for $325…</p>

<p>[Acer</a> AX1420G-U5832 Desktop Computer <strong>BRAND NEW IN BOX</strong> | eBay](<a href=“http://www.ebay.com/itm/Acer-AX1420G-U5832-Desktop-Computer-BRAND-NEW-BOX-/140691121019?pt=Desktop_PCs&hash=item20c1d8237b]Acer”>http://www.ebay.com/itm/Acer-AX1420G-U5832-Desktop-Computer-BRAND-NEW-BOX-/140691121019?pt=Desktop_PCs&hash=item20c1d8237b)</p>

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<p>i really couldn’t recommend Acer–</p>

<p>tech support for a $300 laptop is not high on my list of priorities. i rarely even purchase antivirus software because at $300, they are darn near disposable. </p>

<p>computers are so much more user friendly now, i can’t imagine who would need help setting up a new computer or even running some normal utitlities and/or creating back ups.</p>

<p>i would consider RAM more important than storage capacity, but as someone mentioned earlier, unless you are a serious gamer or video editor, most laptops at a lower price will be just fine!</p>

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<p>It’s hard to believe that your computer only came with a 9 gig hard drive. I’m willing to bet that the drive has never been defragmented nor had a ‘disk cleanup’ done. I also use a free program called “Easy Cleaner” to find all sorts of useless files that clogs up computers. You can download this kind of program for free off the net.</p>

<p>Click on “my computer”. Right click on your C: drive. Click on “properties”. Click on “disk cleanup”. Let the program run. A list of files that can be safely deleted will appear. Select all files that you want deleted. Select the “more options” tab at the top of the dialog box. Select the “cleanup system restore” points. This will delete all “system restore” points except the most current file. After twelve years, there must be hundreds and hundreds of these files taking up space.</p>

<p>Select “tools” from the properties dialog box. Click on “Defragment Now”… A dialog box will appear listing the hard drives on your system. Select “C:” and click on the “Analyze” button. You’ll see a graphic with fragmented files shown in red. Click on the “Defragment” button and let the program work. This may take awhile. </p>

<p>Once all of this has been done, re-start your computer. See if it runs faster. If it’s still too slow, then it’s time to look for a new machine. </p>

<p>My pet peeve against CC’ers is that they all seem too egger to throw money at a problem.</p>

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<p>Maybe…but we’re talking about the OP…someone who has been using the same desktop for 12 years. That’s far longer than nearly everyone I know. I’d also be seriously concerned about potential hardware failures…especially considering the 9 gig hard drive was what that desktop originally came with. </p>

<p>I would be in the running with at least 3 older laptops and 2 older desktops…if one of each hadn’t died on me within 2-6 years and I hadn’t retired the others by selling/giving them away to friends because they became too obsolete to serve my computing needs.</p>

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<p>The Acer computer uses an Athlon II X4 chip which came out in 2009 and has a total design power of 95 Watts. The Core i5 system that the OP bought has a Sandy Bridge i5 that has about 40% better compute power at the same level of power consumption. The Sandy Bridge processor (consumer versions) started shipping in 2011 and is on a High-K Metal Gate 32 NM process compared to a 45 NM (probably SOI) process for the Athlon. The Athlon also won’t have the latest Vector instruction sets and datatypes - useful for software which takes advantage of SIMD processing.</p>

<p>But if you want cheap, go with AMD.</p>

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<p>It’s running an operating system that’s going to be discontinued in a few years.
It has USB 1.0 ports - anyone use USB 1.0 lately? I haven’t used it in a long time but recall that it is painfully slow compared to USB 2.0.
We have computers in the office from the 1980s - still running.
My oldest laptop was from 2000 - it still runs. I just don’t use it. It’s slow but usable if you avoid doing things that are expensive.
Older computers are pretty bad at performance/watt too so you’re running a bigger power bill with older equipment.</p>

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<p>For the record, I run an old HP desktop running an Athlon 1.8 gig processor with an 80 gig hard drive and 1 gig of memory. It runs on XP (service pack 3). The computer is at least 12 years old and runs just fine. I use it to run word processing, e-mail and internet searching. If I needed a more powerful machine, almost any $400 and up desktop currently for sale can get the job done. For my purposes, this computer is fine. Will some component drop dead today? Maybe… My important files are all backed up. I run anti-virus software on a regular basis. I do a disk cleanup and a hard drive degfragment every couple of months. </p>

<p>My point is this: some things in this world require maintenance to insure that it runs well. Many computer programs require both spare memory and hard drive swap space to run at acceptable levels. If I run up against the limits of my computer, I’ll buy a new one. It’s like buying a new car and never opening up the hood or checking the air in your tires. If it breaks, just buy a new one. </p>

<p>Just because you buy new does not mean that you know why you “had” to buy new. “X” number of years from now, you’ll get another thread with a poster who states that “I bought my computer “x” years ago and now it’s running real slow. Should I buy a new one?” Don’t you think it’s important to find out why the computer is running “slow” before buying a new one that will likely suffer the same fate down the road?</p>

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<p>I still do on occasion when I’m using my Indigo G3 Imac* to upload a few songs to my Ipod or when I use one of my older desktops to charge it up while it is burning a CD/DVD. </p>

<p>Uploading songs is slow…but makes little difference when charging up the ipod’s battery. </p>

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<li>Abandoned by neighbor. Picked it up and got it running for the cool form factor…and it was free!!</li>
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<p>You probably bought a higher end machine than the OP to begin with given the specs…and paid more for it to boot at the time.</p>

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<p>Michuncle, what, 12 years isn’t long enough for you? I should try for 13 before I “throw money” at a new computer? After what I paid for the computer has averaged out to < $100 per year for the time I’ve owned it, and I’m now paying the shocking total of $479 for a new one? (How exactly is that inconsistent with your “$400 and up,” anyway)? </p>

<p>Really, your comments are completely and quintessentially absurd. And condescending to a highly inappropriate degree. So just stop it. You find it hard to believe my computer came with only a 9GB hard drive and runs slowly? In 2000, 9GB was about as large as hard drives could be in a new computer. (I find it very hard to believe that any consumer desktop you bought 12 years ago came with 80GB, unless perhaps you spent way more than the < $1000 or so that I paid. Did consumer desktops with 80GB of storage even exist then?) Anyway, if you had bothered to read what I wrote, you’d see that I did add an external hard drive with 40GB on it, and haven’t used it up yet. And, yes, I know about defragmenting, and knew about it even before I added the external hard drive. So storage space isn’t the real problem. In terms of running slowly, do you think I’m an idiot? The reason it runs too slowly to play movies and videos decently is that it has the Intel Pentium III processor it came with, 730 MHz, with 512 MB of RAM – it came with 256 MB, and I added the rest myself; that’s all it holds inside. And it does have only the two USB 1.0 ports, which can make life difficult as well. A little outmoded, maybe? But I should throw more money at it, as if I were paying for expensive repairs of a car with 200,000 miles on it? Suffering with what one has makes you feel noble and virtuous; is that it? </p>

<p>OK, you get a medal for parsimoniousness. Congratulations. Now go away.</p>

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<p>A friend of mine just bought a 2002 car with 165K miles. He does his
own work on cars and loves the car but just wishes that it got better
mileage. I told him that current models get about 35% better mileage.
I would guess that there are additional safety features in the newer
car too.</p>

<p>Computers do improve over time. Intel’s focus on Haswell will be in
the area of power efficiency to push down mainstream desktop TDPs
to the 45 Watt to 65 Watt area from the current 65 Watt to 95 Watt
area - all while increasing processor performance.</p>

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<p>If you look at the amount of software bloat over the last ten years, I’d
say that it isn’t worth tuning a 12-year-old machine.</p>

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<p>I have an old PowerMac G5. It’s used as a small table in the basement.
The old iMacs are CRT-based. Do you really want to run a 250 Watt
system to charge an iPod when you can get a 10 Watt fast charger from
Apple?</p>

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<p>A Pentium III shouldn’t be an impediment to playing DVD movies and youtube videos. The main stumbling block here with older PIII and earlier machines is the video card. </p>

<p>If it is the default integrated video…that could be the cause as that was mainly designed for folks who just want enough video capability for office applications and little else. Granted…with youtube adding more bloat…it won’t be long before even PIII machines with high end video cards would be unable to play youtube videos. </p>

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<p>I only charge my ipod on that G3 Imac when I’m using it for other things…like browsing the web, IMchatting, and/or playing songs on itunes. :)</p>