<p>I am contemplating a new computer (the advice I got on my “how do I make my computer run faster” sounded complicated and unlikely to really work). My current home computer is a 6-year-old Acer. I use it for accessing the internet (some work-related searches of library databases and some stuff like CC) and very simple photo editing (strictly for fun).</p>
<p>Computer experts: What brand(s) would you recommend? And any specifics, like processor type, or memory size . . .</p>
<p>What’s the budget? Both DD1 and Mrs.Turbo have Lenovo Thinkpads (laptops) but these are in the $1k range. I DIY my own so… </p>
<p>If you could afford $650 or so and did not mind the proprietary nature of the beast, the Lenovo M71z could work (includes a 20" LCD). For a conventional box system, an M77… </p>
<p>At work we have HP’s and Dells, not very happy with either.</p>
<p>turbo: $650 is doable. To show you how computer-clueless I am, I will say that I am not bothered by the proprietary nature, but only because I am not sure what that means . . .</p>
<p>Costco doubles the warranty on computers. So you get 2 years instead of 1. You should be able to find something there for $650! And yes, a 6 year old computer is probably done with it’s life. Nice that it lasted that long!</p>
<p>Proprietary means that if a component fails you have to get a replacement specifically for your PC, not a generic. And companies make serious money there… The worst offender in my humble view is Apple, but others are getting into the spirit :)</p>
<p>For $650 I’d look at a business-class PC from Lenovo, Dell, or HP. NOT a home oriented system. They may not have some of the cooler features but are usually built more solid. I believe Costco carries HP’s, not a bad choice. </p>
<p>Usually things that go bad on desktops can be fixed or replaced (power supplies, drives). I love desktops myself but would consider a laptop at that price range also (with external LCD, keyboard, mouse).</p>
<p>I’m typing this on our Costco HP desktop, maybe two years old.
Very happy so far.
Can’t beat Costco for customer service and warranty.</p>
<p>Agree with turbo, you can get a very nice laptop for that price. And you’re not chained to the desk.</p>
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<p>Actually, judging by the previous thread, there’s one bit of simple advice I did not provide I should have thought of suggesting: backing up your video/photos/music files which take up a lot of space to a flashdrive or external hard drive and then deleting them off your computer’s hard drive. </p>
<p>You mentioned only having 3.16 GB free…which on a 6 year old PC means the amount of free space on your hard drive is likely to be less than 10% of your total hard drive space. If that’s the case, the easiest way to speed things up is to free up that space so at least 20-25% of your hard drive is free space. </p>
<p>Incidentally, you should never fill up your machine’s hard drive past the 75-80% mark. </p>
<p>All computers…whether PC or MAC running Windows, Mac OSX, or various other operating systems require a certain amount of free disk space to use as swap space/“virtual memory” to unpack and temporarily store files in the act of running programs and manipulating files being used, edited, viewed, played, etc. </p>
<p>If the amount of hard drive space is too low…your machine will be constantly bogged down by your system attempting to use the same limited space for swap space. If it gets too low…your machine may start developing errors or in extreme cases…even fail to boot. </p>
<p>Considering the age of your computer and what your stated uses are…it should still be viable as a usable machine for at least a few more years. </p>
<p>Especially considering many people are still using machines of your age and older not only at home, but also in many small-medium sized businesses. </p>
<p>Incidentally, I am typing this very post from a 2005 era Pentium M based Dell Latitude D610* running Windows 7 without any issues. I also know plenty of folks still getting along fine with machines double the age of yours running WinXP without issues doing the same things you do with your Acer. </p>
<p>More importantly, I’d hold off buying a PC for a year if possible due to stagnating/increasing prices of hard drives due to reduction in some worldwide manufacturing supply capability due to last year’s flood in Thailand which caused some hard drive factories over there to cease operations.</p>
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<li>This is not necessarily an endorsement for Dell. Got this with a pair of D610s free from a friend whose company was going to dump them in the trash due to overheating issues. Turns out all they needed to do was to clear out some dust-bunnies from the CPU fan/vent area from both and to replace a dead CPU fan…a $5 part.</li>
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<p>^ ditto</p>
<p>My old desktop (a windows 95 packerbell) lasted until 2005, or so. The poor thing lived though quite a bit of abuse. It finally died of a harddrive failure…</p>
<p>I do not like HPs (my mother had one that we sent in twice and it still ran like crap) nor do i like dells (no just no). Acer is okay. Overall, I like toshiba the best.</p>
<p>My personal favorite after 20+ years of putting together desktops for my family and friends is a Shuttle minicube. A bit expensive critters but cute, standard parts, small footprint, and work and work. I’m on my second, soon to be third Shuttle. </p>
<p>[Welcome</a> :: Shuttle Global Website](<a href=“http://www.shuttle.com%5DWelcome”>http://www.shuttle.com)</p>
<p>Do not buy desktop, get IPad or laptop or both. We do not have desctops even at work. Useless…
In regard to laptop, I prefer IBM (Lenovo) over HP, but they are more expansive. Not familiar with anything else. Just switched from old IBM to HP at work, miss user friendly IBM, but it fried…</p>
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<p>THAT’S AMAZING!!! Everyone I knew who bought/owned a Packard-Bell PC had serious issues within the first few months because that company tended to cut corners like mad to increase their tiny margins as the bargain PC of the '90s. </p>
<p>Oftentimes, when they have me look at them for evaluation/repairs, the causes of the problems were hardware related and of such severity that I recommended they junk it and buy a higher end machine. They also had funky form factors which made buying replacement parts like power supplies and motherboards an ordeal not worth dealing with considering the worth of what was a budget-line consumer PC. </p>
<p>Closest modern equivalent to Packard-Bell is eMachines…another company known for using proprietary and problematic bargain basement parts…especially weak power supplies. </p>
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<p>I haven’t been a big fan of HPs since they merged with Compaq. While they’ve had the once in a blue moon exceptional corporate-line laptop, they’ve also had serious issues with reliability and/or poorly thought-out designs. </p>
<p>Just had to deal with a few HP laptops that had serious overheating issues because the CPU fans and heat-vents were designed in such a way that even a slight accumulation of dust would cause the machine to overheat to the point of automatic shutdown. It also doesn’t help that according to other IT techs…HP uses the lowest grade of thermal paste for the laptop’s CPU…figures. :(</p>
<p>I liked the Toshiba laptops of the late '90s…but feel that like most PC laptop manufacturers…they’ve been cutting corners on build quality/reliability.</p>
<p>My hard drive failed recently, and I replaced it with a 2T drive, and my computer seems to be doing OK for the time being. So that’s another option.</p>
<p>Do you live near a [Micro</a> Center - Computers, Electronics, Computer Parts, Networking, Gaming, Software, and more!](<a href=“http://www.microcenter.com/]Micro”>http://www.microcenter.com/) ? The folks at our local branch were more tolerant of our computer-cluelessness than the people at the other shops we visited. They were perfectly happy to point us in the direction of the on-markdown-this-month Dell that had enough brains for our surfing and home-office needs, and didn’t make us crazy by trying to “up-sell” anything. The keyboard is noisy (honestly it rattles as much as my dad’s old manual typewriter), but we got used to that pretty quick.</p>
<p>Don’t forget Amazon for deals of the day. I once picked up a desktop with a small footprint, and a monitor, for about 500 dollars. I think it was an Acer. But you have to be on the look out, and willing to send it back if there is a problem. so far Amazon has done right by me for electronics for years. I have amazon prime for free shipping. but i DO have to pay Ca “use” tax on stuff.</p>
<p>I bought a PowerSpec b633 for $400 a few months ago that came with a 2TB hard drive, 8GB of ram, i5 processor, never gets hot, HDMI port and other great features. Great bang for the buck and I plan on using my desktop for college.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0378290”>http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0378290</a></p>
<p>(Purchased at MicroCenter if you have one close by)</p>
<p>I build my own or buy Apple stuff (mainly for the nice displays and I like Mac OS X). My current home desktop was built from parts purchased at Newegg. Rock-solid fast machine. Once you build your own, it’s hard to buy something from Dell, HP, etc. I would go with Lenovo or a small builder where you can specify the parts if I had to buy pre-assembled.</p>
<p>Note that Ivy Bridge will be available in a week but these are the expensive quad-cores. Low-end dual-cores will be out later this year.</p>
<p>Noticed two endorsements for Microcenter. </p>
<p>Sounds like they’ve really improved their act from my time in the Boston area where one had to carefully scrutinize their sales/bargain bins to ensure you’re not getting dumped with lower-end parts such as a big sale of Maxtor hard drives several friends went gaga over…all of which started failing within a year or another friend who had to send his Powerspec PC multiple times due to defective motherboard(motherboard model installed was known for using el-cheapo capacitors with high failure rates), RAM, etc.</p>
<p>I too would reccomend microcenter. I got my laptop (my current one) there. :)</p>