Buying PC (for Office)

[Smilie]

Hi

need some help looking for a PC (base unit) for friend
nothing fast
just maining using Office and browsing internet
not looking to build 1
budget of £400 max (would perfer lower)

been looking at the low spec Dell Inspiron 580 MT
with a i3 550
which is around £350

any other ideas?
thanks

[nashville]

My family have just bought me a PC Tower Model Advent Firefly FP3014
It has hard drive 1TB .Memory 4096MB. WF card Windows 7 Home Premium. I am very happy with this one. £399. I already had my own monitor.

[tweetiepooh]

Puts Linux advocate hat on and suggests using that as an O/S if usage is basic, saves money on Windows and pretty much does the basics well. There is even a script that once run makes desktop (GNOME) look like XP.

It does depend on support and need for specific software but can be a good way forward. (I use Linux/UNIX all the time so I am biased and used to it.)

[budwieser]

Originally Posted by Smilie

Hi

need some help looking for a PC (base unit) for friend
nothing fast
just maining using Office and browsing internet
not looking to build 1
budget of £400 max (would perfer lower)

been looking at the low spec Dell Inspiron 580 MT
with a i3 550
which is around £350

any other ideas?
thanks

Go to www.aria.co.uk and look at the Gladiator range of PC`s they have,.

[Welshchris]

This isnt bad for £299 inc VAT a 18.5" monitor is an additional £85 on top...

http://www.meshcomputers.com/Default...UCT&KEY=792936

Full Specification
Mini-Tower uATX Chassis - Black
300W Desktop Power Supply
ASUS M4N68T-M LE Mainboard, DDR3 with integrated Graphics - uATX
Supports up to 10 USB 2.0 ports (6 ports at mid-board, 4 ports at back panel) -
AMD Athlon™ II X2 250 Dual Core Processor AM3 (3GHz, 2MB Cache)
4GB 1333MHz Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM - (2x2GB)
256MB NVIDIA GeForce 7025 Integrated Graphics (M4N68T-M LE)
500GB SATA 3Gb/s 7200rpm 16MB Cache Hard Drive - Samsung F3
22x SATA Dual Layer DVD-Rewritable Super Format ±R/±RW/RAM
7.1 High Definition onboard sound card - for 8 Channel Cinema sound
Microsoft® Windows® 7 Home Premium pre-installed
Free Microsoft® Office 2010 Starter Edition (pre-installed OS required)
Free Cyberlink Video Editing Suite - 7 titles (oem) (pre-installed OS required)
BullGuard Internet Security ver. 10 - 90 Day Trial (pre-installed OS required)
Free 3 Years Gold Warranty - inc 3 Months Free Collect & Return

Would you dare build? you can build a dual core box 2 gig ram dvd rw and 500 gig hdd for around £160 with a basic case. You can get valid Win 7 keys ( seems legit) for a fraction of the cost of a retail package but I am not gonna link just in case they are dodgy. So for under £200 a system can be built. I could do it for you and charge £250

[Welshchris]

Zing if its for a business chances are they would need VAT reciepts etc.

they would get vat recipts for the hardware

He aint said its for a business though he said its for a friend mainly for office and browsing

[MovedGoalPosts]

A business just needs a proper receipt, it doesn't have to be VAT after all you can trade quite legally and not be VAT registered provided you don't have a big turnover. that is how most small one man band traders will start up. All that happens is that a VAT registered business can't reclaim / offset the VAT if the invoice is all inclusive and thus would compare an all inclusive cost to a VAT plus cost.

As for a simple office no bells and whistles PC I buy our office stuff direct from Dell

I'd discount linux. For most users you need true MS Office software, not just a compatible, to be sure you can share your documents with other businesses and clients. If you know what you are doing then star office and linux might be an option, but only if you want the hassle, and in business environments you just don't need that. Hence business being primarily wedded to Windows.

[Smilie]

thanks guys

its not for business
shes a student need it mainly for "windows" office

can build it myself (built a few myself)
but i didnt really wanted to bother
quite a hassle if i get a bad mem stick or something
and i havent checked prices on PC stuff for ages

but if im am willing to build 1
what kinda components would you recommend
within my price range??
are the i3s anygood?

i have a old WinXP CD key i dont use which could be used on the PC
and also have a old LCD for her

thanks again guys

[MovedGoalPosts]

Win XP might be a bit of a hassle with newer components - you'd have to check the manufacturers provide drivers and stuff. I dunno if XP especially if it's the standard 32bit version would even take advantage of the i3 or equivalent modern CPU.

As a student she should be entitled to the cheapo MS Office software. For best results I'd run that on Windows 7 these days.

[v0id]

Maybe cheaper to get a P4 base unit of ebay for around £25

[adzii_nufc]

Just look around the main brand names and you'll find one cheap enough.

All of these provide Cheap office computers.

Dell
Acer/HP
Compaq

Also does it have to be brand new?

Sure you've seen the new ads on youtube but Gumtree.com

You have people basically giving them away.

[damien c]

XP does seem to struggle with new component's as I have just upgraded my grandads pc with some new stuff and XP seem's to be struggling with it but will find out after a reload on it.

Upgraded him to:

AMD Phenom ii X4 965BE
4gb 1600mhz DDR3
Asus Crosshair IV mobo

I think for office use the I3 cpu's etc will cost more than a AMD cpu and they will not really perform any beter for what they will use it for, go for a AMD based system as you can get them quite cheap.

Originally Posted by Smilie

thanks guys

its not for business
shes a student need it mainly for "windows" office

can build it myself (built a few myself)
but i didnt really wanted to bother
quite a hassle if i get a bad mem stick or something
and i havent checked prices on PC stuff for ages

but if im am willing to build 1
what kinda components would you recommend
within my price range??
are the i3s anygood?

i have a old WinXP CD key i dont use which could be used on the PC
and also have a old LCD for her

thanks again guys

you do not need an i3 for the uses you require. Why not buy a bundle? Novatech do cheap motherboard bundles which would be ideal for the use requested

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/p...MBB-2552G.html this bundle for example would be ideal throw a 500 or 1000 gig hdd at it a dvd rw and a case and power supply the build done well under £200


Honestly for the uses requested you need nothing more

---------- Post added at 10:20 ---------- Previous post was at 10:19 ----------

if you wanted a bit more ooomph http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/p...BB-6404GB.html


By rights the bundle should be tested so at least it will post. Thats the best you can expect from a pre built system from anywhere there is always a chance anything electronic will fail