Hi. I am looking for a new PC for my uncle. Budget is £400 tops.
The PC will be used only for surfing the internet and using office documents but I would still like it to be capable of handling the odd game he may play.
What are the current mega deals going on PCs? I don't know much about what is available at Lidl/Aldi etc... and whether their PCs are any good.
I saw this in the paper yesterday. Looks good to me but I would appreciate your comments:
Dell Dimension 5150 - £349 (inc. vat + p&p)
- Intel Pentium 4 Processor 521 (3GHz, 1MB Cache, 800MHZ FSB )
- XP Home Edition
- 512MB DDR2 RAM
- 80GB SATA Hard Drive
- 17" Flat Panel Monitor
- Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950
- 48x CD-RW/DVD Combo Drive
E-Value code = NPUK5 - D09515B. I don't know if i can also get quidco.
Thanks
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onboard graphics are crap for playing games as they cannot handle much
btw, you will probably get more response in the techie board so get in touch with a mod to see if they can move it for you
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Hi Broke Student,
As gaming guy says you should get more help with this on the Techie board, so I'll move your thread over there.
Pink
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onboard graphics are crap for playing games as they cannot handle much
Who said his uncle wants to play games - on board graphics are fine for everyday use outwith gaming and high end video editing etc. 90% of PC's in offices have on-board graphics.
Computer fairs - completely agree - that is 1990's - do people still go to computer fairs???
Get a Dell - have a look at the deals mentioned at (another bargain searching website) and also buy through quidco. There are quite a few Dell deals referenced there today.
Alternatively get an Acer - cheap and can be had from Tescos or . This is assuming you do not need any support.
Well that's my tuppence worth.
Scoobies
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Broke Student,
MCS is a Dell reseller that regularly sells off cheapies, get yourself on the mailing list, but be aware the offers sell out quickly.
eg Tuesdays email had 35 Dells and the above link that had the full list now at time of this post has only 9 left, the best have gone.
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Well i've been moved to the techie forum but still no responses. Are there no good deals going at the moment?
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Have you looked at the deals shown here
They seem to keep abreast of all the deals.
They have this variant of the 5150
» Dell Dimension 5150
17" TFT Monitor
Intel Pentium 4 3.00Ghz
512Mb Ram, 160Gb Hdd
16xDVD+/-RW
128Mb Radeon X300 GFX
XP Home Edition
£399 (inc vat&del)
It looks like it would be possible to upgrade the graphics card on the 5150 at a later stage if required. I guess it depends on what games he wants to play.
Regards
Arnold
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If you really want to save money you should forget buying an 'off the shelf' pc.
Computer fairs are the way forward. I recently built two computers, one for myself one for a family member, and estimate my saving at over £1,000. Loaded them both full of freeware which probably saved me another couple of hundred pound.
Also, you can buy operating systems at OEM prices at computer fairs - well worth the £3 entry fee.
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Computer fairs are the way forward. I recently built two computers, one for myself one for a family member, and estimate my saving at over £1,000. Loaded them both full of freeware which probably saved me another couple of hundred pound. Hmm I'd struggle to believe that. Computer fairs are very 1990's. I used to regularly go to the ones around Tottenham Court Road, but they eventually became dated (around 2002) and online stores were able to offer much better deals. Don't get me wrong, I still self build but haven't bought from a fair in ages.
Freeware at best will save you around £100 and that's if you go for Linux. These days XP can be bought for around £50-60 and anti-virus (unless you get a free one) is around £20-30.Virtually everything else can be found easily for free.
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Hmm I'd struggle to believe that. Computer fairs are very 1990's. I used to regularly go to the ones around Tottenham Court Road, but they eventually became dated (around 2002) and online stores were able to offer much better deals. Don't get me wrong, I still self build but haven't bought from a fair in ages.
Freeware at best will save you around £100 and that's if you go for Linux. These days XP can be bought for around £50-60 and anti-virus (unless you get a free one) is around £20-30.Virtually everything else can be found easily for free. One of them was very high spec -
ASUS nForce 4 Motherboard
AMD 4.4GHz dual core
4GB DDR2 RAM
ASUS nVidia GeForce 7900 GTS
Creative X-Fi Elite Pro
two 19" LCD monitors etc
The other was lower spec but I just went on Dell's website and the total cost of both of them off Dell would have set me back at least £1,000 extra, and that's a conservative estimate.
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They have this variant of the 5150
» Dell Dimension 5150
17" TFT Monitor
Intel Pentium 4 3.00Ghz
512Mb Ram, 160Gb Hdd
16xDVD+/-RW
128Mb Radeon X300 GFX
XP Home Edition
£399 (inc vat&del)
Useful site, but I couldn't find that price, only £509.
Charlie
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Useful site, but I couldn't find that price, only £509.
Charlie
reduce the onsite warranty to 1 year return and collect instead of the 3 year thing, it reduces it by a lot. also go through quidco and you save another 5%
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reduce the onsite warranty to 1 year return and collect instead of the 3 year thing, it reduces it by a lot. also go through quidco and you save another 5% Still can only get that spec down to £449. The 3100s seem to be the really cheap ones.
Charlie
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I've got a Dell 5150 and splurged £100 for an X800 GTO2 from ebay and it is a seriously good gaming machine. You might want to think about getting more RAM for it though and the ultrasharp display. The Audigy onboard upgrade isn't worth it though, better getting an Audigy2 from ebay
Cheers
Jeff
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Hi. I am looking for a new PC for my uncle. Budget is £400 tops.
The PC will be used only for surfing the internet and using office documents but I would still like it to be capable of handling the odd game he may play. For the best deals on Dell computers, you really need to be here: the people that frequent that forum will be able to find you a suitable 'dell bargain' and is often the place where all the other 'dell bargain sites' bargains originate from before they get affiliate linked. It's also worth mentioning, that there will be better bargains\offers available after the students have gone back to school\college\university as presently dell hasn't got the incentive to drop the prices. They know everyone wants computer to aid with their studies. If there are any bargains out there, then the above site will find them first.
HTH
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Hi,
Once again, please could we have a sticky with appropriate configurations for various PCs?
It would really help and we have enough experts to ive an unbiased suggested spec..
Jo
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Thanks guys for the replies. I will take a look at the links you have posted. Remember that it is not just dell in particular that i am after but would not mind paying a little more for a solid brand name.
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Take a good look at this
eBay is also quite good, but i generally don't buy from shops, some listings try to hide the fact they haven't put the VAT on yet and do so after the listing ends