Best PC deals

[william_wallace 8]

My wife to be in South Carolina is after a new pc. Can anyone recommend a good place to buy one for under $500. She's also after a new keyboard, mouse and monitor. She doesn't want anything fancy as it's just for the family. The link below is the best I have found so far.

Cheers all.

http://www.circuitcity.com/ccd/bundleDetai...%20$449.97

[SMOKE 1,426]

i bought 2 recently. 1 for me 1 for a mothers day gift. i'm very pleased w/ mine.

http://www.dell.com/content/products/categ...&lid=665861

charles (charlesandnessa) bought a really amped up model, you might ask him what he thinks of his.

[Ban Hammer 15,127]

i bought 2 recently. 1 for me 1 for a mothers day gift. i'm very pleased w/ mine.

http://www.dell.com/content/products/categ...&lid=665861

charles (charlesandnessa) bought a really amped up model, you might ask him what he thinks of his.

i'm loving it but it was more than double what the op wants to spend.

[SMOKE 1,426]

i bought 2 recently. 1 for me 1 for a mothers day gift. i'm very pleased w/ mine.

http://www.dell.com/content/products/categ...&lid=665861

charles (charlesandnessa) bought a really amped up model, you might ask him what he thinks of his.

i'm loving it but it was more than double what the op wants to spend.

yah but for what he wants (family computer "nothing fancy") he can get a vostro 200 w/ a 20" monitor for about $500. + it looks cool. B)

[william_wallace 8]

i bought 2 recently. 1 for me 1 for a mothers day gift. i'm very pleased w/ mine.

http://www.dell.com/content/products/categ...&lid=665861

charles (charlesandnessa) bought a really amped up model, you might ask him what he thinks of his.

i'm loving it but it was more than double what the op wants to spend.

yah but for what he wants (family computer "nothing fancy") he can get a vostro 200 w/ a 20" monitor for about $500. + it looks cool. B)

Cheers for that. Ye she dont want anything fancy. The kids will mainly be going on it. Lara will get a laptop for herself at a a later date.

[Ban Hammer 15,127]

i bought 2 recently. 1 for me 1 for a mothers day gift. i'm very pleased w/ mine.

http://www.dell.com/content/products/categ...&lid=665861

charles (charlesandnessa) bought a really amped up model, you might ask him what he thinks of his.

i'm loving it but it was more than double what the op wants to spend.

yah but for what he wants (family computer "nothing fancy") he can get a vostro 200 w/ a 20" monitor for about $500. + it looks cool. B)

vostro is a well kept secret apparently, i asked around at work and no one ever heard of it.

[SMOKE 1,426]

vostro is a well kept secret apparently, i asked around at work and no one ever heard of it.

its dells new "business" computer. i don't think they've been out long.

william: if she orders it over the phone, she needs to tell them its for her "small business" or they'll try to sell her another model at a higher price.

[aidan80 9]

My wife to be in South Carolina is after a new pc. Can anyone recommend a good place to buy one for under $500. She's also after a new keyboard, mouse and monitor. She doesn't want anything fancy as it's just for the family. The link below is the best I have found so far.

Cheers all.

http://www.circuitcity.com/ccd/bundleDetai...%20$449.97

You could give this a go, although it is slightly over budget but at least you won't have to deal with Vista!!

Of course if you want rock bottom prices you could try out this eMachines at $199 with shipping at $1.00! Toss in a 17" LCD for $159!

Here's a decent enough wee laptop at $399, more than decent enough for the web and everything else!

There are plenty (too many!!) sites out there offering good deals, have a poke around here am sure you'll find something! I got a great deal on a laptop last year on that site, thing went on sale they knocked $200 off the price!

If you go for a Windows machine (most likely) it'll come with the beautiful/dreaded Vista. I'd strongly recommend upgrading the RAM to 2GB! Laptop and desktop modules are cheap and plentiful.. Installing the RAM is very quick and easy to do yourself! Avoid the extended warranties unless the user is rough, use the magical "restore disk" instead when the computer bites the dust.

Good Luck!

[Marilyn. 340]

I got my computer from Walmart last summer for about 600 bucks.. came with a 17 inch flat screen monitor, mouse, keyboard, speakers ....

it came with Vista and 1 GB of ram which I haven't had any problems with but if you are going to use the computer for games and stuff you might need more RAM...

Edited June 18, 2008 by *Marilyn*

[aidan80 9]

I got my computer from Walmart last summer for about 600 bucks.. came with a 17 inch flat screen monitor, mouse, keyboard, speakers ....

it came with Vista and 1 GB of ram which I haven't had any problems with but if you are going to use the computer for games and stuff you might need more RAM...

Vista just sits nicely with 1GB (normally less available with the RAM being shared on most budget machines) there's swapping, I mean if your just surfing the web and your running basic if you don't mind the swapping you'd get away with it. Try loading Outlook or media player or IE7 or all together and things quickly get knocked down. The average customer 1GB might be fine and dandy but for the sake of $20 - $30 the extra memory does make quite a difference in that OS.

Edited June 18, 2008 by aidan80

[Marilyn. 340]

I do have media player and IE7... all run fine ... *shrugs*

[aidan80 9]

I do have media player and IE7... all run fine ... *shrugs*

Everyone's preferences are of course different. Fine to you could be horrible to the next person or even better than expected at to someone else.. I'm just going by experience with the OS, and seeing the various benchmarks floating around out there. More is unfortunately better in the case of Vista. Personally I'd recommend anyone to stick with XP if they can and avoid Vista all together. Vista sort of reminds me of ME in a way, although not quite as bad. Having said that you could very well love the OS and there isn't a thing wrong with that, choices are a great thing.

Edited June 18, 2008 by aidan80

[Marilyn. 340]

yeah I know a lot of people have problems with Vista but it works fine for me (knock on wood...)

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

Costco $599

http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?...20-_-ZT821Xi-35

(P.S. I wouldn't upgrade to Vista but we did buy a system with it installed)

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

Here's another deal. $269.99

Acer Aspire AM1610-U1201A Desktop /Pentium dual-core E2140/1GB DDR2/250GB SATA 7200RPM/Super-Multi drive (DVD+R, DVD-R, DVD-RAM)/9-in-1 card reader/ Windows Vista Home Premium/Factory Refurbished

http://www.buy.com/prod/acer-aspire-am1610.../207537866.html