New computer spec?

[Valhalla]

Check out www.scan.co.uk - they've been around for a long time (at least 20yrs) - they do 'today' only deals and there is a wealth of information on the site:
https://www.scan.co.uk/todayonly -

 

[niemeyjt]

My 8 yo Dell Laptop goes on and on. The Lenovo I bought to replace it is broken in my cupboard.

But now I too have reverted to desktops for most things. And multiple monitors as well, as eyesight deteriorates a 24" or 27" monitor is great. And one that rotates means documents can be viewed in portrait as well. My graphics card was bought off a miner who gave up after Mount Gox and is still more than enough for what I do (but would be too slow for serious gamers).
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I bought many bits from Scan for my son's gaming PC. Also look at PCPartsPicker - https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/ - to play around with configurations before buying.

 

[Robbo60]

If you only have the one "computer" why would you go for a desktop? Why not a laptop/tablet (with a separate monitor if needed) I have used a laptop for work, not office based, and found Lenovo and HP to be robust bits of kit. I am typing this on a Medion laptop from Aldi £279.99. Medion are part of Lenovo.
Does everything I want but memory small

 

[Reginald]

Old laptop is dying so it’s time for a new pc. This time we’re going for an all in one desktop and as usual I find sorting out the specification ridiculously difficult as I’m happy to admit I know very little about them.

With a max budget of £600 this one appears to be quite good and for our needs (basic home use with some photo editing) would seem to fit the bill.

https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/compu...md-ryzen-7-512-gb-ssd-black-10207928-pdt.html
I hate the process because if I get it wrong we have to live with it for quite a few years. Any help or general thoughts appreciated.

I would recommend that you check out novatech in Portsmouth before you part with your hard earned, I have had PCs from them them the last one ran for 11 years without issues,and my wife had their laptops for her university work again no issues they are helpful and their guarantees are not made of plastic.

 

[pe2dave]

Run a mile, that Lenovo is not brilliant and only has 8 Gig of Ram. I always build my own systems so I know what is inside the case, the same reason I will not eat shop brought pies. I know it saves space having a compact system but with a std Pc if something needs replacing it is straightforward and the same for upgrades. I like the fact it has an AMD processor that is a bonus and the SSD but look at a base unit and screen system and you will get more for the money. 16 Gig of Ram is cheap these days and makes a huge difference to performance especially with multi tasking. If you have a local Pc specialist talk to them as they will provide a more custom solution rather than Pc world, or look at Overclockers / Scan computers online .

Contra argument, my wife bought a Sony all in one eight years ago. Neary a problem in that time.
Unless you're in a hurry for photo editing, 8Gb memory should be fine.

 

[niemeyjt]

If you only have the one "computer" why would you go for a desktop?

A few reasons: Performance, Memory, Graphics, Storage, Expansion

 

[Jonm]

Old laptop is dying so it’s time for a new pc. This time we’re going for an all in one desktop and as usual I find sorting out the specification ridiculously difficult as I’m happy to admit I know very little about them.

With a max budget of £600 this one appears to be quite good and for our needs (basic home use with some photo editing) would seem to fit the bill.

https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/compu...md-ryzen-7-512-gb-ssd-black-10207928-pdt.html
I hate the process because if I get it wrong we have to live with it for quite a few years. Any help or general thoughts appreciated.

It would help if you said what computer you have at the moment, processor model, ram and disc size. Also what programs you wish to run. It is best to assume that your existing programs will not work on your new machine and will require upgrading unless you know otherwise. Also what is important to you, like large high quality screen, viewing large videos etc.

I am no expert on computers but others on here can probably give you good advice, if you give a bit more information. Probably the best advice is someone who can advise you of a shop which can give you proper advice, not try to sell you the most expensive thing they can persuade you to buy. Perhaps transfer all your files and get your new computer up and running. As others have mentioned, now is not a good time to buy, supply is below demand generally and I assume this applies to computers.

 

[GuitardoctorW7]

I've been a Mac user at home for 20+ years now. I use PC's at work, so not going to get into the which is the better argument, I do find Macs less frustrating though, especially during software updates. You can of course run Windows on a Mac, I use Parallels, just for work based items.
Apple has always been the more expensive machine but they do go on for a long time, and yes I know some PC's do too. Apple have a little known caveat for UK sales in that they will honour hardware faults for up to 6 years as UK consumer laws expect goods to have a 'reasonable merchantable life'. My laptop's screen went bang last year (it was 4 years old) It was picked up, replaced and turned around in 3 days, free of charge as they have had a faulty batch.
I personally would scrape the money together and buy a MacBook Air. The minimum spec machine is £999 but the new M1 chips they use now seem very good by all accounts. They have integrated RAM which makes for more powerful processing and the minimum spec machine will be more than most people need.
I'll be upgrading my MacBook Pro this year, not that I need to just for tax efficiencies. This will still be a very good machine 5 years from now.

 

[J-G]

Just my two penn'orth --- I've been in the business of building PCs since 1989 and have some customers with me most of that time - one is now 93 and on her 4th PC, only upgraded due to new requirements.

The only Laptops I recommend are Toshiba, I wouldn't consider Lenovo, HP, Dell .... or any 'main stream' supplier and certainly not Apple on the 'Value for money' front (unless you are in the graphic arts field).

If you were in my neck of the woods I'd put together a custom built unit but as you're not - and I concur with most of what has been said - I suggest that you e-mail Graeme on [email protected] and explain what you want. Although he is ostensibly a Games PC retailer his prices on components are nearly always better than I can get buying one-offs at a wholesale distributor.

Your budget is tight in this specific day-and-age but he might have something suitable.

Building your own is not at all onerous if you can wield a Pozi Nº1 screwdriver and match electrical plugs to the same shape sockets.

I would recommend either Gigabyte or ACER main-board, though with your budget you may have to consider MSI, AMD is the way to go for the CPU. Fit either a 2½" or M2 SSD but I would suggest 60 or 128Gb to be used only as Drive 'C' for Windows 10 to sit on and add a 'normal' Hard Drive from Western Digital as your main storage. This could be anything from 512Gb upward. 16Gb of RAM today is considered small but is ample for the usual office and e-mail needs.

Having been used to a laptop you may take a Web-Cam to be a 'given' so if you have become used to using Zoom/Teams or whatever you may need to add a camera and speakers.

I'll keep this thread open in case you need any other 'pointers' but I'd be happy to respond to a PM.

 

[jcassidy]

All in one PC represent poor value for money, even before you get to a miserly 8GB RAM.

Curry's also represent poor value for money. The fact that they sell insurance FOR WHEN it breaks disturbs me.

However if that's what you want (no cable mess, etc etc) then you need to factor in cost of wireless keyboard, mouse, and rechargeable batteries. No point having an all-in-one and then having a mess of wired accessories.

You must also factor in the cost of a small external SSD drive for backup of your photos. Or else save them on Google (15GB at no additional cost)

 

[Limey Lurker]

we used normal PC's n laptops but kept getting bugs......tried Norton anti-virus.....what a waste of money that was.......
in the end a good freind who uses prof Apple gear (he makes and produces short films) talked me into an Apple 27" all in one jobby......over 10 years ago.......
gotta say never looked back.......the money we saved on getting the Windows computor cleaned n fixed paid the difference for the new gear......
now we are all Apple.....
2x 27"inchers, 2 laptops, mini mac, 3 x I-phones........not for everyone but suits us......
BUT when something better and cheaper comes along (thats as easy to use) as the Apple products, we'll jump ship.....
but that's never gonna be WINDOWS and if it were I wouldn't change back on principle......

as for every one saying they upgrade to new systems and the old ones wont work is all HYPE.....
they all do it.....Windows 10 wont work most of the old systems at all.....
u have to buy new or special feature to use ur old programs....and all I hear on one or two other forums that it's always causing probs.....
Sorry Stuart £600 wont get u into Apple even if u wanted....... good luck....

I, and the rest of my family, agree entirely with these comments; except the last! My offspring have bought new, but I bought second-hand and have had no regrets at all. I paid slightly more than your £600, but £600 will get you a good second-hand iMac in pristine condition when the University year ends, and ex-students need money.

 

[McAldo]

Amazon refurbished at times offers good deals I think:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07S3XGL46/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fierce-RGB...p/B08F811DLH/ref=psdc_428651031_t3_B07S3XGL46https://www.amazon.co.uk/Optiplex-i...p/B07YST68J3/ref=psdc_428651031_t1_B07S3XGL46
They come with one year warranty, which you could extend to 3 years inclusive of accidental damage for £20 extra.
Buying a decent monitor, keyboard mouse and speakers, for the £230 model, would bring the total expense to £500 or so.

The Curry model you link has the advantages that:
- it does not take much space (but admittedly if you put a normal computer cabinet under the table, there is no difference)
- It comes with mouse and keyboard and has integrated speakers
- It will be quite silent when running.
- The processor is an i7, so reasonably fast

It has the disadvantages that:
- It cannot be upgraded
- RAM memory is low, at 8GB. Windows 10 eats up a lot of memory just to run.
- The hard disk is not very large and you cannot add another internal one. You could however get a few TB external hard disk with USB3.0, for £120 or less. That would get you plenty of space for storage of data but slow access
- The video card is not very good.
- The quality of the integrated monitor and speakers might not be great.

It is very hard to give you any useful advice not knowing what you need to do with your computer.

 

[stuartpaul]

Thank you all for your comments and some very helpful pointers. To be honest I’d expected more of a ‘that’ll do’. It’s amazing how opinions can be so different on the same make.

In terms of what we use it for the truth is not a lot! Managing my music library and photo collection are the biggest jobs then mostly a bit of shopping and general browsing. I prefer the laptop to the ipad for YouTube but don’t use it for films or gaming. We have limited space so a standard desktop won’t fit (and isn’t allowed!) hence the all in one. Already have a 1Tb hard drive for back up and separate storage.

Had a bit of a wander through some of the build your own sites and frankly found it confusing with some of the options when you’re only looking for something ‘bog standard’ and down to a budget.

Have to say the refurbed apples do look interesting and they got an ‘oh, they look nice’ award!

Thanks again and I’ll be doing some more thinking and possibly some budget massaging.

 

[niemeyjt]

Another refurb link for you to look at - even if only to compare with others: Refurbished Laptops, Desktops & Workstations: Dell Outlet | Dell

 

[RobinBHM]

when's the best time to buy a computer that's up to the latest spec?

A = 6 months after you've just bought one

 

[Spectric]

Having built my own Pc systems ever since the 286 hit the market and DOS was the OS I always found pre built systems lacked something, often a way for companies to shift end of life components. I use a server tower for my main Pc because it has plenty of space, it is almost 600mm deep and stands 600mm tall and is over fourteen years old but as it is designed for server use it is great for easy access and has a swing out HDD rack that can hold twelve drives, great back in the day when I ran a RAID array and disk capacity was only just into gigabytes at a great cost and SCSI drives were your only option for fast data transfer.

The biggest hazzard to electronics and Pc's is heat, so a big airy case with good airflow can help keep things cool which extends component life especially the onboard PSU components, so I would only buy a laptop if I needed the portability and not for at home use and self contained systems also tend to cram everything into a smaller space. As I said if you are not a gamer or using it for high end CAD then a good basic Pc will deliver, you could look at

https://www.scan.co.uk/shop/computer-hardware/desktops-home-office/scan-home-pcs
The biggest issues I have these days is that it seems to have become fashionable to have Disco lighting built into the Pc so it lights up like the blackpool illuminations, and in my opinion just as chavy as Blackpool itself.

 

[Spectric]

when's the best time to buy a computer that's up to the latest spec?

I think the rate of progress has slowed but it was always said that something brought on a Monday would be old hat by the following Monday but if it worked Ok when you brought it who cares. Modern computers should be much faster and productive than they are, but with cheap memory has come a lot of sloppy and bloated software with to many gimics.

 

[J-G]

With that extra detail you have moved the whole debate

There are a few activities that demand a great deal from a PC - the most notable probably Video editing, but they include - Music & Photography ..... both of which you site.

If by "Managing my music library" you mean keeping a database of titles/artists etc. then that's not a problem but if you mean storing MP3/WAV files then you do need serious data-storage. Similarly with photographs - unless you are storing only low resolution .JPG thumbnails - you need lots of disk space.

Your statement "a standard desktop won’t fit (and isn’t allowed!) " causes concern when linked to your budget. I would normally suggest looking at the BRIX system which is a very small footprint (100mm x 100mm x 40mm ish) box that can fit on the back of a monitor but can also sit on the desk but your budget would need a serious uplift.

Besides the BRIX system there are also small deck-top cases available rather than the full tower 600 x 600 x 190 offerings. I've recently supplied a few using the Mini-ITX case which is 240 x 323 x 135. Naturally there can be issues regarding heat dissipation and it can be challenging to get the components in but I've not had any real problems. The problem is always that miniaturization (even on a limited scale) is always more expensive.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

There seems to be a range of attitudes towards IT from:

• build it with the parts best suited to the planned use and upgrade individual components as required or when they fail, to
• I want a box to send emails, simple documents and spreadsheets, surf the web, occassionally manipulate photos and video.

The former requires a detailed understanding of technology and functionality. For the latter it is just a functional piece of kit which performs with the minimum of effort.

I suspect the best advice to the original poster should be based on:

I find sorting out the specification ridiculously difficult as I’m happy to admit I know very little about them............ for our needs basic home use with some photo editing

 

[niemeyjt]

@ Spectric My son loves RGB - on his gamer PC - even the memory is RGB. I hate it!

You make another good point about desktops - heat dissipation - I only have 3 egress cooling fans and a souped-up CPU fan on my system but as I type the CPU is 38 degrees and the GPU 41 degrees. The case will accept another three ingress fans if ever required.