Buying a new personal computer (PC)

Greetings all techies,

I am thinking of buying a new computer and know very little about what I should be looking for. So help and advice is much needed.

I think I would like to go for a lap top as I find the tower a bit big and noisy, but don't know if a lap top is compatible for all my needs. My current PC is becoming a bit sluggish and I think it's all the junk I have on it, but I really don't know how to clean it all up and make it run smoother. I do delete temp files and clean up the cookies...all the easy stuff.

I download and store a lot of music and films and pictures. Other from that, I mostly use my computer for surfing the net and email, basic stuff like that.

Last year I was advised to stay away from anything with Vista, but it seems almost everything comes with Vista, so have the problems been sorted out?

Any brand better than another? I don't want a MAC. Too expensive.

How old is your computer? A format and reinstallation might be sufficient to make it work better, pirating movies and music over long periods of time can make a housecleaning necessary - your uses dont require alot of ocmputing power.

My computer is 5 years old. How do I do those things you suggested?

I bought an external hard drive to help free up some space, but now my Alltunes is corrupt and I have tried uninstalling and re-installing but it didn't make a difference.

oh and I buy my media...if that makes a difference

DrivinWest is selling his computer which is a pretty small one. I know Hamburg and Munich is not next door, but I thought I'd pass the link...

steph, mat and I just bought a HP notebook last month that we are really happy with.
it's a 17", so quite a big screen, still only weighs 3 kilos.
it came with vista, but included a downgrade.
we also didn't want to have vista, so wanted to downgrade, but have now decided not to do that as we quite like vista. we both find it very user-friendly.
we also took it with us on holiday, it was great to be able to check your emails pretty much everywhere, and also the screen is really good, even if you are watching from the side, so watching dvds on the notebook was comfy.
can give you more details on the notebook if you like (IF you decide to buy something new).

5 years is probably pushing on the time to replace end anyway, a reformat would involve the original system disc that came with the computer and wiping it completely and re-installing windows.

What price range are you looking at? Laptops are great but if you don't need the portability you will get more bang for your buck out of a desktop - you don't need to buy a huge tower and if you aren't getting a high powered gaming machine noise shouldn't be an issue..

That's what I thought regarding the age of the computer and time to replace. We are looking to buy our new computer in the UK, just because it will be in English and easier for me to deal with, but price range would be around 800.00 Euros

What do you mean by more bang for my buck regarding the desktop?

Hammonia - thanks for the info...HP is something I have considered.

Here's a good start: https://www.csl-computer.com/shop/index.php...j3c979hblsq9i4r

For 800 euro you should be able to get one damn fine computer.

In my price I was also hoping to get a new monitor as well, but that link gave me a good idea on prices. Thank you.

Steph,
If you are earning Euro and want a laptop, I would suggest that you get a Laptop in Canada when you go home next... with the Euro being so strong you can often get a laptop for less there. Another benifit would be that you would have an English keyboard and operating system. If you are looking into getting it here, check out www.notebooksbilliger.de. I can't tell you of any good websites in Canada but here are two good ones for the US: www.newegg.com and www.zipzoomfly.com. They have good prices and are well know in the computer geek world. :-)
I personally have bought laptops on notebooksbilliger.de and on newegg.com for different people and they were both good to deal with. Another good laptop is Dell. I believe they have an international warranty, but you would have to check online or call them. My suggestion to everyone looking for a laptop is this: think about what you have done in the past, (watch videos, listen to music, or maybe just surfing the internet), figure out what you want to do in the future (maybed picture or video or music editing, or maybe just surfing like before) and then buy a computer or laptop that is a bit better ie more powerful, more memory and more hard drive storage space than what you need. With the price you need to figure out exactly how much money you want to spend and be prepared to spend 50-100 Euro more, it is worth it.

If you are looking for a computer I would only suggest that you NOT get it at Mediamarkt or Saturn... their prices are generally too high. You can often get computers from smaller shops that are better, have a warranty and cost less than at the big electronic stores.

Hope that helps!
David

Yeah if you can get a laptop in the US or Canada your going to get a far better deal.. Hell I ordered all my parts for my new desktop online in the US and had my buddy assemble it there and ship it to me - saved a bundle.

My son & his mates ordered the parts for my new PC (last year), assembled it, installed & handed over.
But they knew what they were doing - at least they did once completed. Although (or because) I'm in IT 37 years I could not have done it...

Its not rocket science, you shove the various cards and chips into the spaces they seem to fit into Its like legos, just really expensive fragile legos..

I've been building my PCs for the past 9 years... like lilplatinum says it is not too difficult. You just need to know what kind of parts you need to buy and where they belong. You also need to be careful about static electricity... there is no quicker way to kill a little piece of expensive electronic equipment than that. There is one problem that you can have with building your own system... if something goes wrong you are the proud owner of an expensive paperweight (especially if you buy there and bring it here). I just lost my main PC after 2 years; at least I had a newer PC that I had in the living room.
If you have someone build you a PC (buy most of the parts in North America and buy the case here) you would spend probably between $350 & $400 US dollars plus about 50 Euro for a decent computer case. I would be happy to build it for you for free (without any guarantees of course!).

Maybe you could check the ads on Toytown. I found a second hand MacBook there recently and I am sure it is a good place to look for a Computer with an English keyboard and system software.

I would suggest holding off buying one for a couple of months the eee PC has spawned a whole set of imitators as people suddenly realised they don't need a really power PC to surf the web and read e-mail.

Even if you do not want one of these style of computer they are very likely cause price reductions at the lower end of the market. Although you would need to get an external HD for your storage needs, these are quite cheap these days.

You can buy a brand new Dell Inspiron 1525 for just over €500.

If your not fluent in German techie speak, here's what you could try:
1. Go to Dell UK Home Inspiron
2. Use 'Narrow your selection' feature on the left to select the features you want. Or 'Get Started'.
3. When you start 'Customise' it is wise to open another window for Dell Germany. If you do not know if you need the option there is normally help associated with it.
4. Then just try to match your German and English options.
5. Once you are finished on the German site there should be an option to email your options. Send a copy to yourself.
6. Call Dell Germany and tell them you want all software in English and keyboard as American English, and also send them an email copy of your options.

This is what I did on behalf of a friend who wanted a Dell Inspiron laptop and for myself when I bought a Dell Vostro (business-orientated) laptop.

If not interested in a Dell at least you will know how much you should expect to pay in Europe.
As others have said laptops/PCs are much cheaper in US/Canada. Even more so now with the weak dollar.
And Saturn, etc. tend to be much more expensive and of course will be pre-installed with German Vista and have a German keyboard.

EDIT: Missed the part where you say you would buy it in the UK. Although I assume you mean travel to the UK to buy one, and not that you have an address in the UK where Dell UK could deliver it to.

@Exile
The problems with the eee PC and the copycats, are that therir startting to reach the price of a standard Notebook, but have limited
expansion. The new eee PC 1000 (in Inch) is going to go for $600-650. For this price you can get a 15in entry level notebook from
any of the big vendors.

They are not all projected to be that price (e.g. the AcerOne) and the introduction of new CPUs usually prompt discounting on legacy systems.

As I said even if you don't want one of these products, they are likely are likely to push prices down on that 15" clunker.

For 333EURO you can get a 4-core PC with 500Gb hd and Gforce 8600
another 200EURO for a 22inch WD TFT.