New Computer

Have you considered a mac?

 

Yeah, you should check out a new Mac, especially since they now have Intel chips and can run Windows software too.

 

personally, we've had a good experience with dell- maybe we're the exception. i'm typing away on our third dell computer right now. so far i've only had 2 reasons to call customer service, both issues were covered under warranty without question, parts came in the mail within 2 business days. neither instance was a broken part- our laptops are both tough- they were problems with the parts at installation. we sold the desktop when we bought the second laptop, and hadn't had a single problem with it.

my current computer is a dell inspiron e1405, it's almost 3 months old and i really like it.

good luck with your decision

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(galaxee @ Aug 31 2006, 05:07 PM) [snapback]312455[/snapback]</div>

Geeeeez, I hate this but I have to agree with galaxee once again. I can just see her now - [attachmentid=4753] - the only point I would like to raise about Dell is that most of their stuff is now proprietary. ergo. you can't buy a cheap substitute power supply, MB etc. . . if one fails you have to buy a more expensive Dell part. Usually drive and add-in cards are not affected by this. HP also has some nice stuff and usually put together some nice Home Entertainment systems.

[attachmentid=4754]

 

I have 4 dell and an acer tablet. I have had no problems with any of them.
I buy new in box dell laptops on ebay and save substantial $.
The warrantes are transferable.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Aug 31 2006, 08:13 PM) [snapback]312491[/snapback]</div>

ARRRGGGGHHH!! Now I'm agreeing with the Kow!! :wacko:
Hh's right, Dell is getting very proprietary, plus they don't allways use the best or highest performance components. Personally I prefer to build my own, go with a good high performance motherboard, my fav on this line is Asus, then for most bang for the buck I like the AMD Athlon processor ideally go with an Athlon 64 (64 bit) processor and a copy of Win XP Pro 64 bit. The 2Gig of RAMis a good idea and don't forget a good speedy hard drive, the SATA interface is becoming quite affordable now and they really scream, on this I like Western Digital or Seagate, though the Seagate is a bit spendy. For video both ATI and Nvidea are good choices. and one final footnote, I just heard that someone now has a DVD burner that has both lasers for either HD-DVD and BluRay that will enable you to keep out of the upcomming format wars.

 

I hate to agree with Wildkow... but I do. Avoid Dell.

I strongly urge you to check out HP.com's clearance section. You can score some amazing deals on some slightly older systems. For instance they currently have a Athlon64 X2 with 1GB of RAM and a DVD Burner for 599.

If I needed a computer, I'd be on that. As I suspect most people in this thread would.

And whatever you do, please don't buy Intel. While their newer offerings are competitive and in some cases better than the AMD offerings, in general they lag behind AMD. AMD's offerings are generally better in terms of power consumption and are all 64bit at this point. Intel still offers some 32bit chips, and there's no reason to stick yourself with a CPU that will be obsolete in a few years.

Just my .02.

 

I was tempted by some very attractive prices on the new Intel Core 2 Duo processors and was finally pushed over the edge when my sister told me she would take my old computer. Her youngest daughter took the Dell laptop I bought for her, and her husband took the laptop that my mother gave her, which I had bought for my mother. So she has had two laptops that I paid for pass through her hands and she has no computer. What's up with that?

Anyway, if FedEx delivers tomorrow, here's what I'll be putting together:

Intel E6300 Core 2 Duo processor
2GB Corsair XMS DDR2 PC5400 memory (2 x 1GB)
BFG Nvidia GeForce 7600GTOC video card
Gigabyte P965 motherboard

plus the guts out of my old PC - five hard drives, two DVD burners, HDTV tuner card, etc.

That came to just over $600 after rebates. Without overclocking the cheapest Core 2 Duo benchmarks on the apps I run about as fast as a 3.7GHz Pentium 4 "Extreme Edition" at less than 20% of the cost.



www.cyberpowerpc.com even has complete Core 2 Duo-based systems starting at $650 (obviously with less memory and a cheaper graphics card than I'm getting). Anyway, unless you're just after a very basic, generic system, I would always choose to build my own (or pay someone to do it). And don't let anyone try to sell you an overpriced system based on an older Pentium 4 that was obsolesced overnight when the Core 2 Duos were released.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Jonnycat26 @ Aug 31 2006, 07:08 PM) [snapback]312515[/snapback]</div>

That was good advice until about a month ago.

Intel has hit it out of the park with their new Core 2 Duo processor. They absolutely crush AMD in price/performance, and since the design incorporates much from the Pentium M mobile processors (both were designed by Intel's Israel-based design team), they consume far less power than their recent Pentium 4 power hogs. The last two systems I built were Athlon XP and Athlon 64, but the new one is going to be a Core 2 Duo.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tleonhar @ Aug 31 2006, 06:57 PM) [snapback]312510[/snapback]</div>

[attachmentid=4755] MOoooo

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(priusenvy @ Aug 31 2006, 07:31 PM) [snapback]312523[/snapback]</div>

That sounds sweet I'm about ready to buy a new PC for video editing purposes and I am eyeing the Core 2 Duo very closely.

[attachmentid=4756]

 

I've used a Dell laptop for a couple of years with no problems.

 

Ugh. HP? Are you people serious? They're using spare pinball machine parts in those things. Even Consumer Reports thinks most HPs are dog vomit. I've got a Commodore 64 that is better.

Look, in the PC world, Dell isn't too shabby. I've had excellent luck. However, I get an employee discount, because my company sells parts to them. This makes it easier to shrug my shoulders if it smokes.

The Mac idea is good. If yuo can do the Mac, do it. If not, you'll be fine with Dell. If you do a live order from them, say "hi" to "Steve Rajahafsjaminiji," from the "local" help desk. Nice guy, from "Chicago" he said.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(priusenvy @ Aug 31 2006, 07:31 PM) [snapback]312523[/snapback]</div>

OK Great! <_< , so now I'm Sufferin' Processor Envy too!

And there I was, sitting pretty on top of the processor heap with my AMD64. :mellow:

Total agreement! Intel Core2 is the way to go . . . and me personally Jennajay, I'd have a local shop build one for me to my specs. They can even take whatever compatible guts out of the old machine and recycle it into the new box . . . and maybe even the box itself. This can possibly save you a chunk of change and you get a better machine in the process.

Aren't a major gamer? Great! They may be able to use your existing video card, memory, power supply . . . etc.

Look for a good local independent computer shop there in Ft. Meyers. They can help you like no catalog company ever could. Hey, after all, parts is parts. And better parts equal better machines.

 

I've had an awesome experience with Dell stuff. In 2000, I got a work laptop for doing development work. I packed it around the world a lot over 2 years before leaving that job and the thing was excellent. It was so good I recommended the same to my inlaws and my mom. Both bought based on my recommend and both had terrible experiences. My moms was so bad that she gave up and sent me the laptop and said to keep it. I installed W2k on it and am using it right now, 4 years later... I think it's great.

My inlaws really did have a horrible time. After 1000 hours on the phone to India someone finally came to the house after 3 years and replaced almost everything circuit board inside that laptop and it still will give him blue-screen of death while he's out of the office and the computer is doing nothing. Not only did dell have a horrible machine for him, but his 4 year on site warranty only means on-site after you've exhausted yourself beyond measure on the phone to people in India that you can't understand.

My mom could never get anything 'support' to work with dell either, that's why she decided it was time to throw this thing in the trash and buy another brand.

I have a desktop system from Dell too... I bought the $430 system 3 years ago, plugged it in and it's been running great since.

I would buy another $400 dell desktop, but only because I trust them to work for 2 or 3 years and then I don't care if they go hosed. I wouldn't spend big bucks counting on warranty work if something went wrong becasue their tech support is miserable. Motto: Do anything possible to spend time on the phone so that the customer will give up on needing any $ spent to fix anything.

This is where Dell begins to lose money on their tech support strategy. Eventually word is out and people warn other people not to spend the money at dell because of the horrible support.

 

more props to the core duo processor. i didn't go all the way to top of the line but i have a t2400 in here at 1.86 ghz each.

i love it. running data analyses with multiple programs is much quicker than my other computer

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(galaxee @ Sep 1 2006, 06:19 AM) [snapback]312679[/snapback]</div>

Women, so typical doing two things at one time.

[attachmentid=4808]

 

for notebooks: Lenovo
else (desktops): Asus

This is just about all I buy, but ocassionally I have to buy a dell server.

 

Gotta love that Core 2 Duo.

Also some crazy deals on Athlon X2. Its a great time for processor purchasing. Too bad the memory prices are headed up.