[The Seven Bays Window Cleaning Company]

Its time the get a new PC, as with having more work related stuff being kept, and used on the computer - and now with the rest of the family using it too - I'm getting increasingly worried that if it breaks down, and going to have big problems.

So the plan is the have the old laptop as the family pc for browsing ect, and a dedicated PC for my work, photo editing and any important, high memory usage stuff ( not bothered with games).

The big question is - what do you go for?

I fancy a desktop this time - partly as I would like a bigger screen, and performance to pound you appear to get more for your money, and portability isn't an issue anyway.

The two PC's that catch my eye are the:

Sony VGC-LN1M ( all in one)

http://www.vaio.sony.co.uk/view/ShowProduct.action?product=VGC-LN1M&site=voe_en_GB_cons&category=VD+LN+Series

and the

Dell XPS 420

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/xpsdt_420?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&s=dhs

I quite like the idea of being able to watch TV programs too - As with a growing family I'm increasing being outvoted as to what I would like to watch .


I'm not really up to speed on what hot and new in the PC world, so any advice would be greatly received.

Thanks

[elite mike]

cannot go wrong with dell

this one ime using now is nearly 9 years old , its a great bit of kit

xps looks  great mate

mike

[jaykie]

Get someone to build you one, you get a lot lot more for your money and can add to it and keep it upto date as years go by.

Chris

[Pristine Clean]

Hi Seven bays,

Well people will advise you differently due to experience or just advise due to preference.

Althou I run a cleaning company now I an Microsoft certified and was a programmer, web designer and pc builder.

I can honestly say... dont just buy expensive equipmentjust because it is from Sony. An all in one will be a git to repair if goes wrong! Also if you purchase micro pcs they are hard to upgrade...actually virtually impossible... I know speaking from experience.

However most of the parts in all pc's are the same they just have a brand name on the casings.

You couls go for an Acer. Why? you get a recovery disk... well you get the chance to create one with the CD-Rs provided. Where most now just come with a copy pre installed on a seperate hidden drive.

Not good if the hard drive fails... plus you have to pay around £35 - 50 possibly more for the recovery disk. Plus you need a new hard drive.. plus you have to locate your drivers fir your hard ware.

Digital TV
All you need to do is purchase a PC with a digital TV card pre installed.. most have this facility now. But check! If it doesnt you could always install a usb digital reciever... great quality pic and sound.

Get your self a external hard drive to back up all your valuable data on a weekly basis... I recomend daily backups... If you have not experienced data loss then you wont understand why I do a daily backup.

Protect data
You could also purchase Drive Clone Pro this is a peice of software that will copy your entire hard drive, so if the drive fails you can install a new hard drive with the exact image(that your operating system and programms)

Most of the people in the shops like PC WORLD - Sony - Dixons - Comet are not trained in PCs in any way and have not got a clue how to advise you... this actually annoys me as most of the public in general fall for it.

Operating System
Lastly if you are running XP you will find that now you will be stuck with Vista... and sadly not all of your equipment or programes will work with Vista.. but you may be lucky and they may be compatible..

Make sure you get a system that has at least 2 gigabytes of memory as vista take more memory than XP.

Hope it helps...

Dave  

[Pristine Clean]

cannot go wrong with dell

this one ime using now is nearly 9 years old , its a great bit of kit

xps looks  great mate

mike

Hi Elite Mike,

I would like any one now to puchase a system and see how long it will last. 9 years ago the quality build was good... Now you will be lucky to last 2 years. Fact!

I have a customer that has an old win 98 system still running.... no way will any of the vista machines last that long...

Dave

[The Seven Bays Window Cleaning Company]

Pristine Clean thanks for long reply - good advice thanks.

I have an external drive now that I back up stuff daily.

The only reason I looked at the Sony is because I use a Sony Vaio Laptop, and has given me three years of trouble free use.

Must agree though I'm not too keen on the all in ones for like you say repair, and upgrade restrictions.

[jaykie]

Go to a local computer parts company that sell, hard drives, motherboards, memory, etc and tell them what you need and they could build one for you, youll get a much better pc, could still put xp on if you wanted, plus you can upgrade as you go, so then you dont have to change the whole pc, like pristine said you cant upgrade most of the pcs you get from comet etc, also definatly get external harddrive for backing up. I made the mistake of getting a HP machine, then a few years later i bought all the parts and a mate built it for me, its so much quicker, better memory etc and cost me a lot less then the comp i bought.

[The Seven Bays Window Cleaning Company]

Thanks Jaykie.

I'll certainly look into that next week.

[Pristine Clean]

Yes thats a great idea, RWC(JAYKIE), but I think it might cost a bimore that way. As its a custom built spec. I use to do these for customers, and even me being able to purchase a trade prices I could not put a pc together as cheaply as you could get at PC WORLD, COMET But if money is no obkject then go for it...

if you wanted you could also get a dual boot machine.. one that has both XP and Vista... you choose at the time of turning the pc on which operating system you want to load... best of both worlds then..

What I would say is check the company out if you get them to build you one.

The reason I say this is because again throu experience a customer of mine when I was in the IT trade, had a pc built.. it failed..instead of taking it back to the shop who built it he called me.. so i inspected it... looked at the components and what was inside... well it was used equipment! Not new... I

knew this because the parts not all them.. some parts came out of an IBM machine.. I knew this becasue of serial numers on the equipment. And those serial numbers were only from IBM MACHINES.

So tread carefully there are cowboys in every trade!

Dave

[STEVE-UK]

i had that exact problem!!

i used the same computer to surf and run george, i picked up some virus and the computer wouldnt even turn on,i took it to the local pc shop they fixed it!, i also had a flash drive to back up info

i wasnt risking it again so went down comet and bought a samsung r60 plus dual core laptop just to run george on

theres loads of viruses out there that can rck your computer, even and email that can be sent and once opened the sender can read all your files, not so good if its your competition that sends it!

[elite mike]

cannot go wrong with dell

this one ime using now is nearly 9 years old , its a great bit of kit

xps looks  great mate

mike

Hi Elite Mike,

I would like any one now to puchase a system and see how long it will last. 9 years ago the quality build was good... Now you will be lucky to last 2 years. Fact!

I have a customer that has an old win 98 system still running.... no way will any of the vista machines last that long...

Dave

hi
yes i know i have been lucky with the dell,

the only trouble i have had is operator error

mike

[Chris Galloway]

Get someone to build you one, you get a lot lot more for your money and can add to it and keep it upto date as years go by.

Chris

i build my own, it save tonns of money, and i can spec it out how i want

[Roy Harding]

I to am Microsoft certified, and build my own pc. As for saving loads, you cannnot compete with the large companys. But you can pick and choose what parts you use.

Roy

[AuRavelling79]

I've always ben happy with a Dell - on my third home PC in 12 years.

No 1. 1996 - 2003 Dell, worked but ran out of power for new programs
No 2. 2003 - 2008 Medion from Aldi, new power supply in 2006 and added memory at the same time then ps went again three months ago and it was time to upgrade.
No. 3 2008 Dell again.

[The Seven Bays Window Cleaning Company]

Having just returned from PC World, I have to say that The Dell PC's are looking the most attractive.

But just having a look at the Mesh PC Site, and they do an good package, and a reasonable price.

Doe's anybody have any experience with them?

[seandyer2003]

Having just returned from PC World, I have to say that The Dell PC's are looking the most attractive.

But just having a look at the Mesh PC Site, and they do an good package, and a reasonable price.

Doe's anybody have any experience with them?

Try www.planetmicro.co.uk

and: www.aria.co.uk

Both near me in manchester but deliver through website and are pretty good...

[SherwoodCleaningSe]

Are you running any specific window cleaning programmes, if not then I would say go for a mac.  Any intel imac would do the job.  Admittedly I am partial to macs, but I guarantee you'll never be frightened of getting a virus and the whole thing stopping.  They just can't be beat for reliability.  

Oh the specs on a mac may look lower to what your considering but the operating system just flies even on 1 gig of ram.

Simon.

[The Seven Bays Window Cleaning Company]

I did have a look at the Mac's - and do really like them ( I using an iPhone at the mo and love it). I am using Window Cleaner Pro though, so I don't think the mac would support it. Lovely PC's though.

[The Seven Bays Window Cleaning Company]

Having just returned from PC World, I have to say that The Dell PC's are looking the most attractive.

But just having a look at the Mesh PC Site, and they do an good package, and a reasonable price.

Doe's anybody have any experience with them?

Try www.planetmicro.co.uk

and: www.aria.co.uk

Both near me in manchester but deliver through website and are pretty good...

Thanks Sean - I'll have a look

[SherwoodCleaningSe]

I did have a look at the Mac's - and do really like them ( I using an iPhone at the mo and love it). I am using Window Cleaner Pro though, so I don't think the mac would support it. Lovely PC's though.

A mac to a pc is what an iPhone is to a regular phone, sweet.  There are easy and free ways of running windows on a mac if need be, as long as you have a copy of windows.  Then you get the best of both worlds.

I understand the software problem though.  When are these window cleaning software companies going to start making stuff for mac.

Simon.