New PC

After years of good service my old pc (almost 8 years old) has finally packed up. I have just had a look on dell's website and have come up with this one @ £328.99 including delivery.

Inspiron Desktop 620 BTS Order
Processor:
Intel® Pentium® G620 Processor (2.60GHz, 3MB)
Windows® 7 Home Premium 64bit
1 Yr Collect & Return Hardware Support
McAfee® SecurityCenter 15 Month Subscription
Inspiron Desktop 620 Resource DVD (Diagnostic & Drivers)
4096MB Dual Channel DDR3 [2x2048] Memory
Integrated 5.1 High Definition Audio
Dell Wireless 1502 (802.11n) WLAN Mini-Card
Integrated 8-in-1 Media Card Reader
1TB Serial ATA (7200RPM)
16X DVD+/- RW Optical Drive (DVD & CD read and write)
Keyboard : UK/Irish (QWERTY) Dell KB 113 USB Entry Black Kit
Dell MS111 USB Wired Optical Mouse (Kit)

However I have also just seen this on ebuyer

http://www.ebuyer.com/342318-medion-desktop-pc-pc8274

Which of the two is better? I just need it for my work - word docs, spreadsheets etc

Thank you.

Hi.
The Ebuyer one has a slightly faster processor but the Dell one has a bigger harddrive which always comes in handy. I would say due to Dell's quite good reputation for building good quality pc's and there good support to go with the Dell.
The Dell also has a wireless lan card which might come in handy if you want to put it somewhere thats quite far from your router.
One thing to note with the Dell is "McAfee® SecurityCenter 15 Month Subscription"
I really don't like Mcafee and would recommend uninstalling that and using something like Avast Instead.
But thats just my personal opinion and upto you.

Blackmesa8

While my second last PC was Dell (bought over 5 years ago now), and that turned out to be a very reliable desktop, my recent purchase (2 years ago now) has not been such a good experience.

One would normally expect that Dell test PCs before shipping them, just to make sure there aren't any oddities occurring, like random freeze ups / hardware conflicts etc. Well, it seems with my recent purchase, this wasn't done. Within days of running it, it kept crashing with screen corruption and complete system freezes (num-lock unresponsive, off/on was the only fix). I could have followed the issue up with them, but put up with the problem until they released subsequent BIOS firmware upgrades, both for the board and the graphics card, a few months later. Now, running on the latest firmwares, it is much more stable, but does still occasionally have its moments of doing "weird stuff".

So I have to advise, that on my most recent Dell purchase, they haven't impressed me much at all, and actually, there are probably other smaller PC outlets who provide cheaper and more stable pre-built PC solutions than Dell.

Always best to shop around.

Edited by deleted (Tue 29-May-12 12:56:56)

MVC10 - gives you 10% off everything at hp.co.uk

Also at your price range I would be looking for ATLEAST an i3 processor and not buy a standard dual core

http://www.dell.com/uk/p/inspiron-620/pd?oc=d006209&...

That processor is quite good if you can stretch to it.

& if you are happy to install your own OS http://www.ebuyer.com/338525-zoostorm-business-deskt...

Edited by ukhardy07 (Tue 29-May-12 13:39:44)

Unless someone thinks there is a better pc from elsewhere I think I shall shall stretch my budget and get the dell recommended by ukhardy07.

Thanks

The only problem I had with Dells (and I had quite a few in the past) is that they always used bespoke components for some parts (such as the power supply). When the power supply blew in one I had a choice of getting a Dell one for about £70 or buying a £30 3rd party and drilling the case to fit it - I ended up buying the cheap one and drilling.

If they still use parts that can only be bought from Dell then it can make system repairs expensive down the line.

I still have a Dell Dimension 4600 running Windows 7 after eight years of word processing and Internet surfing. I've only bothered to upgrade the RAM to 2GB and the GPU to some dodgy £25 job.

Would agree with ukhardy07, go for at least an i3.

Edited by deleted (Tue 29-May-12 16:18:20)

http://www.ebuyer.com/338525-zoostorm-business-deskt...
this is much better value than the dell
8 gig ram compared to 4 on the dell
1tb hd compared to 500 gig on the dell

also ebuyer support is excellent

No interest in USB 3? might come in handy.