Need a new PC as the laptop is dying

[Darren1978]

Right, the time has come to replace my laptop, but this time around I want a desktop pc.

Budget is £500-£600

Min Requirements:
500gb HDD or more
4gb RAM
Quick processor - 2.5GHz or more
Built in wireless
Windows 7
20" flat screen

Whats out there? Any recommendations?

Thanks in advance

[picsfor]

PC World can improve upon your specs quite easily for £499 (Advent System)

   *  AMD Phenom X4 9650 Quad-Core processor
   * (2.3GHz, 2MB Cache)
   * Genuine Windows(R) 7 Home Premium 64-bit
   * 4GB DDR2 memory
   * 640GB hard drive
   * 512MB ATI Radeon HD4350 graphics
   * DVD Rewriter
   * Built-in wireless (802.11b/g)

The monitor is by LG who historically have made good monitors.
Were you to go for this and be prepared to pay the extra £100 i would bet PC World would happily fit your a 1Tb or more additional hard drive inside for the price!
Either way, it must mean that better deals are available!

Also, have you tried the guy in Littlehampton near the Railway Station - when ever i walk by in the evening i always notice he is offering deals...

[Darren1978]

Cheers for your help Andrew, I'll take a look at that shop near the station

[spinner]

What is it you plan to use the machine for primarily? For example, a machine for business can be built cheaper than a gaming machine. One may be way more than you need and a waste of money the other may be very underpowered and a great disappointment. I don't know what specifically is available on your side of the pond but I have had great success with buying refurbished name brand machines, I've also built machines from parts (building one right now). I've also bought refurbished machines and then upgraded them. Honestly I've been a PC guy for as long as I've been playing around with computers but I'm saving up my pennies to buy a refurbished iMac from Apple, strictly for my photos and leave the PC for my wifey to Farm on.  A refurbished iMac can be had here in Canada or the U.S. for $1350 American.

[picsfor]

Ah well you see that is where things differ.

On this side of the pond (but not quite all the way to the mainland of Europe - just about the area of the UK) we like to get ripped off.
Why pay £400 for computer that is costing $300 over there when we can allow ourselves to be charged £600.

If ever you spend long enough here you will here the phrase "Rip Off Britain" - and it is the most accurate phrase i've ever heard.
We don't even operate on the same number as a price $300 there, £300 here. Nope - they have to add some on.

Some industries (including Apple, Adobe and Microsoft as a few car manufacturers) have even been caught bumping the price up for Britain but just pay any fine and carry on, because business is that lucrative.
Most reconditioned parts or computers here are either turned into Linux computers or sent off to some charity to make use of.

[spinner]

I feel your pain, before NAFTA it was similar here. What made it worse was being close to the border we could pick up american tv channels and knew how much we were being ripped off.  So you don't have large computer chain stores that refurbish off-lease machines or they don't work that way either.
Like, I work for the gov't here, we don't own any of the computers we use, we lease them and replace them every 3 or 4 yrs. The manufacturers then sell them back to these discount computer stores who clean them up and sell them off.

[picsfor]

Sadly not on that scale. Plus - businesses over here tend to buy the machines that are already coming with specs that go with their rock bottom prices.
Very few businesses buy computers that are actually best suited to the task required.

In 4 years of I.T. Support the only people to have got machines any where close to their need was at my last company and that was 2 of us on the help desk - and that was only because we were remotely accessing Servers and Computers in other countries using MS SMS and managing MS SQL databases (we were MS Partners!) and providing specialist support to a system operated mainly from our parent company in New York.

Other than that, i think my wife got a laptop that was good enough when asked to set up a new department and team and head up document creation - and that was only because i advised what specs to get according to document sizes she would be working with.

yep - that covers it...

We work to a different market model here - the government and EU seem as happy as pigs in - err mud - to let it carry on.

[spinner]

I suppose for business it's a tax thing, the can claim the leasing costs over the life of the lease but can only claim the purchase cost once. I know for the gov't it's a budget thing, it's not a capital cost or something like that. It's some magical bean counter distinction.