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Help me find a desktop for my mother
The_Spaniard
It's never lupinesIrvine, CaliforniaRegistered User regular
It's never lupinesIrvine, CaliforniaRegistered User regular
You guys have always been a great help so I thought I'd ask here so that I can get her off my back once and for all.
My mother is in the market for a new desktop, and I've built my last couple desktops so I'm a bit out of the loop as far as decent non top-end desktops go.
My mom is looking for something she can do photo and video editing on, my little brother can write reports and do some gaming on (some not looking for a top end machine here). Mom was interested in a mac, but my little brother won't be able to game on that.
So any ideas on an economical/affordable, decent all around PC for a family, not a serious hardcore gamer that also makes his living on his computers like me?
Besides the usage specs I listed above, she's looking at a budget of between 500-1000 dollars, she wants to get an at least 22" monitor as well with it, we have printers and scanners already, Vista and DX10 capable, burn CDs/DVDs, and be powered by an orphan heart.
Not looking for something top of the line just something capable of those things for a family computer within that price range. Suggestions are much appreciated. And if for some reason you want to overwhelmingly recomend a mac over a PC, then my little brother can go fuck himself on the gaming thing and just use one of the consoles we own.
P.S. she already has a laptop, but for some reason has a bug up her ass now for a desktop. I told her to just stick with the laptop but she won't budge.
My mother is in the market for a new desktop, and I've built my last couple desktops so I'm a bit out of the loop as far as decent non top-end desktops go.
My mom is looking for something she can do photo and video editing on, my little brother can write reports and do some gaming on (some not looking for a top end machine here). Mom was interested in a mac, but my little brother won't be able to game on that.
So any ideas on an economical/affordable, decent all around PC for a family, not a serious hardcore gamer that also makes his living on his computers like me?
Besides the usage specs I listed above, she's looking at a budget of between 500-1000 dollars, she wants to get an at least 22" monitor as well with it, we have printers and scanners already, Vista and DX10 capable, burn CDs/DVDs, and be powered by an orphan heart.
Not looking for something top of the line just something capable of those things for a family computer within that price range. Suggestions are much appreciated. And if for some reason you want to overwhelmingly recomend a mac over a PC, then my little brother can go fuck himself on the gaming thing and just use one of the consoles we own.
P.S. she already has a laptop, but for some reason has a bug up her ass now for a desktop. I told her to just stick with the laptop but she won't budge.
Playstation/Origin/GoG: Span_Wolf Xbox/uPlay/Bnet: SpanWolf Nintendo: Span_Wolf SW-7097-4917-9392 Steam: http://steamcommunity.com/id/Span_Wolf/
The_Spaniard on
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https://ecomm2.dell.com/dellstore/basket.aspx?cart_id=1005444404360&toEmail=beazle@sbcglobal.net
And as a "family" OS, OS X beats the ever loving shit out of Vista. Mostly because of iPhoto, iDVD (and iMovie) out of the box, as well as the fact your support you presumably do* will drop to roughly nothing.
*You're on PA, so I can safely presume you provide tech support for your family.
That said, I don't have enough experience with enough brands to recommend something. Most PC's seem to come with the shittiest shitfest of pre-installed software you could ever hope for nowadays. I'd look for an iMac style machine (something thats easy to plug in and get working) with almost no preinstalled software, and then (hopefully) you can save a bit of cash to invest in some nice software. Or you could just dig through the recommended software thread in here and go download/setup some nice stuff before your Mom ever had to touch the machine. Something like these Dells looks nice though. I mean, not top of the line shit, but nice. And the stripped down Adobe suite doesn't sound too bad. But I've got no experience with it.
either way, those tools on a mac are really easy to use.
Cost about 440$ with no monitor and free shipping
HP a6300t
1GB RAM
1.8GHz Intel Celeron
GeForce 8400 (supports DX10)
pretty easy to de-HP too
It completes a Folding@home work unit in a day and a half. It's quiet. It's pretty much what he wants, and his mom/brother needs. Not what you want.
It's not like they're going to be cutting together hour long movies intended for HD production lines
If you don't see one you like, just check back in a few days. Also, the minimum you're looking to spend is $400, which is the cutoff for free shipping (or at least it was last I checked).
Bring your own monitor generally, though.
EDIT: And mine came with a vanilla Windows Vista disc, so it was fantastically easy to de-Dellify.
Fyre, no offense, but shut up.
There's no reason to recommend a celeron processor nowadays because you can get a Core 2 Duo in almost any low-end to mid-range machine. They're fantastic processors and there's a reason they're being put in almost everything. You may not need it right now, but why not futureproof when you have the chance? It's not like there's an astronomical jump in cost here, you just have to not buy that specific desktop that you recommended and find another one in the price range with a Core 2 Duo.
I wouldn't make sure it's one of the top of the line super fast clock speed C2D's, but just having another core available does wonders for multitasking.