Low end system

[daniel1926]

Hi All,

My mother asked me to get her a new desktop computer as her old one is slowly but surely dying. In general, she will be using it for browsing the web, watching a few videos, word processing, excel and light photo retouching.

I haven't poked around this end of the market in a long time. What do you guys recommend? I was thinking about a third or fourth gen i5 system with 8 or 16 GB of ddr3 ram from ebay. If it doesn't come with an SSD, then I would throw one in before giving it to her.

I am looking to spend about 400 all in. Does this seem reasonable? Do I need to stretch up to 500?

Thanks for the help!

 

[dave_the_nerd]

seems reasonable to me.

 

[sm625]

For $300 you should be able to buy a decent i5-3550 type system and outfit it with a 256GB SSD.

 

[Xellos2099]

that might pushing it if he need to buy case, psu, os etc

 

[daniel1926]

Has anyone worked with one of the following? If so, how much room is there in the case to install a new SSD and upgrade the RAM?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Optipl...553078?hash=item41ab1b1536:g:MOgAAOSw9k5XPi9e


http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-Thin...970611?hash=item3601a73a33:g:kXwAAOSwQaJXRgKU

 

[sm625]

Has anyone worked with one of the following? If so, how much room is there in the case to install a new SSD and upgrade the RAM?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Optipl...553078?hash=item41ab1b1536:g:MOgAAOSw9k5XPi9e


http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-Thin...970611?hash=item3601a73a33:g:kXwAAOSwQaJXRgKU

They are very easy to work in. Usually the drives pop out as one assembly, makign it very easy to replace a drive. And the RAM is easy to get to.

 

[daniel1926]

They are very easy to work in. Usually the drives pop out as one assembly, makign it very easy to replace a drive. And the RAM is easy to get to.

Thanks!

Any reason to prefer one brand over the other?

 

[dave_the_nerd]

that might pushing it if he need to buy case, psu, os etc

No, no, no - you don't buy parts. You buy these things called "prebuilt" or "OEM" PCs. It was news to me too, but apparently companies with funny names like "Dell" or "HP" or even "Apple" actually assemble and sell computers!

Because they buy their parts from... TigerDirect, I guess? Somebody must be keeping them in business.

Err, anyway, because they buy them in batches of 20 or 30, they can get better pricing. Therefore, prebuilt computers are frequently cheaper than building your own. And their techs get really good at cable routing.

I'm told that some of these companies sell literally dozens of prebuilt computers every fiscal quarter. But as far as I can figure from hanging out here, nobody has one.

()

 

[AnonymouseUser]

Any reason to prefer one brand over the other?

Well they both install mal/crap/bloat/shovelware by default, though I do believe Lenovo's adware is superior (that's not praise). It's best to do a fresh install using the license they provide. Otherwise their hardware is comparable.

 

[jaydee]

Good deals can typically be had on craigslist also (at least in my area). I see a Dell Latitude E6230 i7-3540M / 8GB / 250SSD (Samsung 850 Pro) / Win7Pro / Office 2013 right now for $175...

 

[VirtualLarry]

In general, she will be using it for browsing the web, watching a few videos, word processing, excel and light photo retouching.

What do you guys recommend?

I am looking to spend about 400 all in. Does this seem reasonable? Do I need to stretch up to 500?

I recommend some sort of mini-PC. Quite frankly, the big ATX towers are basically "out". Mini-PCs are "in".

There's a range of mini-PCs, from the "barebones" variety, to the "complete, with OS" variety.

There the cheap Chinese specials, with 32-bit Win10, 2GB RAM, 32GB eMMC (kind of like an SSD, but not quite as fast), those run about $100 complete. I bought a "Wintel W8 Pro" unit like that. It's only like 3.5" on a side. However, it was less than 100% reliable. (I don't think it was overheating.)

Then there's the mini-PCs like the Gigabyte Brix units, such as the one sporting a J1900 Bay Trail Atom quad-core CPU. You need to add a single DDR3L 1333/1600 SO-DIMM (up to 8GB), and a 2.5" drive, preferably an SSD. (I used some Intel 300GB 320 Series I bought used on ebay for $70 ea.) I put Win7 64-bit on them.

That configuration would run you:
$100 + $4 ship for Brix J1900 unit at Newegg
$30 for GSKill DDR3L-1600 1.35V CAS9 SO-DIMM at Newegg
$100 for a new 480GB TLC SSD at Newegg
$110 for Win7 64-bit Home OEM at Newegg
So, like $340 or so.

Compact, power-efficient, but not all that great performance. If she's an "ordinary" user, she'll manage fine. If she's a "power-user" and DEMANDS a "snappy" PC, then consider an Onda M3 mini-PC from gearbest. I got mine for $197 + $18 ship (approx), ships from China / HK so it takes a while (two weeks or more).

But the Onda M3 uses a standard desktop Haswell Celeron dual-core G1840 2.8Ghz CPU, which is PLENTY "snappy" for 98% of the users out there. It ships with a relatively fast 120GB SSD too.

Wipe the un-activated Win10, and put a genuine Win10 or Win7 64-bit on there. That's what I'm doing for my Mom, in fact.

Both the Brix J1900 unit, and the Onda M3, include N150 wifi too.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Well they both install mal/crap/bloat/shovelware by default, though I do believe

That's actually a pretty poor article. They suggest that Acer PCs ship with auto-multiplying malware on them. That's pretty unlikely. They do mention later on how many of the major "download" sites, bundle crapware in the installers; that's where the infection on the author's PC likely occurred, not from pre-installed software.

Granted, they don't call it "bloatware" for nothing - it takes up space on the HDD, and RAM in the PC if they are resident background programs (likely).

But they can be semi-useful too. My two Lenovo PCs have some sort of "Lenovo Center" program on them, that wants to interrupt what I'm doing every week to run a "Hardware Scan". (Checks that the hardware is healthy.)

I would pretty-much always suggest un-installing McAfee though. It's rarely useful, and it slows PCs down.

 

[AnonymouseUser]

That's actually a pretty poor article.

Not the best, but gets the point across. You'll either need to perform a fresh install or scrub the undesirable programs, if you know what the undesirable programs are or can even find them. I recommend a fresh install.

My two Lenovo PCs have some sort of "Lenovo Center" program on them, that wants to interrupt what I'm doing every week to run a "Hardware Scan". (Checks that the hardware is healthy.)

What exactly does that do, and does it even work?