New Desktop Unit

[tutsiwarrior]

I wanna buy a new desktop unit, basic, mostly for webb browsing, emails and photo handling. The unit I'm using at work looks to be adequate; HP DX2300, 1.8Ghz dual core processor, 500RAM, 80Gb hard disk with DVD player and 2 x USB ports, incl keyboard and flat screen monitor used mostly with a server. I got a legit copy of XP Pro, SP2 that I stole outta the shipping box that I want to load so thinking about a unit w/o OS included. The principal users will be teenaged school children and yours truly when at home on leave. Don't wanna get nothing that can handle games as I insist that these children must study ( boo...hiss...tutsi is a fascist...)

Any advantages of buying from a retailer at Pantip rather than the local tescos in Suphanburi? I wanna be able to toggle between thai and English display and was gonna download OpenOffice and AVAST. I don't know much other than to load and unload applications...ain't much use with advanced fine tuning, etc.

If Pantip is suggested anyone have a recommended retailer to give the business to? As the wife knows less than I about computers I was gonna make the purchase meself...do I gotta worry about falang pricing or is all the stuff on offer marked with the price?

Thanx in advance.

Edited May 12, 2008 by tutsiwarrior

[lopburi3]

Don't seen any reason to travel to Bangkok to buy a basic computer. I would recommend 1GB RAM as it will help in the photo editing and general speed. And more than 2 USB ports. You are probably going to have a printer/scanner (kids need scanners) attached on one and maybe a mouse on the other. Extra ports on front are good for memory sticks as much better to use them than the old floppy or having to burn a CD.

[jeffer]

I think he means 2 USB ports on the front. Be very surprising if there were not at least another 4 USB ports at the back.

Tescos are probably not going to be much help if you need to ask some questions unless you get lucky and find a sales person who does know something about computers other than "this has a DVD burner". If you've ever bought a tv or dvd player from Tesco or BigC then you will know what I mean. If it's a basic computer under 20,000 then the only genuine operating system you will get is Linux or DOS. See if you have an IT City shop nearby and look there.

One thing to be careful of when buying from places like Tesco is the models they have on sale are not always the current version. An 80Gb hard drive and 512MB RAM suggests it could be an older model. Most cheap notebooks now come with a 160Gb HD and 1GB RAM so I'd expect at least the same for a low priced desktop. Google the model # before you buy.

[JSixpack]

Never buy a pre-built. Often difficult to upgrade (proprietary parts) and service. Low quality/price ratio.

Far, far better to get some good specs and commission a recommended shop to build a computer for you using off-the-shelf components.

If you want to go this route, ask here and you'll get all the advice you need.

[jeffer]

Other than notebooks I've put together my own computers for years but if you're only after something cheap as tut is then it's going to be easier to buy a brandname like HP, Acer, Lenovo etc. Once you start getting someone to build a computer for you they start giving you too many options and before you know it that cheap computer is no longer cheap. Only thing you're probably going to want to upgrade is the memory or hard disk and it shouldn't be a problem with most brands, Dell I think is the brand people can have problems upgrading. Anyone who asks me for help buying a cheap computer gets directed to the budget models from the manufacturers listed above. Anything goes wrong then I know they have after sales service available.

[tutsiwarrior]

thanks for the replies...re: off the shelf vs. custom made for what I want to use the unit for I would presume, like jeffer advises, that the former would be adequate for most purposes. Like I said, I don't want or need any fancy graphics or other capability and 512Gb should be enough for most of the applications I want to run. I might wanna get an external hard drive to store my video collection on but otherwise the kids who are gonna be using it most don't have much in the way of requirements.

I was wondering if at Pantip could I take the unit outta the box, get set up and download some free software and have them do all the necessary tweaking/configuring, etc. I'll be wantin' to load my own copy of XP and I wonder if that will require any technical assistance? I know that at Lotus I couldn't expect the folks there to help much in that regard.

I did find 2 other USB ports on the back panel of my machine at work, BTW...never have used them...

[lopburi3]

USB can fill up fast -

Scanner

Printer

External HD

External DVD

ADSL USB modem

Thumb drive

Phone

Camera

Mouse

Keyboard

Wireless adapter

[Gary A]

Other than notebooks I've put together my own computers for years but if you're only after something cheap as tut is then it's going to be easier to buy a brandname like HP, Acer, Lenovo etc. Once you start getting someone to build a computer for you they start giving you too many options and before you know it that cheap computer is no longer cheap. Only thing you're probably going to want to upgrade is the memory or hard disk and it shouldn't be a problem with most brands, Dell I think is the brand people can have problems upgrading. Anyone who asks me for help buying a cheap computer gets directed to the budget models from the manufacturers listed above. Anything goes wrong then I know they have after sales service available.

I think an off the shelf brand name may be the best idea. I had an old HP that only had 512 RAM and a 733 processor. I had a new high performance machine built and gave my old machine to a good friend of mine. That old HP is still running and other than a hard drive going bad has had no problems. As far as my new machine, The video card died and shortly after that the P4 3.0 processor burned up. It has had many other problems also.

Another friend of mine bought a new HP about a year ago. I was helping him with some maintenance this week and found his 26,000 baht HP to be a very nice machine. That price included a printer, speakers and a 17" LCD monitor.

[jfchandler]

For the OP's stated plan to run his system with Windows XP....and perhaps eventually Windows Vista or its successor....you're really going to want/need more than 512 mb of memory.

1GB would be better, and I'd take 2 GB if it was on offer since you're buying a new machine that I presume you want to keep at least for a few years (i.e., buying for the future). Memory is cheap these days, and it's one of the best things you can do to have your system run well and fast. Otherwise, if you're short of memory, your system starts to use (slower) hard disk space for its memory needs and everything slows down.

I have an older Dell Pentium desktop running XP that can only take a maximum of 768 mb, which is what I have installed. Just using a normal range of programs (MS Office, photoshop, web browsing, etc.) it runs OK but clearly would do better with 1 GB or more...

The few extra bucks you spend now on memory will astronomically improve your quality of user experience during the lifetime of your new machine...