Spec a basic "Internet" computer please.

[Pants]

Hi,

My mate from work has just got a house and needs a computer for internet browsing / office. No games will ever need to be played etc.

They only guidelines are wireless keyboard/mouse, flat screen. I personally think they need a 17" screen minimum.

The computer they were looking at for £350 had 256 MB memory, a low end celeron and a 15" flat screen. I advised them it was so slow you would get bored even simply browsing the net (with Win XP). They would rather spend more on something that will do the job properly.

Budget is a very tight £400. Will spend more if it's worth it!

Cheers!

 

[ste_bla]

I had a 2.4 celeron pc and it was fine for office and internet surfing even with AOL it wasnt really that slow

Just tell them to put another 256mb ram in and get it upto a 17" tft and it would still be under £400 just (thats if were looking at the same place)

 

[Pants]

Here's the best I can do on this site, but it is wireless keyboard / mouse / 17" and 1GB of memory for speed when in windows, also has a reasonable HDD for music storage. And it's all black.

CP-138-AM AMD Sempron 64 2800+ 1.6GHz (Socket 754) CPU - Retail £44.95
MB-043-GI Gigabyte K8U ULI1689 (Socket 754) Motherboard £29.95
MY-004-OK OcUK Value 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 184pin DDR Memory Dual Channel Kit £39.95
GX-026-HT HIS Excalibur ATI Radeon 9250SE 128MB DDR TV-Out/DVI (AGP) - Retail£20.95
HD-055-WD Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 120GB 1200JS SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM £40.95
MO-042-VS Viewsonic VE710b 17" LCD Monitor - Black £144.95
KB-072-LG Logitech Cordless Desktop EX-110£19.95
CA-004-AS Asus TA-210 Series Midi Tower (Black) - 360W PSU£34.95

Subtotal £376.60
Shipping (City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)) £12.95
VAT £68.18

Total £457.73

 

[ih8modem]

there are pc's out there

There is a well known computer brand that will sell you a fully assembled and shipped PC for around this amount.

It included a 15 inch flat panel, but to up it to 17 inch would take you slightly over the budget (by about 20 quid).

I cant mention the name, although OCUK do seem to do their laptops on this site. In the interests of me not getting banned though, please forgive the vagueness.

 

[Jez]

For the budget just get a pre built pc. There is little need to build it yourself and i very much doubt you will save money.

 

[ih8modem]

maybe consider a laptop?

Dell Inspiron 1300 Celeron M 370 - XP Home (N02131) (LT-009-DE)
The Dell Inspiron 1300 offers the power and the mobility of Intel Pentium M processor with the design to perform everyday computing tasks on the move. It offers integrated graphics and enhanced connectivity with modem, broadband ready Ethernet network card and internal wireless network card (via mini PCI). If you're looking for practical notebook performance at an affordable price, the Dell Inspiron 1300 is an excellent choice.

- Celeron M 370 1.5Ghz
- 1MB L2 Cache
- 15.4" WXGA Widescreen Panel (1280x800)
- 256MB DDR2 Memory
- 40GB IDE Hard Drive
- Internal 24xCDRW/8xDVD Combo Drive
- Internal 56k V.92 Modem
- Dell Wireless 1370 802.11b/g Mini PCI Card
- Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
- Microsift Works 7.0
- 1yr DELL collect & return warranty (Call DELL on 0870 9080800 and have the work number from the original packaging handy)

Note - All Dell laptops are built on demand, during busy periods this may cause a delay of between 2 and 5 days in despatching your order.

This is available from OCUK (copied the above from the portable computers section).

 

[Pants]

Hearing you loud and clear. Thank you very much guys.

 

[Raikiri]

ih8modem, As OCuk sell Dell laptops we can mention Dell but i'm not sure how far we are able to go

Thats the £430 spec from OCuk isnt it?
Well it is available a fair bit cheaper (£80 less) with a dvd writer, delivery, a 60gb HD and 512mb of memory.

 

[Pants]

We have found what we are looking for for just under £300 inc VAT and delivery!

17" screen and wireless keyboard / mouse as request too. Fantastic.

Just needs some cheap ocuk value memory slapping in to make it speedy enough, maybe when the warranty runs out.

Cheers guys.