cheap computer advice

[smokey982]

I'm looking for a 2nd computer for my home and would like some advice. This will mainly be used by my daughter for kids games and web browsing. I don't need any bells or whistles. I would consider a desktop or laptop. I would like to connect it to my wireless network. It will not be used a great deal, so I would like to best deal I can find. Anyone have any suggestions?

 

[Lazybird000]

You can go to the Dell store and , they are inexpensive and quite good .

 

[Bogy]

How old is your daughter? How long do you expect to use this computer? Will anyone else be using it? And for what? Lots of inexpensive computers out there. Unless you have a specific need for a laptop, I would not get one. Again, that goes back to how old your daughter is. Where is the computer going to be placed? Are you going to feel comfortable with your daughter being on a laptop where she isn't supervised, or would you feel more comfortable with a desktop in a "public" place? For an equivalent computer, the laptop is going to be more expensive than the desktop, and is very likely going to be less reliable. If a laptop needs repairs it will always be more expensive, and a pain in the butt, to repair. Heat is the foe of any computer, and laptops have all kinds of circuitry jammed into very tight quarters, with marginal fans. Unless you really have a need for a laptop, I would get a desktop.

 

[smokey982]

The only reason I mentioned a laptop was for space savings. I already own a desk for a desktop computer, so that would be fine. My daughter is only 6 years old. She likes to play CD games(Dora,etc.) and online games(noggin, Disney.com). And it would be nice to have another computer in the house that's online, in case the other computer is tied up. So for these reasons I need a very basic computer with a low price.

I saw a computer at the black friday Wal-Mart sale for $199. No monitor, keyboard. But I didn't know if it was a decent computer or not.

 

[FunkyBoss]

You can also try craigslist in your local area. I always see people selling computers for pretty cheap there. Unless you are only considering a new one.

 

[dishrich]

This might sound bizarre, but a place to get a great computer cheap is at Aldi's, which is a discount supermarket. They are made by a company called Medion, which is a German company, that takes name computer pieceparts they have gotten for a song, makes up a limited run SKU of PC's & sells them only at Aldi's in limited quantities. They only offer these a couple times a year, but they are a bargain for what you get.

Just so happens this week, they have a loaded laptop for $600 - here it is:

ALDI - Special Purchases from October 28, 2007

I've got 2 desktop & 1 laptop Pent 4 PC & they all work great.

Here's a review on their most recent desktop from a month ago:

Review: Medion Titanium Multimedia PC MD 8818 - Personal Computer World

 

[Bogy]

The only reason I mentioned a laptop was for space savings. I already own a desk for a desktop computer, so that would be fine. My daughter is only 6 years old. She likes to play CD games(Dora,etc.) and online games(noggin, Disney.com). And it would be nice to have another computer in the house that's online, in case the other computer is tied up. So for these reasons I need a very basic computer with a low price.

I saw a computer at the black friday Wal-Mart sale for $199. No monitor, keyboard. But I didn't know if it was a decent computer or not.

The $199 computer is this one Everex TC2502 Green gPC w/ Via C7-D Processor - Wal-Mart and it is a Linux unit. Nothing wrong with it, as long as you are aware that it does not have a Windows operating system, and you may want to make sure the games your daughter plays are going to work.

Personally, I would not give a six year old a laptop to play with. I would (and did) buy a good used computer for my kids to use. For what you daughter will be running you can pick up a used computer for under $100. $200 tops.

 

[smokey982]

Well actually I have an old computer with windows98 already. But it was "retired" because it became so slow it was impossible to get anything done on it.

I"m not very technical on computers, but what if I take it to a computer place and have them wipe out the hard drive and start from stratch. Will that bring the computer back to it's original speed? It was a very good computer at one time.

 

[FunkyBoss]

Bringing it in to do that will probably run you about as much as buying another one. It's probably not worth the effort to re-install a Win98 machine as most new software is written for at least XP.

 

[mike123abc]

Well actually I have an old computer with windows98 already. But it was "retired" because it became so slow it was impossible to get anything done on it.

I"m not very technical on computers, but what if I take it to a computer place and have them wipe out the hard drive and start from scratch. Will that bring the computer back to it's original speed? It was a very good computer at one time.

The only way computers keep their original speed is to never install new software on them. Software grows every year, consuming more and more resources and the machines seem to get slower and slower. If you were to wipe your computer and install the original programs and nothing new then it would be like it used to be.

It is the whole driving force of the computer industry (why it can sell you a new machine every few years). Companies keep competing, which means their software has to have every possible feature they can think of or their competition will have a check box on the sales brochure that they do not have. Which means programs get larger and larger and need more and more compute power to run them at the same speed they ran at before.

 

[Bogy]

Checking craigslist in my area you can get an older used computer running XP for between $150 to $250 (on up to whatever you want to pay of course). But that's me, and I'm cheap. The way I figure it, a six year old is not going to place high demands on a computer. I would rather have a six year old learning on a computer I didn't care so much about. I also wouldn't put that much into a computer at this point, because in a few years she is going to start needing a computer for homework. At that point I might spring for a better computer. Actually, at that point I would make my computer the "second" computer, and buy myself a new one.

 

[smokey982]

Well it looks like I misspoke on my previous post. My "retired" computer has XP. It was once a good computer, just got bogged down with programs over the last 5-6 years.

I found a computer place here in town that said they could wipe out the hard drive and re-install XP on the computer for $110. That sounds like a fair price to me, but will this bring my computer back to it's original speed and usefulless?

 

[Bogy]

Well it looks like I misspoke on my previous post. My "retired" computer has XP. It was once a good computer, just got bogged down with programs over the last 5-6 years.

I found a computer place here in town that said they could wipe out the hard drive and re-install XP on the computer for $110. That sounds like a fair price to me, but will this bring my computer back to it's original speed and usefulless?

Yes it will. Just be aware that depending on what your newer computer has for processor and memory your memory of the older computer's original speed may be optimistic. But for myself, giving the older computer to my six year old would be my choice. If you were going to try to run the latest high performance games you would probably be disappointed, but for what you described this should do fine. I'd do the maintenance myself, but if you aren't comfortable with that the price is probably fair.

 

[smokey982]

I feel pretty comfortable with computers but wiping away the hard drive is just something I have never done. I would rather do this myself. Is this fairly simple to do? Where could I find some information on doing this myself?

 

[bryansr]

I feel pretty comfortable with computers but wiping away the hard drive is just something I have never done. I would rather do this myself. Is this fairly simple to do? Where could I find some information on doing this myself?

If the old computer has a "restore partition" with ALL of the original programs on it you can "restore" it to its original configuation. You usually can find that information on the screen when the computer boots up, IF it is a NAME BRAND like Dell, HP or Compaq.


BryanSR

 

[Zombie069]

Nothing wrong with it, as long as you are aware that it does not have a Windows operating system, and you may want to make sure the games your daughter plays are going to work.

Here's the short list of games that might work with linux..




---End list..

C'mon, the guy has a 6 year old and you recommend linux..??

Well it looks like I misspoke on my previous post. My "retired" computer has XP. It was once a good computer, just got bogged down with programs over the last 5-6 years.

I found a computer place here in town that said they could wipe out the hard drive and re-install XP on the computer for $110. That sounds like a fair price to me, but will this bring my computer back to it's original speed and usefulless?

Yes it will return it to a fast and usable state. Games like Dora and othe 6 year old genre games probably only require win95 or win98 and best and can be run on XP fine for the most part.. What you need to watch for is the DOS/Win95 requirement on any game you plan to load. If any of then mention DOS as a requirement they will not work with XP. Check those before you decide which OS you want put on there.

 

[Bogy]

Here's the short list of games that might work with linux..




---End list..

C'mon, the guy has a 6 year old and you recommend linux..??

I didn't recommend linux. Smokey asked about a particular computer, and I simply pointed out that the os was linux, and that he needed to make sure the programs he wanted to run were going to work. Many people on this forum use linux, and are perfectly happy, so there is nothing wrong with the computer, as long as it fits your needs.

Smokey, if you don't have the restore partition, here are the directions on how to reformat your hard drive. You will need your original XP cds, or if you have cds that came from the manufacturer to reinstall everything, operating system, drivers, any basic programs that were originally installed, so much the better.

Reformatting Your Computer Using Windows XP - ITS Help Desk - The University of Iowa

 

[stevenl]

I usally build my own PCs and I usally buy the componants at tigerdirect.com they also sell prebuilt computers decent machines for under 300$ including monitors and such. If you are familiar with hardware you could build a REALLY nice machine under 400$ or so and give your daughter your old pc to use.

Just read about you wanting to restore the old PC, If you have the windows Install CD it should be able to do everything for you automatically. Just boot up using the CD and follow the directions

 

[smokey982]

Well just when I have decided to fix my current computer, I ran across this black friday ad. It looks like Best Buy will offer a E-machines computer with Vista, 17" LCD monitor, and a color printer for $199 as a door buster. I know E-machines are probably not the greatest computer out there and not many people like Vista. But it's hard to beat a $199 price.

Black Friday Ads 2007 - eMachines Desktop Computer - Celeron 420, 1GB RAM, 160GB HDD, 17" LCD, Printer at Best Buy

 

[mike123abc]

Dell is running some specials this week, right now: Notebooks from $399. Desktops from $349. Windows Vista® Business and QuickBooks® Pro 2008 just $99 on select systems.

The 399 laptop is nice so is a core2 duo system 598