So I'm thinking of finally replacing my 6 year-old DELL Dimension 4400 PC.

Works fine...but I want more speed & memory.

Is DELL still the king of PC's? How is Gateway nowadays? I've heard good things about HP.

Any recommendations out there?

Just bought a Dell XPS420 in December. LOVE it! Let me geek out here for a minute:
Quad Core 2.4 Ghz processor
3GB RAM
22" Wide Aspect Digital Flat Panel
320GB in RAID 1
256MB Radeon ATI HD 20600 XT

HP is really good & they put out a good product. As a matter of fact, my company just signed with HP (from Dell) as our new PC/Server provider to the tune of $17 Million/year.

Gateway has been in a steady decline the past few years
[Edited 3/11/08 20:10pm]

Never considered Dell to be the king of PC.
If anything, it should be Alienware.

BobGeorge67 said:

I appreciate the info. I am happy with Dell, but they are a bit pricey.

ArielB said:

FYI, Dell purchased Alienware in March '06

BobGeorge67 said:

Oh yeah...I just read that ACER may be buying them out.

ArielB said:

THOSE ARE DA BOMB!!!!

PurpleJedi said:

ACER purchased Gateway on October '07

BobGeorge67 said:

...now you see why I need advice?

PurpleJedi said:

That they are, but there are always deals/specials...

Do you work for a large company? Sometimes they have employee purchase programs available...

I still believe that, in terms of customer service, Dell is at the top. Hence the high price. You get what you pay for

If by king of PC you mean support? Probably Dell. I think they've hired back most of their American support staff.

HP is probably the best hardware wise but their support is all based out in Bangalore--very very very bad service. VERY bad service. I can't stress it enough. VERY VERY VERY bad service. Great PCs though.

I don't much about gateway other than you get alot for your buck. The new Gateway Ones don't look to shabby.


If by King of Pcs you mean the mac daddy gaming Pcs, then Alienware of course.



Or if you want a really powerful laptop , The Apple Macbook Pros run Vista better than almost all other PC laptops believe it or not.

Imago said:

Dell has a product, also called the One... It is VERY cool. A guy I went to school with was the lead on one of the project teams that designed/engineered it.
[Edited 3/11/08 20:22pm]

I'm transfixed by those alienware units.

However, I'm not a gamer.

I've kicked this 6-year-old Gateway's ass since 2002, and the hardware has never given me a problem. I purchased the music package and got Boston speakers and a subwoofer that has my neighbors keying my car.

Their phone service is lifelong, free, and fantastic.

That being said, this is probably my last PC. I'm done with Windows, period.

*just marking this for when i buy one in about a month*

Mac is the king of PC

why get a PC when you can have the best of both with a Mac?

I will be buying my first laptop in a month or so. I'm thinking about buying a dell so that I can get the bluray player with one.

If you want a simple interface, sleek design, and good performance, get a Mac.

If you enjoy playing games, integrating in the business world, the ability to upgrade individual pieces at will, go with a PC.


If you buy PC, HP and Dell are the top manufacturers. It's just a matter of how it feels to you and what you're looking for. I'm using a 3 year old Inspiron 6000 where I upgraded to WSUXGA+ monitor with Anti-Glare, 1G of Ram, an 80G Hard Drive, DVDRW, WinXP, and Office Pro for $2500. I just bought one for my wife with comparable stats (3G Memory, 120G SATA 7200 RPM, Intel Duel Core 2 Duo 1.8Mhz) in a Spring Green color for $1000. Imagine that.

It was between that and a Macbook for $1200. Honestly, I thought long and hard on switching her over. She's a heavy PC user, but has pretty basic skill levels in terms of self troubleshooting. I figured I'd save the $200.

Oh hey, if you go with Windows and need Office Software, you can get Office 2007 Professional for $60 if you have an email account with a .edu domain. ultimatesteal.com or something like that. Offer good until the end of April.

horatio said:

Unless Mac really screws up or Microsoft really invents something stellar by way of their OS, for the foreseeable future all my laptops, and possibly future desktops will be MAC.

I love my macbook.

clearly.

I have a 2.4GHz Celeron processor, a 38 gig hard drive and 480MB of RAM. I wouldn't give a shit but it's starting to become a mammoth chore using Photoshop and Nikon Capture NX with them freezing up every 2 minutes.

I think I'll just put a new one together bit by bit with the help of the guys down Phanthip plaza, but first I'm going to get a flat screen for this one. My total budget for the new system will be about $750. Can I get anything for that??

fhqwhgads said:

Check Dell Outlet. You get what you pay for, however.

Actually, I think u could part out a new Dell for $500 or so, depending on what Software you need.



EDIT: Here's what I found just poking around Dell Outlet. If you're willing to get a Scratch and Dent, you can snag something like this:

Dimension C521
(System Identifier: DDDVF1JY)

* Dimension C521 Desktop: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 3800+ (2.0 GHz)
* Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium

System Price : $539.00

Operating System
Genuine Windows Vista Home PremiumMemory
4 GB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz (4 DIMMs)Hard Disk Drive
160 GB SATA Hard Drive (7200RPM)Video
256MB ATI Radeon X1300 ProModem
56K DataFax ModemScratch & Dent
Scratch & DentBase
Dimension C521 Desktop: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 3800+ (2.0 GHz)Media Bay
16X DVD +/- RW w/dbl layer write capabilitySoftware Upgrade
Microsoft Works 8.5 with MS Office Trial Version SoftwareHardware Upgrade
13 in 1 Media Card Reader
USB Keyboard
USB 2 Button Mouse
[Edited 3/11/08 23:13pm]

Dauphin said:

Thanks for the suggestion. Software I'll get copies of either from Phanthip or just from torrents or saved from what I have now. I'm living in Thailand and I'm unlikely to get a package of any sort, but I do need suggestions for hardware so thank you. I basically just need everything that's necessary to make Photoshop and Nikon Capture run absolutely smoothly.

horatio said:

Exactamundo. Boot Camp / Parallels / VMWare. 3 easy ways to run Windows on a mac.

The only time I ever boot into Windows though is to run MS Access which isn't available on OS X. The rest of Office is also much better on Windows for many reasons.

For anything 'media' based macs are in a different league wrt functionality and ease of use. It's worth getting a demo to really understand the differences.

I noticed recently the Leopard Finder icon when connected to a Windows machine is this:



Immature and quite unbelievable that this shipped but very amusing nonetheless!
[Edited 3/12/08 0:50am]

I want one of these

horatio said:

What does it say?

oh yeah
I just purchased a mac book pro I LOVE IT. It was expensive but oh so worth it. It has so many features that I am still learning. I had a major problem getting it to work with printers that were set up to dell machines (there are 5 dells at my house) I read that some dell printers can be difficult, so I went out and bough a cheapy HP printer and YAY! it works great. My biggest problem is changing my thinking back to apple from PC I was an apple girl and had trouble with PC's for a while too.

Oh, my husband just got that new dell and Vista has been giving him fits, he's had to reformat his hard drive twice already. Plus all the games he had don't work with Vista. It serves him right, he gave me HELL about getting my MAC.

He hates Vista and is looking to put xp on his new machine.

Imago said:

I love my macs too. There is a simple solution for anything. Like I figured out how to convert flac files to play on my itunes in a matter of seconds. Very simple. And Im not a computer person by no means. Also any files I might have from a memory stick that are from a windows/pc I am able to work with them on my mac too!
[Edited 3/12/08 9:13am]

What exactly is needed when buying a new pc? I have a basic HP now that I bought as a bundle with a monitor. Nothing special. I can surf the net and use microsoft office. I burn cds and watch dvds - the basic stuff.

I want to buy a laptop because I will be spending at least two months in a hotel. I will be able to hook up to free high speed internet. What are the specs of a laptop that will allow me to do the same things as a desktop?

jbchavez said:

Any basic laptop does the things you mentioned, these days.
If you are a gamer, or a professional, you might want to look into more expensive laptops that are suitable for the specific needs, but if it's for surfing and word documents, and some CD burning, any laptop will do that. What you need to look for is a reliable product, but looking at reviews.

horatio said:

I was originally using MacFLAC to do this but it was a pain as I had to go FLAC->WAV and then convert again in iTunes and key in all the tags that'd been lost during the WAV conversion.

Then I found Max which is much better. You can go from ANY audio format to any other, retain tags and do batches too.