Friday, December 26, 2008
Buy when there is blood in the street!
I'd be doing you, and me, a great disservice if I failed to link to Amazon's massive post-Christmas sale
Seperately, I need some computer advice. I'm going to buy a new desktop PC. My first inclination is to "build" one with the specs I want at Dell or HP, so if any of you have recent experience with either or both vendor I'd love to hear about it. Of course, if there are better vendors or more emphatic bargains available, I'd love to hear about those, too.
12 Comments:
By 
Bob, at
Fri Dec 26, 12:21:00 PM:
Just something to consider - who you want to support politically with your purchases. Dell contributes heavily to conservatives. HP contributes exclusively to liberals. (This can be verified to your satisfaction via opensecrets.org)
By 
, at
Fri Dec 26, 02:01:00 PM:
Go with the Dell. HP is one of the biggest offenders in loading up their computers with junk software. Also you can still get Windows XP PRO from Dell. Don't know about HP.
JLW III
By , at
Fri Dec 26, 02:31:00 PM:
Get a Mac. Your life will be much better. This based on my own experience and observations of the 300 users I support. Winows is truly an awful OS.
By , at
Fri Dec 26, 03:14:00 PM:
Do you need XP compatibility or have you switched to Vista?
By TigerHawk, at
Fri Dec 26, 03:18:00 PM:
I had a Mac, but could never get comfortable with it. I'm sure the fault is mine, but I found it terribly difficult to use. Probably because I have to use a PC in my business, and only am able to use the home computer for at most an hour or two a day. So I gave it to my father-in-law, who is a big Mac user.
I have not switched to Vista yet, but I assume it is inevitable. I would say that I do not "need" XP compatibility, insofar as I will not be moving a lot of legacy material on to the new system.
By Eowyn, at
Fri Dec 26, 03:18:00 PM:
You'd probably do best to watch the deal sites (FatWallet and SlickDeals are two of the best) and buy the components to build your own. My husband and I have built all of our desktops since we've been married. They've always been top of the line-- great video cards, fast cpu's, etc., and I think the most we've ever spent has been $500. And that was for our first, when neither of us was as experienced at deal hunting as we are now.
By , at
Fri Dec 26, 04:10:00 PM:
Don't bother upgrading to Vista. If your work hasn't done so yet, my guess is that they'll jump straight to Windows 7 when it comes out in 2010. Windows XP's availability has been extended to May, and I expect further.
Aside from resource, driver, and Digital Rights Management issues, they gratuitously moved stuff around in the user interface so you will have a big retraining effort and a significant contrast between work and home.
JLW III
By Larry Sheldon, at
Fri Dec 26, 04:25:00 PM:
I would not buy a post-Carly HP product on a bet.
By JPMcT, at
Fri Dec 26, 11:18:00 PM:
I've ordered several Dell computers on line over the years and they have the best bang for the buck and ship promptly.
About three years ago, I switched to Alienware...also ordering on line. They are prompt and well built and offer cutting edge technology. Service is good.
I like to game, flight sim and do a large amount of multitrack music mixing and mastering. The Alienware beasts chew this up and more. I've been quite happy with them. The computers are fairly large and a little wierd looking...but they really scream.
I run XP on my music studio computer because of compatability issues with hardware add ons. I run Vista Ultimate on my personal computer and think it 's fine. If you have enough RAM, enough processing power and the patience to tweak the program the way YOU want it...it's a great OS.
I wouldn't fool with HP.
By , at
Fri Dec 26, 11:49:00 PM:
Go with Dell - their XPS ONE is a great all in one machine...
Service and support from Dell is very good. And you can find the latest drivers and even old drivers years after the product's EOL.
-Stef
By , at
Sat Dec 27, 07:21:00 AM:
About one year ago I bought two HP Pcs, one a Core 2 duo, the other a Celeron, for backup. Both have worked without a hitch.
If buying today, I would get an HP KA435UT, a 3 Ghz Core 2 duo machine, and get a good price at PCSuperstore.com with no sales tax, and free shipping. It comes with XP Pro installed, with a Vista option.
By Diane Wilson, at
Sat Dec 27, 10:33:00 AM:
One thing to remember about both Dell and HP is that they have consumer product lines and business product lines. The business lines are likely to be more stable, more conservatively built, and supported for longer time periods. Low-end consumer-grade products from both companies have bad reputations.
I've been building my own desktop machines for years, but for laptops I'm a huge fan of Dell's Latitude product line. They just revamped the line, and I've got one of the new ones, a Latitude E6500, with a big and very bright screen, 4GB ram, and one of the low-power processors. It actually runs fairly cool, which is unusual for recent laptops. It certainly qualifies as a desktop-replacement.
Vista is an excellent operating system, very stable, very secure, very usable. XP has been XPunged from my home. Even my server is Vista-based Server 2008. I'd go for Vista Ultimate to get both Media Center and business-quality networking support.
