[sere83]

Hi there,

I am trying to help someone buy a pc sytem for around the £500 mark. They are looking for a full package (e.g tower,monitor,speakers,mouse,keyboard etc).

I have done a whole load of research but have come to the conclusion they would probably be better off going with Dell, simply for peace of mind. They just want family pc really to do regular tasks.

I looked at all sorts of companies that custom build pcs that have featured in magazines like computer shopper and pcpro. E.g cyber power systems, mesh, arbico amongst others.

However a lot of them seem to get a lot of negative reviews online relating to their customer service and build quality etc. I was wondering if anyone knows any other company which is reliable and cheap?

Any help appreciated.

[floppybootstomp]

I don't like Dell personally but if all you want is a good all-rounder for family PC use then go with a £500.00 Dell machine.

Do bear in mind though that most machines in that price range won't play many games so if any family members are into gaming either choose specification carefully or increase your budget.

Many Forum members here like a company named Novatech for ready-made machines, if I were going to buy a ccomputer off the shelf that's who I'd buy from.

Link: www.novatech.com

Avoid Mesh like the plague they are really not very pleasant people.

Also avoid PC World, Currys, Dixons and Comet.

Don't trust computer magazines, they always give positive reviews to people who advertise with them and so you'll rarely see an honest review in a magazine.

If you'd like to outline what exactly you need the machine for, I'm sure either myself or other folk here can recommend something.

It's very easy to get burnt buying a machine for £500.00, so please take a little time to make sure your choice is a good one.

[floppybootstomp]

Here you go:

This system here (click on this link) is £440.00 with Windows 7 Home Premium.

You'd need to add a monitor and loudspeakers so figure with a 19" monitor and a set of 2.1 (stereo) speakers the system would cost you about £550 to £570.

[sere83]

Hi there, many thanks for your reply. Yes I had a look at novatech but again got confused by some negative reviews I read. I also thought it might be better to get an AMD athlon based system as I thought you could get more for your money and they appeared not to use AMD processors.

After reading computer shopper and pc pro I went to www.cyberpowersystem.co.uk and put together a well specd custom system for £512 which included a 22 inch flat panel monitor with DVI and an AMD athlon II X4 processor, 4GB DDR2 ram and a 500GB HD. But again I did some research online and found many negative reviews and comments about the company. This also seemed to be the case for all the other uk based companies I could find! Although I appreciate many people who choose to write reviews have had negative experiences. I know what you mean about magazine bias that certainly does seem to be the case.

I too am not a huge fan of dell after having had mixed expereinces in the past with family computers hence why I started looking further afield.

To be honest the PC will not be used for any hardcore gaming at all. It will be a basic family PC used for word processing, office tasks, video watching, web surfing, perhaps very light image editing, basic online games and listening to music. I just thought it would be better to try and spend a little more (originally I was thinking £400) and get a decent system that may last a bit longer and have some extra features like good HD video performance and extra processing power and ram for more intensive applications and multitasking.

Obviously as someone who takes an interst in computers I have been enlisted to help so I don't want to advise them badly and be held responsible. I have not had much expereince in buying all in one complete systems recently though. Any advice is again greatly appreciated...

[sere83]

Oh thanks for the link floppybootstomp, didn't see the athlon systems on there. I was kind of hoping that £520 mite be the limit though, sorry should have mentioned that as I originally said around £400 so don't want to go too far past that.

[floppybootstomp]

You could always build your own of course, this system has quality components where they count and fits your budget.

There are compromises but not as many as a ready made system would have.

Onboard graphics, 2Gb memory, Win 7 full disk, 500Gb hard drive, 500W decent Power supply, to highlight a few things.

It would probably be worth adding a couple of case fans for around a tenner.

[sere83]

Many thanks for the reply. Yeah I had considered it, unfortunately my expertise is limited though I do have a couple of friends who make PC's. I think for their needs though it is probably not worth it and being a family machine they would probably want some kind of warrenty just in case things do go wrong.

[floppybootstomp]

Your choice.

Warranty? All seperate components have 12 month warranty from E-Buyer and you can speak to them on the phone.

And in my experience they honour the warranties.

Only problem, of course, is if a fault develops and you can't pinpoint the component causing it, it can get awkward then.

Though that's never happened to me, it is a possibility.

You really don't need that much skill to assemble a computer, lots of guides on the net, you save a little money but the biggest advantage is knowing you have all good components. Most ready made systems will skimp in several areas.

[Abarbarian]

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...d=1078&subcat=

Put the above with a free monitor from your local FreeCycle site and a cheap keyboard and mouse and speaker set from somewhere like E-Bay and you are within budget.

Of course what kills the job is the Microsoft OS You could always try a linux distro like Mandriva for free and that would give you a lot of extra loot to play with.

[floppybootstomp]

imo cheap mice, keyboards and speakers are a false economy. Within a week or two of use they will be driving you nuts and you'll want to upgrade anyway so might as well get something decent from the start. They are amongst the cheapest components anyway.

Using Linux would indeed be a huge saving. But unless you have a degree in Quantum Mathematics and won Mastermind three years in a row I would seriously recommend trying a live distro first and seeing if a Linux distro can do everything you want it to.

Some folk have trouble with Windows, never mind Mandriva, Ubuntu et al.

Ok, I'm about done here, basically I'd only trust Novatech and OCUK for tailor-made systems and even then with a little doubt about OCUK. I wouldn't trust any of the others. I don't like Dell. I always build my own.

And that's it.

Good luck