I would like to buy my sister a PC. A basic, budget, package that includes Monitor, Keyboard, hard drive, optical storage etc.
I would ideally like to avoide proprietary system builders who's systems cannot be simply upgraded in a few months with a Motherboard/CPU upgrade. Also, a good retailer that is known for quality goods and quality service would be better as I would rather not give my sister a gift that will become a mill stone round her neck as she repeatedly spends hours on premium rate customer support lines trying to get the thing fixed in the event of a problem.

Any comments and opinions regarding this are more than welcome.

Are there any companies out there that are trying to move old Athlon XP stock? A socket A motherboard and 3000+ Barton CPU based system would be more than enough power for any casual user, I cant believe that they have all been shifted from stock already.

My suggestion would be Dell - they have some bargain set-ups at the moment. I think there are some offers of free delivery, free printer, double memory etc... were you looking to buy a complete rig or build your own?

No companies 'budget entry' PC will afford an easy upgrade path, if any. It is not in their interest.

Most of us here will suggest a BYO (build your own), that way you'll ensure some upgradeability, but that is not foolproof.

I will admit Dell has some good bargains, but be aware, as with any major manufacturer of some pitfalls ... almost impossible to 'upgrade' anything, do not buy 'extended warrantees', do not buy anything 'Celeron', if anything goes wrong your at their mercy to 'fix' it.

Hmmm Dell...everybody says Dell. I've looked (and will probably continue to look) at Dell, but I'm not entirely convinced. I dont mind low performance, but their budget systems all seem to be built round the "No performance" Celery which I would prefer to avoid.
The fact that they are a big international company offers some hope for quality of build and service, however I've read enough horror stories to think know that my chances are a reasonable 50/50 of getting burned by anybody, even Dell with their multi-million pound TV ad campaigns.
However, because a self built would require also buying a monitor, keyboard etc then a pre-built package is the most realistic route for my budget, otherwise I would be building a Barton 3200+ system because retailers are shifting this stuff as fast as they can now. In fact there are such good Motherboard/CPU bundles out there I'm tempted just to buy myself one just because.

I got mine from the Dell outlet (www.dell.co.uk/outlet), it cost under £400 and for that I got a Dell Dimension 8300, Pentium 4, 512 MB RAM, CPU 2.60 GHz, GeForce FX5200, along with a 17" monitor, speakers and software (XP etc). That was over a year ago now so the price has probably dropped, might be worth a try for your sister!

I personally have worked on, or seen, nearly every major propriety manufactured PC there is on the marked, with some exceptions.

Very few would have passed my "quality control" or expectations as to value for money ... and that is due to the nature of the business.

It doesn't matter what business you're in, the idea of a business it to make a profit ... it is up to the 'customer' to form the opinion whether the item is worth the money spent.

However, there are some who try a little harder than most and I will include Dell in that category ... they at least will list/tell you what MB is being used, and that is where I would start. If I know what the MB is, I can work out what the potential is of the system.

Another 'trick' I employ is, don't buy today, the latest-n-greatest that usually has the price tag to match but go for something from at least six months ago. Especially if you are NOT into games.

Couldn't agree more with this one... my current PC is 1.5 years old now and it can run any of the latest games with ease. You could buy 2 slightly lower spec PCs for the price of the latest one, which means you can upgrade to better than what you were going to buy after a couple of years! (If that makes sense).

If you did go for the Build your own route, I'm sure you could build a decent system for around £400 with a monitor (not top of the range, but it would be a good lower spec PC).