Recommend me a home PC

[roddes]

just get a 64bit AMD cpu with about a gig of ram and a nvidea grahpics card and put a unix based system on it,youll be blown away at how amazing smooth and stable and virus free it is

 

[ExtraRefined]

Dont know all the techie shit - im just a designer, all i know is that on my desk I have a PC and a mac. I have to use both because of the sort of work I do - and the mac shits on the PC. Just in terms of usability anyway - as I say no idea about the tech details - but unless you're doing some hardcore geekery then the Mac would suit you fine... get that interest free loan sorted..

Ah, so you're saying that if you don't actually know how to use a computer, a mac is better.

This is pretty much like coming into a discussion on which family car to buy and saying, "well I don't drive, but I think you should buy a hovercraft".

 

[Crispy]

no, it's like coming into a discussion about buying a car and saying if you don't know how to clean a carburetor, change the brake pads and adjust the cam timings, buy a (brand of car that's really easy to use and look after, but I don't know enough about cars to make the metaphor work)

 

[gabi]

Ah, so you're saying that if you don't actually know how to use a computer, a mac is better.

This is pretty much like coming into a discussion on which family car to buy and saying, "well I don't drive, but I think you should buy a hovercraft".

Um, no, check the thread title - hes asking for a 'home pc'. For which (imo) a mac is perfect.

Its easy to use for those who wouldn't know what to do about the blue screen of death for instance, and is essentially designed for the home market.

 

[trashpony]

Sorry to butt in on this discussion but rather than starting a new thread, is there any way my dad can get a new PC with XP rather than Vista installed? He's very nervous about Vista and its 'bugginess' and would prefer to stick to an os he knows. I have XP on disk that shipped with my laptop - could I upload it onto any new pc he got?

 

[Tricky Skills]

Been looking around various PC sites (in-between drooling over Macs ) and it seems that Dell are now offering XP installed rather than Vista. Customer demand.

 

[Crispy]

Get an iMac - £799, trust me you won't look back.. its worth paying the premium...

And there's the previous version (with a faster chip than the new £799 one) for 749 in the refurbished mac bit of http://store.apple.com/Apple/WebObjects/ukstore (link's in the bottom left)

 

[Boris Sprinkler]

my old man has been using a computer for a little over two years. His windows machine, although it gave him little grief (i set it up tighter than a dolphins butt in terms of security as i live miles away and could do without endless calls) just didn't quite work for him. He then bought an imac after seeing my mac and he loves it. Just the whole OS and experience. He recently emailed me his first website.

 

[jæd]

What am I getting that is worth spending £400 extra on?

Virus free, blah blah blah, but with sensible management of my old Shuttle box, I've had no serious issues over the past four years.

Macs are virus + malware free, even without any sensible management. Even a down-right carefree existence is allowed. Plus... Never having to even think about downloading Spybot, etc...

 

[stdPikachu]

if you don't know how to clean a carburetor, change the brake pads and adjust the cam timings, buy a (brand of car that's really easy to use and look after, but I don't know enough about cars to make the metaphor work)

That's the first computer/car analogy I've seen where the author has had the balls to admit they don't know enough to make a proper analogy

That said, I've been wanting a laptop for ages and seriously considered buying a Mac - but as Crispy points out, they're a high-end product and I could get all of the features I wanted with a wintel box at a much lower cost than a similar Mac. It has Linux on it now anyway, although I'd have done dual boot if OSX were involved.

As an aside, I love this saying: Linux on a Macbook - the iron fist in a velvet glove

Back on topic - buy a Mac if you can afford it and don't need windows-specific apps (unless you're prepared to use Parallels or summat, which is even more money). If you can't, the bargain basement sub-£400 PC market is highly commoditised and all much of a muchness, and it's highly likely that you'll find all the machines in a particular price range are indistinguishable from one another, with things like double memory (good) or free printer (shit) offers differentiating them.

Macs are virus + malware free, even without any sensible management. Even a down-right carefree existence is allowed. Plus... Never having to even think about downloading Spybot, etc...

Heh, didn't they say the same thing about Windows when UNIX viruses/worms were all the rage...?

That said I don't think any OS should excuse or encourage a carefree existence - if given the choice between making the user learn how to do something The Right Way and lessening security, I'd go with pissing off/educating the user each time. Apple just tend to be better at this than Windows, which is due in no small part to its UNIX underpinnings.

 

[jæd]

Back on topic - buy a Mac if you can afford it and don't need windows-specific apps (unless you're prepared to use Parallels or summat, which is even more money).

Probably better phrased as "specific windows-apps". I've not yet found apps on Windows that can't be replicated on Mac. (Apart from games...)

Heh, didn't they say the same thing about Windows when UNIX viruses/worms were all the rage...?

Probably not. AFAIK the major Unix worms/viruses were in the late 80's. Windows didn't really get going until 3.1 in 1991. Or you could mean MS-DOS...

That said I don't think any OS should excuse or encourage a carefree existence - if given the choice between making the user learn how to do something The Right Way and lessening security, I'd go with pissing off/educating the user each time. Apple just tend to be better at this than Windows, which is due in no small part to its UNIX underpinnings.

Personally I think things should be designed right to start with. Rather than cludges to existing systems that weren't designed for what they're now used for.

 

[stdPikachu]

Probably better phrased as "specific windows-apps". I've not yet found apps on Windows that can't be replicated on Mac. (Apart from games...)

Heh, at heart it's a damned if you [do|don't] situation even then...! The basic problem is that most people abhor change.

Probably not. AFAIK the major Unix worms/viruses were in the late 80's. Windows didn't really get going until 3.1 in 1991. Or you could mean MS-DOS...

Not getting into computers until windows 2000 came out has left me with alot of back-stories to catch up on :O

Personally I think things should be designed right to start with. Rather than cludges to existing systems that weren't designed for what they're now used for.

Well, some of that logic could undoubtedly be applied to alot of UNIXey stuff as well, although at least it incorporated proper multi-user support and networking a helluva lot earlier than even the NT codebase. I wonder how much cruft there is due to backwards compatability in your average Linux distro...?

 

[Tricky Skills]

All good advice - thanks.

Still pondering... My mind said stick with what you know and grab a £400 PC, but much to my surprise, I am actually leaning towards a Mac. Should last me five years?

Just waiting on some 'financial news,' which will probably make the decision for me

 

[Crispy]

That's a bonus point with macs - historically, new releases of OS X have had better performance than the previous version, so older hardware gets longer life.

Macs also hold their value very well. G5 imacs from 2004 are going for around £5-600 on ebay. You'd be very lucky to get a similar price for a 2004 PC

 

[gabi]

All good advice - thanks.

Still pondering... My mind said stick with what you know and grab a £400 PC, but much to my surprise, I am actually leaning towards a Mac. Should last me five years?

Just waiting on some 'financial news,' which will probably make the decision for me

Good shit man - it really is worth the extra money. It makes using a computer genuinely enjoyable... you wont regret it..

 

[jæd]

All good advice - thanks.

Still pondering... My mind said stick with what you know and grab a £400 PC, but much to my surprise, I am actually leaning towards a Mac. Should last me five years?

Just waiting on some 'financial news,' which will probably make the decision for me

Wait until the next version of OS X is out, currently in October. Will save in downloading, because it will be included with any new purchase.

 

[Crispy]

Wait until the next version of OS X is out, currently in October. Will save in downloading, because it will be included with any new purchase.

Agreed. They sometimes do a 'free update if you bought a new mac within a few weeks of the new OS version' though.

 

[jæd]

I wonder how much cruft there is due to backwards compatability in your average Linux distro...?

Less than you might think... But it you can usually always download a distro of linux thats from the era you want. (A while ago I had to run some software compiled + released in 2002, and it was quicker to download and install Redhat 7.2 than dig out the source-code)

 

[Bob_the_lost]

All good advice - thanks.

Still pondering... My mind said stick with what you know and grab a £400 PC, but much to my surprise, I am actually leaning towards a Mac. Should last me five years?

Just waiting on some 'financial news,' which will probably make the decision for me

No it won't. It will not be able to play HD DVD at any time in it's life, nor bluray, nor can it be modified to do so. The RAM in it will need to be doubled in a year or two, the HD may suffice. You will not be able to play some games even if you install Vista, not many in the near future, a fair few in a year and the majority in three.

It's a low end machine, if it lasts that long it's because you're doing tasks that don't need anything more powerful than your current one.

 

[Crispy]

Why would you need to double the RAM?
OP has not stated that they will be playing games.

IMO, in 5 years time it'll be cheaper to download a HD movie than buy it, but you have a fair point on this one.

 

[Bob_the_lost]

1 Gig of RAM is going to be enough (to be running happily) for the indefinite future? I doubt it, even if OSX is still being developed in five years the min requirements will have risen quite a bit.

In two years DDR2 is being replaced with DDR3, which is the time to buy it as the factories are retooled to produce the newer chips.

 

[Crispy]

1Gb did my XP machine fine from 2005 to present, and it's still doing me fine in my mac. Unless the OP has a sudden increase in the demands he makes of his computer, then I see no need to increase the RAM. You need to keep increasing the RAM for new versions of windows, but this isn't as much a problem with OSX.

It seems like you're coming from a built-it-yourself, performance oriented pov. I'm coming from a 'buy it, it works, and it'll keep on working' pov.

 

[gabi]

5 years sounds like a long time to go without upgrading - dont think thats very realistic - ill prolly upgrade every 2-3 years or so myself...

 

[Bob_the_lost]

In 2005 you had more RAM than you needed, in 2007 you have the recommended amount for office computing. What computer did you have in 2002?

As for OSX not needing more RAM, min spec for 10.0 was 128mb, 10.4 is 256mb, 10.5 is supposed to be 512mb. It may be lower than windows but it's still increasing.

Any computer is hard pressed to stay current for five years, planning your purchase with that sort of useful life expectancy is risky, doing so with such a low spec machine is very foolish.

 

[Lazy Llama]

It will not be able to play HD DVD at any time in it's life, nor bluray, nor can it be modified to do so.

Is there any reason that you can't plug in a USB Blu-Ray drive like this one?

 

[Crispy]

true, 5 years is a long time, but gaming and HD movies are not what I'd call essentials - esp. given the OP's computer usage as outlined in the first post.

 

[Crispy]

Is there any reason that you can't plug in a USB Blu-Ray drive like this one?

No idea if that would support movies or not...

 

[gabi]

Any computer is hard pressed to stay current for five years, planning your purchase with that sort of useful life expectancy is risky, doing so with such a low spec machine is very foolish.

What particular 'low-spec' computer are u referring to? the iMac?

Doesnt seem low-spec to me, im on it at home at the moment and its really fast? Does everything I want... I dont think you quite understand what the OP is wanting it for? You sound like you're in IT so natch you'll have different needs - for a home pc tho the iMacs the dogs..

 

[Lazy Llama]

No idea if that would support movies or not...

But adding movie playback is just software.. anyone can do software

I'd imagine an update to the Apple DVD Player wouldn't be beyond the realms of possibility. If not, someone else will write one....

 

[Bob_the_lost]

You might be able to. If apple ever get round to allowing HDCP content on it and you flash the BIOS on the chip to allow it (again an apple update) then you might, it depends on the monitor, which has to have the right chips built into it.

I jumped the gun, no one is sure that you'll ever be able to use the imac with HD content but it is not possible now.