New Computer

riptides · Dec 11, 2003

What I think Bob S. Said,
( 17" CRT .27 E773c - now you showed your hand...that's a Dell part #. If you've got PLENTY of room, go for a Viewsonic 19" crt. @ .25. very little added $. You'll love it. )

I'd go with the biggest screen space you can get, and the smallest form factor.

On the HD, if you have kids, and or multiple users, 80GB is not that much.
If your thinking about expanding your home computing needs in the future, think sharing resources. I'd bump the processor up to the limit and the bus to boot!

Speed, speed, speed. And the widest fastest bus to get it!

Microsoft XP, ugh..... Upgrade that?

Care to exercise your IT skills? I recommend a Linux varient?
Don't think the DELL dudes preload that, yet? Too bad.

Think about a laptop, instead? Do you intend to do Digital Photos? Do you intend to travel and show things off? Think laptop! The ultimate space saver, too....

Good luck, buy it and don't look back, cause the market changes every day.

-Mike Z. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Bird · Dec 11, 2003

Whether or not to go with the 3.5" floppy drive? I have one in my Dell Dimension 8100; use it for the Flashpath adapter to transfer photos from the camera to the computer (could use the hardwire connector instead, but prefer my current method).

I only have one CD burner, but I also have a 250 meg Zip drive that I use for my backups. I suppose those might be considered obsolete now, too.

I've never bought an extended warranty, but probably would now. My last computer was an IBM and they replaced the monitor twice under warranty. And while I've heard about Dell's great service, I was very glad I took advantage of their financing when I bought this computer instead of just paying for it outright because when I got the ME to XP upgrade from Dell, that crashed the entire system, multiple phone calls and doing what they told me to do didn't work, they finally decided there was nothing more they could do for me until I told them it wasn't paid for yet and asked where they wanted me to send it. Then they promptly found someone who could tell me how to get it working again.

BillyP · Dec 11, 2003

Ok guys, I ordered it.

I know speed is where it's at, especially with computers. But I had to draw the line somewhere. I did make a few changes (listed below).

XP Home to Pro (just in case)

40GD Hard drive instead of 80. The one I have now has about an 8GB and I still have about half left. I don't think I'd ever use 40, let alone 80.

Kept the 3.5" floppy but did add a 64MB memory key. Those are neat. They work with any computer with a USB port.

I did take the 4 year warranty (just in case again)

I've had real good luck with this Dell. I've only had to change the CD Rom drive a few years ago. It was after the At Home service had ended but Dell shipped me the drive 2nd Day Air and coached me, over the phone, how to change it.

I did think about just upgrading this system but I figured it would cost as much to do that as to buy a new one and not as good.

jfh230 · Dec 11, 2003

Congrats. It sounds like you have a fine machine coming your way.

I take a slightly different approach in purchasing my machines. I run a lot of cad, animations and rendering software and what I have found is the computers I buy today are obsolete next week /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif Long before any component problems can pop up. Or MS changes its standards and i am forced to upgrade software for compatability which now doesn't run on my machine /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif

After throwing much $$$ into upgrading a very nice machine that I had and still falling behind the curve I decided that from then on I would buy the cheapest computer I could find and throw it out in a year or two when it outlived its usefulness. Well not throw it out, one went to my wife, one to my daughter, some to charity. My current machine is a 2 year old emachine that came with a monitor and printer for a whopping $375 by the time all the rebates kicked in.

I'll be the first to admit that the quality is no where near a dell but I figured out that I can buy three emachines for the price of one dell. And by the time the quality issues come into play I need to upgrade anyway. Not saying this is the way for everyone to go but it is food for thought.

BTW I see we have a couple of apple guys here. I have an se and one of the first color notebooks 165c and still use them everyday at work. Just turn them on in the am and they always work. If Steve Jobs wasn't such an egomaniac we'd all be using apples /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Jack

buckle97 · Dec 11, 2003

I think you are getting a great machine. I have had nothing but trouble with XPHome (I know others who have had no trouble at all though) so I was relieved to see you decided on XPPro. I think a 40 gig hard drive will suit you fine (especially if you can't manage to fill up an 8 gig.

buckle

P.S. I would have gotten the 3.5" disk drive too /forums/images/graemlins/ooo.gif

Bob_Skurka · Dec 11, 2003

I am obviously out voted on the issue of the 3.5" floppy, but I can honestly say that I have not purchased a machine that had a floppy drive in it in the past 2 or 3 years . . . and I don't miss it. . . I think I knew they were obsolete when one of the secretaries needed to order someting on-line and tried to use the "credit card reader." She didn't understand why it didn't work.

BillyP · Dec 11, 2003

Thanks for all the input, guys. It's was highly appreciated.

I do have one more question (more to come later, I'm sure). Is there any options to make XP look like WIN95? This probably sounds stupid but I've used 95 for about 7 or 8 years now and I'm used to it.

Bob_Skurka · Dec 11, 2003

BillyP . . . drop the buggy whip and join the rest of the modernized world. Time moves on. The world progresses. And Bill Gates makes his systems work more and more like an Apple Macintosh every day. Go with the flow and learn the new system.

jwstewar · Dec 11, 2003

I don't know how much it truly changes the look, but if you open the the display in the Control Panel (or by right clicking the desktop), there is a Themes Tab, under Theme, Click Windows Classic. After you select Windows Classic, you can change individual Windows elements, such as window borders, icons, and menus. Click the Appearance tab, and then click Advanced to make your changes.

JASTN70D · Dec 11, 2003

I have found that the only true difference between XP home and Pro is that Microsoft has turned off a feature by leaving off some files. I.E. Joining a domain. What we do find allot is that home computers tend to come with a lot of unnecessary software that is free and very unreliable. This tends to cause a lot of problems and since this software must interact with the OS it makes it appear to be more unreliable.

Technically there is no difference for the 2 products. In fact one way to prove this is that they both take the same updates and service packs. And a service pack includes a replacement for almost every main file there is check the size. Note that all service packs are for the XP family of products. the only ones that or different is for a floppy boot install