Very basic PC with a couple of mods

Post by **FatherJack** » December 5th, 2006, 21:07

Some more family members are after PC recommendation, but they really only need a basic spec, but with a few enhancements.

I would rather point them at somewhere to buy one off the shelf than have to build it for them, but my knowledge of places that do this, yet have a bit of customisation are limited.

Basic Office use, no games, bit of video-editing, so I thought:

Proc: Celeron
Mem: 1G*
Disk: 250G*
Video/sound: onboard
DVD Writer
Monitor: 17" TFT
XP Home and Office Standard

*These may be overkill, and looking at prebuilt machines that include them often means you get other unneeded stuff like nvidia cards.

Price around 400-500, as I can get a sub-300 machine and replace RAM and disk for less than that, but I wanted it so they could unwrap it and get it going without needing me to take it to bits first.

Sorry if it seems a bit of a daft question, and not games-related, but my experience is polarised between the bog-standard prebuilt boxes at work and ones I build from scratch.

Any experiences people have had with manufacturers where you can pick a basic box and select a few options would be useful.

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » December 5th, 2006, 21:15

that all looks ok, but i'd suggest sticking in a low end graphics card, it'll improve things, even just an x300 will help a lot (30 quid-odd)

otherwise, i'd suggest hitting ebuyer as they may be able to give you good base machines to bring up to spec.

http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/116053 looks like a good start.

Post by **FatherJack** » December 5th, 2006, 21:29

Cheers, that looks about almost right - hadn't realised dualcore machines were so affordable.

I don't know what XP media centre is, though - I'll have a read and see if it's all they need.

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » December 5th, 2006, 21:34

FatherJack wrote:Cheers, that looks about almost right - hadn't realised dualcore machines were so affordable.

I don't know what XP media centre is, though - I'll have a read and see if it's all they need.

it's like the bastard child of xp home and pro, with a useless media player thrown in (from what i can tell)

Post by **FatherJack** » December 5th, 2006, 21:42

Yeah, although it seems the Media Player is about all you can do with it - there's a demo on the MS site. It's like something you'd have on a console or a DVD recorder and only works with programs written specifically for it (ie: not Office)

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » December 5th, 2006, 21:50

FatherJack wrote:Yeah, although it seems the Media Player is about all you can do with it - there's a demo on the MS site. It's like something you'd have on a console or a DVD recorder and only works with programs written specifically for it (ie: not Office)

I can pretty much assure you that is not the case.

the media player is just an added majical app, otherwise it's functionally mostly the same as xp pro.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_xp_media_center

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/kitteny_berk/315168826/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/100/315168826_50ac5cca93.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="mce"></a>

Post by **Dog Pants** » December 5th, 2006, 22:50

Can't you custom order Dells? I've said it before, but Dell machines are the most reliable we have at work and if you've several family members likely to be ringing you every time they fuck something up it's a worthwhile consideration. Don't know what the prices are like though.

Post by **FatherJack** » December 5th, 2006, 22:56

Dog Pants wrote:Don't know what the prices are like though.

About £300 higher than ebuyer from my initial checks. Might see what Acer can do though, as they make the machines ebuyer are reselling.

Post by **Dog Pants** » December 5th, 2006, 22:59

My laptop's Acer. Never had any problems with it.

Post by **ProfHawking** » December 5th, 2006, 23:14

acer make nice cheap basic boxes if i remember correctly.

plus, i agree with berk. I am running XP-MCE. It is xp-pro, but with an extra TV app not unlike mediaportal

Stoat · Post by **Stoat** » December 5th, 2006, 23:15

Dog Pants wrote:My laptop's Acer. Never had any problems with it.

So's mine. I love my laptop. Don't unscrew it though, or it starts to fall apart.

Post by **FatherJack** » December 5th, 2006, 23:21

ProfHawking wrote:plus, i agree with berk. I am running XP-MCE. It is xp-pro, but with an extra TV app not unlike mediaportal

Yes, the demo on the MS site merely showcases the remote control doodad bits, and I mistakenly thought that was all it was.

Fear · Post by **Fear** » December 6th, 2006, 0:07

There are some features it disables. For instance you can't join a domain with MCE. I know there are other things but I can't remember them.

I do remember that if you enter the domain during installation it will work ok, but once installed you can't set/unset/change the domain bits. This is a pisser if your music files are on a network with a domain as you have to have a batch file to map things each time.

It also comes with a lot of services and features disabled by default resulting in a faster machine I understand. We had one at uni in our living room.

By far the worst thing about MCE is it uses media player - possibly the next shitest player around after Real Player.