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"A good PC for the price?"

Trying to remember exactly what it was....

A Dell with:
2.53 GHz Pentium 4
256 RAM
60Gig HD
64MB Graphics card
Flat Screen monitor

For £899?

Given that my PC is currently a 233Mhz Cyrix, it'd be a vast improvement, but is that a reasonable price? I can buy it over 3 years with no interest, and I pay slightly less tax for that period, as it comes out of my salary...

Pfff, I'm not a fan of that system. It is a classic from-a-shop job - fast processor will not much else to show. That TFT screen will be nice and sharp, but they blur with motion, and hence don't play games well. Not that that'll be a problem for you, as it only has a Geforce4 MX420 graphics card, which would collapse given top end games even today. And if it was a business machine, it could really have done with an extra 256MB of RAM (although you could buy this yourself at a later stage, it's only about £30).

But it does have a broadband modem, and they're not cheap (although if you don't have ADSL you might wonder why you shelled out for it), and it will knÖ<âäkŠMÈ–¡ñnÉ]�åK’‘ÓAJqyÅÀð0¨äÿ ÐðTZ—ˆªBýÂЖ}
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Hewlett Packard Pavilion
Intel Pentium 4 2.4GHz
256MB RAM
60GB Hard drive capacity & 5400 rpm
GeForce 4 MX420 64 MB- AGP 4x Graphics card
DVD 16x, CDRW 32x10x40
PS 2 Scroller Mouse
Horn PS2 Keyboard
V.92 ready plus Intel PCI Broadband ADSL Modem
GNR 15" TFT flat screen monitor
AC'97 Active Speakers
6 USB 2.0 ports, 2 IEEE 1394
10/100 LAN card
1 Year Collect and Return Warranty

Okay, this one is slighlly different, they haven't stuck the one I wanted on the website yet. Basically I buy it through my employer, and save a couple of hundred on tax over 3 years. So it'll really only cost me £650, or something

Hrm, you can get the same thing here pretty much for £150 less, although it doesn't come with a 64MB graphics card:

http://www.euro.dell.com/countries/uk/enu/dhs/ offers/offer_dim_featured_system.htm


and it still doesn't strike me as a particularly good deal :O( Have you ever considered building your own system?

However, if you're used to 233Mhz and you can't afford a new PC any other way, that may be the clincher for you. The speed of any new system these days will take your head clean off, and that Dell will be no exception. Just try not to think what you might have got if you had £900 in cash at the time :O)

I'd need a lot more info to be sure, but no, I suspect that isn't a good PC for the price. The credit deal is an instant clue - I guess you're getting this from a large company, and in my head, large companies = pile 'em high/sell 'em cheap. If you go into the likes of Dixons you may understand - huge billboards screeching "THREE GIGAHERTZ FOR LESS THAN ONE THOUSAND POUNDS, IF YOU TURN THIS DOWN YOU MUST BE A THICKO". They put all the reddies into one part which they can then advertise as the system seller, and completely ignore other important components such as the motherboard, monitor, power supply etc. This is something all of the 'big name' companies do to varying degrees, and I won't be able to tell you whether yours is one of those without the full system spec (or if you like, a link to a webpage with it on :O)

Trying to remember exactly what it was....

A Dell with:
2.53 GHz Pentium 4
256 RAM
60Gig HD
64MB Graphics card
Flat Screen monitor

For £899?

Given that my PC is currently a 233Mhz Cyrix, it'd be a vast improvement, but is that a reasonable price? I can buy it over 3 years with no interest, and I pay slightly less tax for that period, as it comes out of my salary...