Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler New Desktop.

Thanks everyone, I'm not ready to build anything myself, I'm looking for a decent system already put together, sounds like Dell has some pretty decent machines, I've got an old Gateway now and I'm not all that happy with it. A friend was telling me HP isn't bad but I'm not that sure about his advise.

Michael, I have had good luck with several Dells before I started building my own machines a few years back.

HPs aren't bad, but even the business desktops are loaded with junk that just makes them harder to use. I've been more impressed with Dell's support, but that was also on servers. I've heard that their desktop (particularly home) support isn't all that and a sack of potatoes. Still better than no support at all, which is what you would get if you built it yourself.

I also would choose Vista at this point for OSes (unless you're going to buy a Mac...) It's a pretty decent os at this point, and I'm a sucker for eye candy.

That said, go with 2-4 GB of RAM (remember, it's probably cheaper from a third party vendor) and a Core 2 <anything>. DO NOT buy a Pentium anything, or a Celeron anything.

I'm looking at the Dell outlet, and the XPS models look pretty nice, would I be okay going refurbished or should I opt for a new system?

Refurb is probably fine. Mu brother picked up a refurb HP quadcore last year and has had no issues. Got a very good price on it.

I wouldn't be afraid of a refurbed unit, go for it.

You usually can't tell any difference between refurb and new. Refurbs typically carry a shorter warranty, but with computers (and electronics in general) that's not a big deal, since failures are rare and tend to occur pretty quickly if they're going to happen at all. If it's got the features you want, there's no good reason not to save some money over buying new.

Thanks again for the suggestions everyone, I'm pricing my options between the Vostro 420 and the Studio desktop, since I'm looking at getting a blu-ray player-burner, what is the difference between a dual drive vs a single drive burner and a blu-ray disc writer vs burner? Also would you recommend Bluetooth for the mouse and keyboard or just go wireless. Any other recommendations for customization.

Personally, I think BR-burners are still too overpriced for me to buy one. On top of the burners being expensive, the blank disks are too expensive for me to find any practical use for them. So I'd skip on the BR-burner option unless you know you'll use it heavily for some specific purpose.

To answer another question, as far as I know there is no difference between a burner and a writer (just 2 words for the same thing). re: layers, if you're talking just about Blu-Ray burners, the difference is the ability to burn single layer disks (max capacity of 4.7 GB) versus the ability to burn dual layer disks (~2x capacity). (I'm 90% certain of this, but others feel free to correct me).

Either way, I'd wait for a year or so and add a drive then, which is a very easy process and should cost you much less $ in a year as the technology matures.

On Bluetooth - I don't think it's a must have unless you plan on operating your PC from quite a distance away from the case. Otherwise I've found the standard wireless keyboard & mouse to work reliably.

I think all of the things you're talking about would be nice-to-haves if you don't mind spending the extra money, but I don't think any are necessities.

Jason

I think I'll take that advice and add a burner later, I think I may just add a BD player, and I really don't need bluetooth. Thanks