Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler OT: Refurb PCs from eCost?

Sorry about the OT topic, but I trust your opinions!

There has been much discussion about refurbed Denon products from eCost. Anyone ever buy a refurb HP from them?

My in-laws want a new computer and they do nothing but e-mail and web….literally. At this point, even AOL is sluggish and "non upgradeable" on the PC I gave them several years ago. They're in their sixties and the sort of folks that pay cash for things and would almost live the Amish life if given half a chance , so they want something inexpensive and simple. I'm sure if I paid more than $700 they would look at me like I bought them a new Lexus!

I've often wondered about a refurbed PC from eCost. Anyone ever try one or have alternate suggestions? I'm the "computer guy" of the family, so I'll be taking care of the purchase and installation!

Mark, I'm a far cry from a computer geek, but I've had a Dell, for about 3 years now, that I've been very happy with. Here is a Dell with a 2.8 GHz Pentium 4 processor, 512 MB of memory, a 40 GB hard drive, and a 17 inch CRT monitor for $589 (after a 10%, instant off discount). If they already have a serviceable monitor, they can knock $45 off the price. There is a free upgrade from a CD Rom drive to a CD-RW drive included in the price.

It comes with WordPerfect, but for $26 you can upgrade to Microsoft Works Suite which has Microsoft Word, and several other programs. The price also includes a 2 year warranty, 2 years of in home service, and 2 years Technical support.

Let me give you another thought. I am a dyed-in-the-wool Macintosh user, but my wife pretty much dominates it during the school year (2nd grade teacher). As a result, we needed a second computer in the den and I opted for a PC (for alot of different reasons).

A friend put me on to an alternative approach to acquiring a PC - Bare Bones Kits. I am now on my 2nd of these things (upgrade). My friend assembled the first 2 for me, but I believe I could do it myself for the next one. Saved LOTS of money and got only what I wanted instead of one of those package deals. (Why pay for a burner if you don't intend to use it or a monitor if you already have one?)

Take a look here for a sample of available kits. If you are handy with PCs, this might be a nice solution for you. I am partial to Soyo, but they have others. I believe these folks also have refurb/open box equipment if you are interested.

Ray

Geeez, Ray, where 'ya sendin' me? The link didn't work and even a straight "Tigerdirect.com" didn't work!

Seriously, I don't think I'd have much time to assemble something, and I'm not 100% confident that I could do it problem-free. I really need to spend my time programming my MX-700 now, don't I?

Jack- I like the idea of that Dell. I've always liked the fact that Dell evidently doesn't load their PCs up with a bunch of crap that my in-laws don't need. It's about the same price I was planning for ( once I upgraded their 15" CRT with a 17" ) as well.

Thanks for all the input guys, even though one proved to be excellent advice and one was, well, just kinda useless.

Runnin' and hidin' as Ray tees up a Titleist and goes for the longest drive ever- right at my skull from two states away!!

Mark I've had good experience with the Dell Outlet. The Dell Outlet sells refurbished systems which are generally just slightly out of date models. You can search the listings to find units pretty much fully configured for your purposes minus a monitor. I like getting a system loaded with all the sofware upgrades I'm looking for bundled under the Dell warranty for less than the catalog price on non-upgraded systems.

Mark,

I will preface my statement by stating that I DO work for Dell.

But, my experience with many manufacturers over the years (Gateway, HP, Compaq, etc...) will have me give the same advice...check into Dell.

The deal mentioned early is a steal for what they would want to use it for, not to mention, probably make it light years faster than what they have now (no disrespect to your supplying them with the first computer).

Either the main page or the Outlet would be a good avenue...one point on the Outlet though, compare prices very carefully...although they are throughly refurbished, why by something "used" when you can get something "brand-new" for a better price? I buy from the Outlet too...but sometimes the deals on the main page are considerably better...

WhatFurrer

OK Mr. smarty pants!

You might also look at the new Mac Mini Apple just introduced.

Ray,

I have also worked on my share of Mac's (primarily in education environments...did not like them at all at the time...kids can really abuse Mac's )

But the new ones I have seen (and the limited use I have made of the ones they put in Schlotzsky's restaurants), do have me looking at them again with a different perspective.

My family would kill me if I put a Mac in the house though! They have enough trouble when I leave Linux running (although my son has figured that out ).

WhatFurrer

And now, Ray wants me to teach them a new platform?

Once again, thanks for the other suggestions!

Ray? I dunno, dude. When it comes to Denon stuff and that remote you sell out of your car trunk you're "The Man". But you're having on off-Monday on this one!

(In case there's a newbie here that thinks I'm just being obnoxious....well, you're probably right. But I do consider Ray a friend and this is all meant in good fun! )

I add my voice to the Mac Mini line. We have 2 Macs and 2 PCs in the house and the PCs have been collecting increasingly more dust in the last year or so...

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Ray? I dunno, dude. When it comes to Denon stuff and that remote you sell out of your car trunk you're "The Man". But you're having on off-Monday on this one!

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Mark you know better than to listen to those OLD guys. (Whoops! Wait a minute! I mean those old NY guys. Fugedaboudit!)

Yer killin' me. BOTH of you.

Actually regarding the E-Cost refurb PC's I bought a HP 645c from them and it works very well. It was an athlon xp 3200+ with 512mb of ram, dvd-rom, dvd+rw burner, 9 different card readers etc. Good deal for just under $500 US. Even with shipping and exchange to Canada it was under $750 cdn. I believe this model is still available.

tigerdirect.com didn't come up? It's a reputable internet store for computer parts. Ray is not sending you anywhere odd. I personally prefer newegg.com, and sometimes outpost.com has the best prices, but tigerdirect is a perfectly respectable place...

Actually, TigerDirect did come up when I tried it later but, yes, their server seemed to be down for a bit.

I do know that they have a good reputation, I just wanted to pick on Ray a little!

Told ya so! Told ya so!

Sniff.

I feel like I can make a quick decision as I've been keeping an eye out for them for awhile.
I saw this tonight at Staples: Compaq PC.

It's got a $50 instant rebate, bringing it down to $379. I'll add another 256Mb of RAM, and get this monitor for $129 after rebate as well.

Much as I like Dells, this'll be $130 cheaper than the Dell with the same software, there's no shipping cost, I can take it home tomorrow to pre-configure instead of waiting the two weeks for delivery, then take it to them this weekend to get it set up.

Win-Win-Win.

Thanks for all the help, everyone...



Yes, that includes you too, Ray!

by preconfigure i hope you mean whipe it clean and load a plain jane version of xp home on there. because those compaq's and hp's are so cheap because they come equiped with there own spyware and adware. get the dell the warranty is better. if you have warranty issues they will send you the part first and you send back the dead one after. compaq/hp makes you send them the whole pc for them to repair kind of annoying trust me. i have dealt with tech support numerous times for all manufactures and dell has always been one of the better ones. even after they started outsourcing. $130 is not much more when you factor in you are self employed and time is money.
Jake

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because they come equiped with there own spyware and adware

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Can you tell me where you heard this? Granted, I haven't dealt with consumer models of thier PCs -- just workstations and servers -- but it sounds fishy to me.

i have not heard it i have seen it. if you do a fresh restore on an hp or compaq then run either spybot or adaware you will get a ton of entries. and every thing thats loaded in all is set to run on startup. its ridiculous.

Are the entries valid spyware programs - or known to be spyware?

I say this because there is a setting in Media Player 10 that trips some spyware detection apps into reporting MP10 as spyware.

well i wanted to get back and edit my earlier statements a little but i just got caught up. anyway i should rephrase and classify it as (nonmalicious--spelling--)adware like free game and yahoo searchbar dumb crap like that. not like a browser hijacker or anything.

I've got a question when you run a spyware detection programs how in the heck do you know what to delete, quarantine or ignore a file?

In general, it's pretty safe to just quarantine everything a program finds. If something breaks, just restore it from the quarantine. I've never had to do that, though.

If they use the internet a lot, I'd suggest getting a MAC. It has the best security. Those Dells and HPs will get bogged down with all kinds of stuff. Just my opinion. Its debateable.