Need new family computer, is it really just 'up to us'.

[HistoryofReading]

Currently have a creaky 6 year old Dell which we have beefed up with memory but it needs to be retired before it falls over. This is our only computer so needs to serve us and a 4 year old. We don't really do anything beyond (lots of) internet/email/office. We definitely want one with a digital tuner. DH says it's got to be touchscreen, I wonder whether that's helpful for DC, all their school computers seem to have mice still, but I know you can use keyboard/mouse with touchscreen so maybe that's irrelevant. PC World were very unhelpful and said it was basically up to us. Is that really it? Can be a bit flexible on price, but I'm really not convinced that spending (say) £1200 is worth it when you see what you can get for less.

Touchscreen?

Why?

What for?

Well quite. I think he thinks if we don't get TS then we'll be out of date by next year. I'm not so sold on the idea I have to say.

For £1200 you could get a (very) good desktop and a laptop for MNing on.

I've never seen a touchscreen pc with a good review. You use very little of the pc so get a cheap one. Something with a decent processor, 4GB of RAM and at least a 250GB hard drive. You should be able to get a suitable machine for about £300-£400.

If this next computer is to last another 6 ish years you need to be thinking about what you will need it for. Increasingly children use computers to research, make presentations etc even at primary. I would save my money and buy a Mac.

And I wouldn't seek advice from PC World about anything. Ever!!

Any computer you buy is likely to be out of date by next year . Dh built my computer 4 years ago for £700, including screen, case, mouse, keyboard and speakers. We used it mainly for gaming at the time, plus internet and holding our entire music collection. It kicked arse and my brother recently said that it was faster than his best mate's newer top of the range shop bought one. Despite this, due to it's age (and crappy Windows Vista) it's now failing a bit more every day. Therefore I was surprised to learn that all of the components were old tech when it was built (as it was cheaper). The downside is that now we have to replace all the inner workings because the bits that are still fine (such as the motherboard) are no longer compatible with the newer components that have to be replaced.

So the point of my random ramblings was that old tech isn't necessarily a bad thing!

Touchscreens don't make sense on home computers. They're fine for handheld devices but for desktops or laptops you find that having your arm straight out in front of you to point at the screen gets uncomfortable very quickly. It's been tried a number of times before and it never takes off.

If you buy a reasonable specification PC today you can generally expect it to have a four or five year life before it gets outdated. Laptops tend to have a shorter life partly because they're harder to upgrade (and tend to be lower spec in the first place) but also because they tend to lead a harder life.

Thank you ladies for your comments re TS. I have been rather suspicious of the idea but wondered if I was just being an old fart about it. I will stand my ground I think!

HedleyLamarr, not with a digi tuner I don't believe?
RatherbeonthePiste, no we didn't expect anything profound from PC World, we're not that idiotic, they were just even more useless than anticipated.

Digi tuners aren't very expensive. I got one of these. Works a treat with Windows Media Center.

Windows 8, which is due next year, will probably be the first Operating System built for a desktop/laptop with an interface that is built for touch operation. But as others have said that's really not the ideal way to use a desktop or a laptop and it will still retain the existing way of working.

So I really don't see touch as being essential at all and I'm not sure that it will catch on. I personally hate getting fingerprints on my monitor so until they invent fingerprint proof glass that's always going to be a massive obstacle to touch operated desktop computers :)

You can get a USB tv tuner, they;re about £25.00.