Can anybody recommend any good PC makes? or any to avoid?

[zipzap]

Just wondering really - I need to buy a pc, needs to be a good spec so can splash out a reasonable amount as it is to do some work on.

But it's such a long time since I've last bought a computer that I'm out of date on who is good and who to avoid...

Probably needs to be reasonably mainstream - Dell, HP, Mesh, Scan, Asus, Lenovo, that sort of thing.

Previous policy has been to buy the highest spec I can afford so it lasts for as long as possible.

Thinking this time around to aim for an Intel i7 8GB with at least 500GB memory and at least 1gb on a video/graphics card - but there don't seem to be many around so maybe they are too new and I would be better off going for an i5.

Not sure about the athlon chip - whizzed into PC World for a quick look and get a heads up on what's what these days and he was a bit dismissive - but there again, he might just have wanted to sell the i7 (although I had told him I wasn't buying that day, just researching - helped by fact I had sleeping baby in arms).

And I need to get it now, can't wait for a month or two for i7 to get cheaper/something new to come out/whatever - now is my jumping in and buying point, but would prefer to either go to a store and get it or order it and know it will arrive in a day or two.

thanks in advance!

I've posted before about this, but me & Mrs Kev both bought Mesh machines, and they've been running fine since day one.

I've got an Athlon QUad Core CPU, and it's eaten everything I've thrown at it (fullscreen video & Bioshock 2 mostly) for breakfast.

I had to wait a week or so while they built my machine; may not be the case if you order a stock model though.

They worked for me, anyway. See what you think.

Thanks MrK, will check them out.

Seems that if you just google for [pc brand] complaints or reviews you always get a couple of bad ones for most companies. It's trying to figure out if they are just one offs or typical.

Think I am one of those people that obsessively chases down every 1* review of products even if they have lots of good ones too, just in case the person that has a bad experience is relevant to my needs!

I have an emachines and the power connection is terrible, which is a major complaint, tbh would never buy from the company again, cheap and nasty. Dp has a Toshiba which proably was the same price as mine, very good build and reliable so far.

To be honest, I have rarely looked at getting the latest, fastest, processor, but more at the spec for the whole machine, sufficient RAM, disk storage, graphics support, etc.

I'd say now that as far as disk storage, unless you are after a laptop to hold loads of movies, then I'd go for 160/ 250 GB and use external storage for backups etc.

Fill up external drive{s} all you want, scan for viruses every now and then, but I'd unplug them for day-to-day use so AV scanning doesn't need all day to include all the junk stuff stored on big drive{s}.