Buying a pc - where to look?

[lisalisa]

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Dell. Definitely the cheapest! They supply all of our PC's and Laptops at work.

Dell Website

Would second Dell. They're great.

mesh

No, not Mesh. No no no no no!

Got my first PC from them. They delivered a fecking Italian hamper instead of the fecking monitor!!! I kid ye not.

They were lame lame lame. Really lame.

no complaints here

Dell by a country mile.

used to say Dell-but then they shipped the helplines out to India and have recieved such bad bad press for customer service since, so now I second Fishfinger with MESH, no complaints here either

When did they ship the helpline to India? It was in Ireland a year ago?

um, dont know but has honestly been on watchdog type programs about it....will ask dh when he comes home( for not knowing exactly when)

if you don't care about haveing the latest latest gaming type hardware, the PC world are about the same price as dell these days.

why does it have to be the latest model and what software do you need to install on it?

As someone who has worked in IT support for ten years, I seriously warn anyone against buying a pc from PC World. Dell are cheaper, will fix any problems easily in the first year and are generally better quality. The staff at PC World still don't have a clue what they are selling, they just read off the card.

The faster and more powerful PC you can afford, the longer it will still be able to run programs now and in the future. Windows and Suites like Office use up a lot of memory and processing power, not just games.

depends on the branch though, hd.

also the price differential between this year's model and last year's is not worth the extra year you might get imo.

My only advice would be to buy either pentium or the new more expensive AMD chip (can't remember what it's called) - not the cheaper versions made by the same companies. A 2.5Gb pentium is better than a 3Gb celeron.

Really? I've never found a PC World with any clue at all.

I agree, steer clear of Celeron they are a false economy.

Yeah, Dell's good. Just make sure you never have to call them after they've delivered the goods. You have to spend hours on the phone on hold and/or being passed from 1 dept to another.

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Dell don't sell in shops anymore, as the advert says "just call or go online".

Compaq (now HP) are very good but you get a lot less for your money. Similar to choosing an Audi over a Ford, you know what you'll get.

lisalisa, -dell, mesh, evesham all similar and all make to order and you can pick out what you need online, just not pc world or similar as 99% of the staff have no clue about any of it

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I can recommend Dell - especially if you go to Dell Outlet (their "already built or returned" stuff - vast majority when people ordered a PC, then it was built, then they changed their mind before even receiving it) - can get really good bargains.

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georgina where is dell outlet?

lisalisa: normally (at Dell, say) you can choose the exact specification. So you can choose the exact monitor you want, what size harddrive, the type of graphics card you want, how much memory you need, whether you want a CDROM re-writer or a DVD/CD drive or both... etc.

At Dell Outlet, someone else has already chosen the spec for you (and then changed their mind) so Dell sell it off cheap as most people want to customise to exactly what they want. Does that make sense?

is it online though? or in a shop?

Glad to hear I was the only one with a hamper instead of a monitor... They weren't that fussed when I rang to tell them a vital piece of the PC hadn't arrived. They just wanted to make sure I'd received the blinking hamper!

And their aftersales was lamentable. Mind you, this may all have changed - sounds like it has.

Have also had a Packard Bell (went very wrong) and my parents have Dell. ILs have an Evesham - that goes wrong a lot, but their helplines are good.

I have an emachines now - inherited it. It's lovely (so far!).