If you are new to my world, I had a computer business for 25 years. When I sold the business 4 years ago I had several computers I was using there were not part of the sale. I have since used those computers with reasonable satisfaction. When the ie debacle occurred, I realized that I was fighting with a computer and OS that was well over four years old. None of my desktops were new when I sold the business so they are at best 4-5 years old. Now being an economical soul (cheap) I have a whole bunch of used parts that I have been cobbling together for repairs over the last 4 years. It occurred to me after 6 frustrating hours trying to recover my spouse’s desktop from the Microsoft imposed premature demise, why am I doing this?
I closed up her box, went into my cpu storage area and dusted off another 4 year old (or more) XP P4, plugged it in and got her back up and running. However since my epiphany (holy smokes these computers are old!), I thought perhaps I should consider buying a new computer.
I jumped on line and did some research. A user who primarily emails, surfs, downloads Sudoku and occasionally pays a bill does not need a power house. I found several computers that had more than adequate resources to do what my spouse wants to do.
They are in no particular rank order:
Buy.com, Acer Aspire Desktop for $199.00 with XP home.
Buy.com, Acer Aspire Netbook for $299.00 with Win7 Starter
Staples, IBM Desktop refurbished for $219.00 with XP Pro
Buy.com, Viewsonic Desktop for $395.00 with Win7 Home Premium
Dell, Desktop for $299.00 with W7 Home Premium a DVD drive & MS Works
Note the first three have VGA out and the last two DVI out, so keep that in mind if you plan on using an existing monitor.
They all have a one year warranty. If you want to trust that Microsoft may have improved things with Win7 then factor that into your decision. Win7 starter sounds like lite beer, no taste, not filling and probably a waste of money. I have not looked at it so keep in mind at this point I am not real happy with my pals at MS so that is definitely coloring my verbiage.
A light user will find anyone of these machines satisfactory and if I wasn’t so frugal (cheap) I would probably have gotten one. However since I have a couple more 4 year old (or more) desktops still in storage I will run through them before I buy something new. You Apple guys are probably wondering why I don’t cross over to the dark side, blow off Mr. Gates and join the happy, cheery, smug Appletinis. Remember I am frugal (cheap) and Apple still hasn’t brought out a machine that is financially acceptable.
If you decide to upgrade your ie7 to ie8 and Microsoft gremlins trash your XP OS, one of the machines above makes more sense than spending 7 hours trying to resurrect an old machine. (Provided you don’t have a stable of old machines waiting in the wings.) BTW nobody paid me a dime to recommend any of these computers.
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