buy or build?

[viking33]

We are now in the Olympia WA area. about 60 miles south of Renton.

Did this uncle work for Boeing?

He may well have, Dave. I thought everyone out there worked for Boeing?
I just don't recall.

[viking33]

If Dave has recently moved, then he move from Renton to somewhere else.

Dave just hasn't changed his location to Olympia WA. here on the Lounge.

[Jay Freedman]

Ken, just last week I "rescued" a Dell laptop that I bought 12 years ago -- Celeron processor (without PAE support), maxed out at 1 GB of RAM -- by installing Linux Mint 18 (Sarah). It runs like new. I think I'm going to rename it "Lazarus".

Like others in this thread, though, I custom-built my last two desktop machines. The one I'm using now cost about USD $900 for parts, not including the video card that I already had. Unlike Rudi, I definitely am a tinkerer!

[DaveA]

If Dave has recently moved, then he move from Renton to somewhere else.

Dave just hasn't changed his location to Olympia WA. here on the Lounge.

Thanks for the heads up, I have now updated my profile.
Thanks.

[steveh]

Hi Ken

a bit late to the party but if you are still looking at second-hand or refurbished I can recommend IJTDirect they have a good selection and have helped me out even for the office when I needed something cheap for a project. Some of the Dell OptiPlex machines sell at £90

[John Gray]

Steve: I think you will find that IJT Direct and Morgan Computers are both trading names of Bentham Ltd. The former two seem to have the same second-hand (usually) PCs, laptops, monitors, etc, whereas IJT Direct specialises in ink and toner cartridges.

(We buy second-hand laptops and wide-screens from Morgan Computers!)

[steveh]

Steve: I think you will find that IJT Direct and Morgan Computers are both trading names of Bentham Ltd. The former two seem to have the same second-hand (usually) PCs, laptops, monitors, etc, whereas IJT Direct specialises in ink and toner cartridges.

(We buy second-hand laptops and wide-screens from Morgan Computers!)

Hi John

Thanks for the heads up, the sites are almost identical except for the colour, Morgan, the prices look similar but Morgan has the without CPVAT offers

Cheers

[StuartR]

Reopening this thread for a friend...

Looking for a UK site that will let me order a relatively low cost PC, but I want to be able to specify components. Any suggestions?

[jonwallace]

Looking for a UK site that will let me order a relatively low cost PC, but I want to be able to specify components. Any suggestions?

I've used http://scan.co.uk" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; in the past and I keep getting emails from Mesh.

[John Gray]

Depending on your friend's definition of "low cost", have a look at PC Specialist.

But, not surprisingly, computer firms don't want to have to build one-off PCs unless they're fairly high end / high profit.

PS Mesh is a reincarnation of a fairly rubbish firm which went bust. I haven't heard anything to recommend the new version...

[StuartR]

Thanks folks. I am seeing similar prices for custom builds at PCSpecialist, YoYoTech, Chillblast, and Scan - but they all come to rather more than my friend wants to spend. I just want a PC with 8GB of memory, a 250GB SSD, a 3 or 4 TB hard drive, and a DVD. No monitor, keyboard or mouse and no fancy sound or graphics. I can't find a price below about £700.

[Rudi]

Stuart, have you gone through the process of building up a PC with the selection of specs?
When I ran through this page ...

Image 014.jpg

and selected all the standard options as supplied, it came out to £379.00.

Image 015.jpg

[stuck]

...I can't find a price below about £700.

Does it have to be brand new? The MicroDream site John suggested for refurbished PCs allows you to customise things. I couldn't see a 3 or 4TB HDD option but it would be easy to buy one elsewhere and fit it. For example, a core i7 (2nd gen) + 8GB RAM with a 256GB SSD can be had for about £400 inc VAT. New 3TB HDDs seem to be about £100.

Ken

[StuartR]

Thanks all.

Yes Rudi, I can see that if I am careful with component selection then I can get something usable from pcspeciailist for about £550, but not the low price in your screen shot.

I tried searching that site Ken, but it's hard to find PCs with SSD boot disks. How did you find it?

[stuck]

1) From the MicroDream home page, click on 'Refurbished Desktop PCs', it's at the top.
2) Pick a PC, the first one will do in the first instance
3) Now customize the base model using the fields, one of which is Hard Drive Upgrade and one of the options in that drop down will be a 256GB SSD
NB the headline price won't change until you 'Add top Cart' but of course there's no need to complete the purchase.

Having seen how it works, go back to the list of refurbished PCs and pick something nearer to what you want using the filters on the left.

Happy shopping,

Ken