Where to buy a new computer.

[No_0ne]

Wut?

 

Eyes glazing over.........pondering ceiling colors............

 

:dunno:  :)

 

Don't worry hardknox, I've got a brother who is a software/computer guru/engineer/savant who talks like this.  I think all those guys actually take ancient Sumerian in college and throw that language in just to confuse the rest of us ...

[tnguy]

Personally, I'm not in any rush to get a touchscreen. They're good on tablets but I believe they are not good with a more traditional setup, particularly a desktop. Your experience may be otherwise, of course.

[bowtieguy]

It just seems windows 8 was really set up for it. Who knows, we may tire of it but I'm willing to give it a shot.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

I had got old dad a HP single unit puter about three years ago and it has held together well so far. It is not a touch puter but the same basic thang as the one piece puters you can get at best buy or order from HP. Plenty of other brand name one piece puters as well.

The main problem with either a laptop or one piece puter, is that when the built in monitor dies or gets weak, you got expensive problems fixing it, because if the company has replacement parts to sell you, they are in a position to rape you on price.

But they also sell external touch monitors. I'd suggest as real big monitor. The 1080p monitors are not frighteningly expensive even for big ones. With the same pixels on either a 23" monitor or a 27" (or bigger) monitor, it is real easy on tired eyes to have a big one, with bigger print, menus, buttons, etc.

You can use multiple pointing devices at the same time nowadays. You could have a wireless keyboard with a laptop style touch pad, and also a wireless mouse, and also touch monitor. It isn't really silly because sometimes a pad on the keyboard is better than a mouse, other tasks a mouse is better, other tasks maybe touch monitor is best.

I think if the only options are touching the screen, then some tasks would be very tiring. Imagine word processing if you have to move your hand off the keyboard to reach out and touch the screen all the time. Editing pictures for a few hours sure could hurt the arm, stuck up in the air wiping big motions on the monitor.

But if you have a mouse or pad in addition to the touch, then you would only have to use the touch when it is the easiest way to git er done. Edited February 5, 2014 by Lester Weevils

[tnguy]

Google "gorilla arm".

 

I don't think you need to google "greasy fingerprints" though.

Edited February 5, 2014 by tnguy

[jgradyc]

My wife and I work from home. We switched to laptops two years ago and won't go back. It's so much more convenient to be able to move the laptop from room to room. 

 

Have you actually thought this through? I can't imagine using a touchscreen on a desktop. I use a 21" monitor on my desktop and it's too far away to touch. I'm also a fanatic about having a clean display, so I wouldn't want to worry about finger smudges from my kid, wife, or me. 

 

I'd suggest you consider a decent laptop for $400-$500 on sale.  Technology advances so rapidly that even if you spend three times more, the computer will be out of date in three years.  I'd spend less now and just plan to buy another computer in two-three years.

 

Best Buy and TigerDirect are good. I bought my last big laptop from Lenovo online because I liked the keyboard and they have a good reputation. 

 

I'm typing this on an Acer Chromebook that I paid $129 for refurbished on Groupon. When I need more functionality, I switch to the Lenovo laptop, but it gets very little use these days. 

[bowtieguy]

I didn't mean to imply that the touch would be our only means of input. We would have a mouse to do repetitive tasks but the touchscreen for programs set up for it.

[NoBanStan]

Dell on-line

You don’t sound like you want to build one anyway, but I quit building my own years ago. You can’t build a good one for what you can buy a Dell for.

 

Dell is about to lay off 15,000 workers. They may even ditch the consumer market

[Jonnin]

Well, I dislike best buy.  You can sometimes do OK there, but they come loaded with garbage that can be difficult for a typical user to remove --- lots of "free trials" that expire about the time you have a few documents saved with them, and nagware to buy the real versions, etc.   I am passing decent and it takes me the better part of an hour to cure a new BB machine.    Its not the machine, those are "ok", its the aggravation.

 

I would say try new egg, they still have some solid ready to go machines at a decent price. 

If your son is going to game, he is going to want a half decent graphics card (nvidia something or other) and a midgrade cpu & ram.  You cant go bottom of the barrel for games, they need midgrade or better.   Unless you mean like solitaire .... I am talking 3-d video games here, not browser games or 5 min break stuff.

[viscero]

It has already been touched on but it really depends on what you plan to use it for.  I hate seeing people drop 2k at best buy or apple for a facebook machine.  If my wife's laptop died today I would replace it with chromebook.  Can't speak for Tigerdirect but Newegg is good to go as well as Amazon of course.  Actually, if Amazon sold groceries, prescriptions, and alcohol I'd never shop anywhere else.  Except for guns and ammo of course  :rofl:

[tnguy]

Amazon does sell groceries.

[RC3]

     You could always do what I did. Buy a part here and buy a part there and next thing you know, you have a $2000 pc that is barely ever used. I went from windows 7 to windows 8.1 and its really not that bad. It is geared more towards the touch screen/tablet market, but after about two weeks, its easy and fluid to use. As for CPU's, AMD will give you the most performance for your dollar. The only time its good to buy an intel CPU is if you are going to need to use a TON of single thread applications or if you can find one on a sale. Micro center has some killer deals for the i5's and i7's, but the nearest store is in atlanta and I cannot bring myself to drive that far. 

 

I am currently using a overclocked AMD FX 8350 CPU on a asrock extreme 9 motherboard with 16 gigs of ram, the CPU is cooled by a NZXT kraken X60 liquid CPU cooler. I have my operating system on a samsung 840 solid state drive and using a seagate barracuda 1tb hard drive for my storage. The graphics are handled by a AMD R9 290 and its all powered by a 750w power supply. I bought each and everyone of those parts on a sale. If you are willing to way and build one yourself, you can save quite a bit of money and get way more bang for your buck. 

[Wyldk2]

Not to  re-direct traffic here to my workplace. But as you know i do work for a local electronics store( Electronic Express). Based out of Nashville ( so the money stays local). The only touchscreens I've seen so far in the desktop models is on the "all-in-one" space-saver desk-top models. I have had several people not like windows 8 for some reason and they ask me all the time if we sell any computers that don't run it. ( only going to be a Mac or apple product for that).

 

True, the Windows 8 is geared more for the touchscreens coming out but it is easily accessible even without the fancy touchscreen.

 

Asus, HP, Dell, Gateway, Sony, Acer,etc... are all good computer brands, but it is probably best if you talk to someone unbaised before you decide to buy. I would check consumer reports first, then narrow your choices to the three top models you are interested in and go from there.

 

I know if i were the one selling a computer or anything to you, I would rather you be a happy repeat customer than an unhappy "never-shop-there-again" customer.

 

Now my personal computer was a dell, until i found out it was running too slow and didn't have enough necessary options for some programs iwas running at the time. So I upgraded to an ASUS gaming laptop( which was really out of my budget at the time) But it has all the power and memory i would ever need, so there is no need for any upgrade anytime soon( let's hope so).

[DaveTN]

Dell is about to lay off 15,000 workers. They may even ditch the consumer market

There’s a lot of drama and hate with Michael Dell taking the company private. As predicted those numbers are wildly exaggerated.
http://recode.net/2014/02/04/dell-confirms-layoffs-which-are-much-smaller-than-youve-heard/

[NoBanStan]

[quote name="DaveTN" post="1106873" timestamp="1391688404"]There’s a lot of drama and hate with Michael Dell taking the company private. As predicted those numbers are wildly exaggerated. [url="http://recode.net/2014/02/04/dell-confirms-layoffs-which-are-much-smaller-than-youve-heard/"]http://recode.net/2014/02/04/dell-confirms-layoffs-which-are-much-smaller-than-youve-heard/[/url][/quote] While the amount may be inaccurate this time around, since Michael took back over, it's been wave after wave of layoffs. In fact I was part of one during the earlier days of my career. Next it was manufacturing. The company continues to shrink each year. In fact, my company just purchased two enterprise dell platforms and we're having problems getting support because they are short staffed due to a recent....you guessed it....wave of layoffs.

[DaveTN]

As for CPU's, AMD will give you the most performance for your dollar. The only time its good to buy an intel CPU is if you are going to need to use a TON of single thread applications or if you can find one on a sale.

Of if you just want a better processor that is faster, work with solid modeling or video rendering, and you aren’t making your decision based on advertised speed vs. cost. The Intel vs. AMD is pretty easy to settle if someone has those concerns.

Not that any of that really matters, (except look for "Intel inside") the OP didn’t sound like he wanted to build one.

[viscero]

Amazon does sell groceries.

Dry and canned good yes but I was referring to the real stuff like milk, eggs, produce, meat, etc.  And the last time I checked they are only test marketing that in 3 west coast towns.

[tnguy]

Well, you can get milk if you don't mind going UHT but yeah, fresh stuff... Only a matter of time though I'm sure. A huge proportion of my shopping requirements are fulfilled by Amazon and Ebay these days.