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buying a new pc

wasapi

Penultimate Amazing
wasapi
Joined
May 27, 2008
Messages
16,376
I need a new pc. I have had a Dell for awhile and it is dying. I am looking at new HP's. Being technologically challenged, I don't know or care about gigabytes or things like that. Easy to use.

Any advice? Thanks.
 
wasapi said:
I need a new pc. I have had a Dell for awhile and it is dying. I am looking at new HP's. Being technologically challenged, I don't know or care about gigabytes or things like that. Easy to use.

Any advice? Thanks.
Click to expand...

Oh, the salesperson is gonna love you...

Anything with the operating system you had before should be easy enough to use. I've had Dell, HP, Asus, and Toshiba over the years and can't really recommend any one over the other. Space and speed would be the main price points. Figure out what you want to use it mostly for and a salesperson (or a web search comparison) should be able to help you out.
 
How much do you want to spend?
What operating system do you use now?
What peripherals do you already have to use with it?
What software do you use?
How's your internet access?
 
Start with what you use it for, that will determine the specs you will need. Just like buying a vehicle: if you need it to haul heavy stuff around you'll want a different vehicle than someone who wants it to go fast and look fancy, or be easy to park, or go offroad.
 
I don't think brand really matters that much these days, I suppose you can find some crazy cheap piece of crap but if you've heard of it, it's probably good enough.

Then, what price are you willing to pay
What do you want to do with it.

If you want to game or IDK run some high end video editing software or something, well be prepared to spend a lot.

If it's surfing the internet, maybe some word docs, get the cheapest thing you can find. If you are used to windows, stick with windows.

More or less what tragic said.
 
Go here:

https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/des...top/spd/xps-8960-desktop/usexpsthcto8960rpl05

Click "Add to cart."

Wait for the page to reload.

Click on "Cart" (upper right corner)

From the Cart drop-down, click on "Cart (1 item)".

Wait for the page to reload.

Click on "Checkout".

Wait for the page to reload.

Click on "Continue as guest" (bottom left side).

Fill out the shipping information.

Click on "Continue".

Fill out the payment information.

Click on "Continue".

Follow through to review and submit, and conclude the purchase.
 
alfaniner said:
Oh, the salesperson is gonna love you...

Anything with the operating system you had before should be easy enough to use. I've had Dell, HP, Asus, and Toshiba over the years and can't really recommend any one over the other. Space and speed would be the main price points. Figure out what you want to use it mostly for and a salesperson (or a web search comparison) should be able to help you out.
Click to expand...


When my wife and I went to Harvey Normans to buy a new laptop we worked out what she was happy with so I left her to sign the sales contract and tell the salesman we didn't want extended warranty or anything else.


Big mistake. I get back after 15 minutes and they are still there. I ask what is happening and the salesman is not going to let her go without an extended warranty and a multiyear subscription to Microsoft Office 365. I told him we were done. And went up to the cash registers to get a full refund. I loudly told anyone at the counter who wanted to hear that the salesman was a disgrace.


We then went to another business which is owned by the same company. The salesman there was low key, helpful and polite. He apologised for asking about the extended warranty. I told him that's OK, they have to, it's part of their job. He said that's ok and we didn't mention it again. The sale was done quickly, painlessly and without stress.
 
Yep, buy it online.

If you don't have specific demands you could look for machines with a nice case and small form factor - something that looks nice when using it.

There are many reddit threads where people with a lot of knowledge will let you know if a particular pc is a good deal and what to look for when buying something new.
 
Check out newegg.com, its easy to compare similar products and they kind of specialize in electronics. Usually more expensive than a lot of sites but they also have a lot of refurbished items if you aren't to picky.
 
ahhell said:
Check out newegg.com, its easy to compare similar products and they kind of specialize in electronics. Usually more expensive than a lot of sites but they also have a lot of refurbished items if you aren't to picky.
Click to expand...

The previous laptop I got was a refurbished one and I wouldn't do that again, for any item. That term to me means it didn't work right in the first place. And that laptop had the shortest life of all the ones I've had.
 
theprestige said:
Seriously, just buy another Dell. You don't even have to compare anything. Just get the cheapest XPS desktop.
Click to expand...

Exactly. Best advice you're going to get. Some of the questions you were being asked were weird, like what OS you use and stuff like that. I would just check what model number your current machine is and look for the newer version of that. Done and done.

alfaniner said:
The previous laptop I got was a refurbished one and I wouldn't do that again, for any item. That term to me means it didn't work right in the first place. And that laptop had the shortest life of all the ones I've had.
Click to expand...

Wow do we ever differ there. I buy almost exclusively refurbished stuff unless I have a reason to require new. All of my cell phones, laptops (even my work laptop I refurbed myself), and so on.

To me the term means "the manufacturer used a **** part, it died, we put in a better part, and it works". YMMV
 
a_unique_person said:
When my wife and I went to Harvey Normans to buy a new laptop we worked out what she was happy with so I left her to sign the sales contract and tell the salesman we didn't want extended warranty or anything else.


Big mistake. I get back after 15 minutes and they are still there. I ask what is happening and the salesman is not going to let her go without an extended warranty and a multiyear subscription to Microsoft Office 365. I told him we were done. And went up to the cash registers to get a full refund. I loudly told anyone at the counter who wanted to hear that the salesman was a disgrace.


We then went to another business which is owned by the same company. The salesman there was low key, helpful and polite. He apologised for asking about the extended warranty. I told him that's OK, they have to, it's part of their job. He said that's ok and we didn't mention it again. The sale was done quickly, painlessly and without stress.
Click to expand...
As you realised this was a very bad idea.
 
2 of my best value PCs were a used Lenovo from Amazon refurb (a hole maybe 1 mm on the keyboard that I plugged with superglue) and still working 10 years later and a refurb from a UK company Gadget Centre that I'm using now based on an HP Elitebook.
 
plague311 said:
Wow do we ever differ there. I buy almost exclusively refurbished stuff unless I have a reason to require new. All of my cell phones, laptops (even my work laptop I refurbed myself), and so on.

To me the term means "the manufacturer used a **** part, it died, we put in a better part, and it works". YMMV
Click to expand...

My current desktop and phone are refurbished, and I love both of them.

Sometimes when you immediately get burned by something, there's no going back. Like buying a Ford and having it break down in six months.
 
Wudang said:
Good advice. My wife buys Dell xps 15s every 3 years while I find HP better value.
Click to expand...

I go back and forth. One time I'll buy a Dell or something. Then in seven or eight years when it's end of life I'll build my own. Then another seven or eight years I'll get another Dell.

Right now we're in a nice place where even a basic Dell "office computer" has all the CPU, GPU, and memory you need to double just about anything that isn't hardcore technical.
 
theprestige said:
I go back and forth. One time I'll buy a Dell or something. Then in seven or eight years when it's end of life I'll build my own. Then another seven or eight years I'll get another Dell.

Right now we're in a nice place where even a basic Dell "office computer" has all the CPU, GPU, and memory you need to double just about anything that isn't hardcore technical.
Click to expand...

But you miss out on all the fun of applying thermal paste! I ended up crying, but I'm sure next time will go better. Right? Because people get less clumsy as they age?
 
I agree with the others. If you're not the kind of person who cares about specs, then set a budget and find the most expensive option inside that budget. You still want the best that you can afford.
 
Caution: these are my thoughts, but may be poor advice.

What do you use your computer for?
  • Email and web surfing only?
  • Word processing and spreadsheets?
  • Watching video, either streaming or on DVD?
  • Databases?
  • Simple image manipulation or high end photo editing?
  • Games?
As you go further down the list, you need a better computer, especially if you're like me and like to have a whole wack of applications open at once. (I have nearly 40 "windows" open on my computer right now. Many of them belong to a single application; for example 5 of them are Firefox.)

You might want to look into getting a used Mac if your needs are few and simple.

I bought a little computer for $20 from a recycler, put a small hard disk into it, and installed Linux Debian, which is powerful but requires a seasoned Linux user. For what I want it to do, it's a wonderful system. However, it's not my primary computer.

If you want a computer that Just Works, I'm afraid you'll have to pay the Microsoft Tax and put up with all the user-hostile crap that Windows 11 shoves at you these days. I run Linux because I want it to be my computer, not Microsoft/Google's spyware system.
 
Blue Mountain said:
If you want a computer that Just Works, I'm afraid you'll have to pay the Microsoft Tax and put up with all the user-hostile crap that Windows 11 shoves at you these days. I run Linux because I want it to be my computer, not Microsoft/Google's spyware system.
Click to expand...
Actually, sorry to disagree with you Blue, but if you want a computer that Just Works, pay the Apple Tax. Apple products are as generically plug and play as you can get.
 
I suggest Windows 12. That is a great operating system. Just came back from 2026 and that is what I was using while I was there and I loved it.
 
My employers sell on their kit to a big reseller firm and I then buy from them. The last dozen or so machines I've bought for friends and family have been business-spec laptops that were three years old and in perfect condition. For ordinary domestic use, perfect for several years to come.
 
I used to buy my laptops online but after my last purchase in 2020 – just as the pandemic was in full force – I got caught by shipping delays and could not return a computer with a defective HDMI port. It was slow reaching me, and by the time it reached the vendor, the 30-day warranty period would have passed.


I've decided that I'll pay the extra money to buy the next one from a local business, just for the ability to return it quickly.


(But I am not in the market yet.)
 
Last edited:
You might consider an abacus. Like a really big one, large enough to become a universal Turing machine. You'll need to hire a team to program it and move the beads around, but you never said you didn't want to hire a team to program and move abacus beads around. So it's your own fault, obviously.
 
Blue Mountain said:
If you want a computer that Just Works, I'm afraid you'll have to pay the Microsoft Tax and put up with all the user-hostile crap that Windows 11 shoves at you these days.
Click to expand...

I haven't encountered Windows 11 yet but my experience with past Windows versions is that a large amount of the clunky bloatware is the extra stuff installed by the computer manufacturers when you buy a computer pre-built. If you buy the parts and assemble it yourself and buy your own copy of Windows and install it you can avoid that extra junk.
 
Ryan O'Dine said:
You might consider an abacus. Like a really big one, large enough to become a universal Turing machine. You'll need to hire a team to program it and move the beads around, but you never said you didn't want to hire a team to program and move abacus beads around. So it's your own fault, obviously.
Click to expand...

Yeah Dooms been ported to run on it but the frame rate is not great.
 
I went through this briefly when I was fired a couple of months ago. As I packed my laptop to return to the company it felt really weird to know that I didn’t have a computer at all. But, I’ve really moved to using my phone for all personal stuff since my last non-company laptop died, so maybe I don’t need a computer.

Related: we bought this house and designated a room as the office. It is now the bar. I like it much better that way. The printer and files are in a hall closet with the battery chargers and such. I suppose that makes the closet the office now.
 
theprestige said:
I go back and forth. One time I'll buy a Dell or something. Then in seven or eight years when it's end of life I'll build my own. Then another seven or eight years I'll get another Dell.

Right now we're in a nice place where even a basic Dell "office computer" has all the CPU, GPU, and memory you need to double just about anything that isn't hardcore technical.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's why I'll never build my own again, I go seven or eight years then try, eventually I get it to work and it is better for cheaper but....in that 8 years, I've forgotten how to do all the things to get it to work right the first time. Probably won't happen again but between the first and second, everything changed. I mean we went from dedicated sound cards to dedicated graphic cards and all the connectors had changed.
 
xterra said:
I used to buy my laptops online but after my last purchase in 2020 – just as the pandemic was in full force – I got caught by shipping delays and could not return a computer with a defective HDMI port. It was slow reaching me, and by the time it reached the vendor, the 30-day warranty period would have passed.


I've decided that I'll pay the extra money to buy the next one from a local business, just for the ability to return it quickly.


(But I am not in the market yet.)
Click to expand...

yeah, that might explain things. I wouldn't worry to much about shipping delays and such anymore. I do tend to try and get stuff from the US, Canada, or Mexico though. Stuff from china can take a while.
 
ahhell said:
Yeah, that's why I'll never build my own again, I go seven or eight years then try, eventually I get it to work and it is better for cheaper but....in that 8 years, I've forgotten how to do all the things to get it to work right the first time. Probably won't happen again but between the first and second, everything changed. I mean we went from dedicated sound cards to dedicated graphic cards and all the connectors had changed.
Click to expand...

But it really has gotten easier. These days there are sites that will tell you which components are compatible with which, and there's lots of videos on how to hook everything up. And if you're lucky enough to live near a decent computer store you may be able to get everything in person rather than risk shipping.
 
jt512 said:
That's the only reason that Microsoft is still in business!
Click to expand...

That, and Windows is a solid operating system, can run on a wide range of cheap hardware, has a low barrier to entry for unskilled users, and has a vast catalog of standard and niche applications.

Conversations about computers don't have to turn into religious debates, and the jokes are well past stale anyway.
 
ahhell said:
Yeah, that's why I'll never build my own again, I go seven or eight years then try, eventually I get it to work and it is better for cheaper but....in that 8 years, I've forgotten how to do all the things to get it to work right the first time. Probably won't happen again but between the first and second, everything changed. I mean we went from dedicated sound cards to dedicated graphic cards and all the connectors had changed.
Click to expand...

In my experience it's gotten much simpler over the years. More integrated components that Just Work, such as sound cards. More pre-assembled subsystems. Twenty years ago, I had to carefully apply the thermal backing myself, between the CPU and the heat sink, and attach the cooling fan myself. Ten years ago, the CPU, heat sink, and fan came as a single subassembly. Just snap it into the motherboard. SSDs are way easier than HDDs. Airflow is better thought out. Etc.
 
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