Thanks for the advice. Regarding what I want to use it for, I guess you could consider me a power user and should have mentioned this at the beginning. My current PC is an 8 year old Evesham that has had varous mods over the years and is overdue for replacement. I guess my original question was just to get a feel for what brands people are buying at the moment.
Jon. 2008/11/17 Paul Stimpson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Hi Jon, > > I'd go with Dell just about any time. I've found them to be well built, > consistent and good value. They also buy good, brand name parts and I've > never had any huge problem with Linux compatibility. > > I currently have a Dimension desktop (still going strong in its 4th year) > and a nearly new Precision M6300 "mobile workstation." (Aka a big butch > laptop that you wouldn't want to carry around all day but a fantastic > performer that is great to carry to work use, carry to the next job and so > on.) > > Before my current Dell. Owned an Acer Travelmate. It was solid and (other > than a dodgy ACPI and DSDT implementation that caused trouble with Ubuntu > Edgy and that some of the BIOS settings could only be changed with their > Windows control panel) it was fine. It was from the 4000 series (the mid > range). One of the guys at work bought a 2000 series (entry level) and it > wasn't half as good for build quality. > > I would strongly advise you against buying a Sony. I just fixed one for > someone. It was poor inside and made from the kind of cheap parts you'd buy > at a computer fair. It also had Sony optical drives which are known to be > particularly vulnerable to copy protection on bought media (no surprise > considering Sony own music and movie studios.) To top this Sony had used an > Asus motherboard that was a special variant and all the Windows utilities > from the Asus website reported "unsupported model" and refused to install. I > would also avoid "store own brand" kit like Advent from PC World. I've not > had good experiences of build quality there. > > I'd go along with Sean that the most important thing is to decide more or > less what you want your new PC to do for the next 3 years before you start > shopping. It's all to easy to end up buying something that doesn't meet your > needs throughout its lifetime or that is over-specced (and probably > overpriced) when surrounded by pages of shiny kit, all of which is better > than what you had. For example, I bought my last laptop with general office > tasks in mind (there weren't any stunning Linux games back then) but a > couple of years later I discovered 3D gaming on Linux and it really > struggled. > > Good advice a friend gave me was to look at the price/performance graph and > get the best performance you can before the price starts rising very fast. > Like 10% costs £50, another 10% costs £70, the next 10% costs £200. I > usually find that one step behind the latest and greatest is a good place to > be. > > Good luck. Let us know how you get on. > Paul. > > Sent from my BlackBerry(R) wireless device > -- > Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk > Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire > LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk > -------------------------------------------------------------- >
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