Gotta get a new desktop... need advice

We may earn a small commission from affiliate links and paid advertisements. Terms

FLounder

power hungry
VIP
My desktop computer is ancient and pretty much never works anymore. Its an old HP (like 10 years old) and I am in the market for a replacement. The problem is, I know jack shit about computers. I know some of you guys work in computer tech stuff so I figured I might be able to get some sound advice.

What I need is a PC that I can use for internet browsing and some storage of pictures, videos, music, etc. From what I can tell even the cheapest entry level computers are light years beyond what I have now so Im thinking that's all I need. I already have a nice monitor, keyboard, and sound system so I just need the tower. Any brands to stay away from? Where to buy from? Any way to get a new device without a bunch of bullshit antivirus stuff loaded on it? (my wifes laptop is pretty new and it has annoying antivirus stuff on it that I cant seem to get rid of) Im not real excited about learning windows 8 either, but doesn't look like I have much choice...

thanks in advance for any advice!
 
just get a chromebook. c720 acer with the 4gb ram. store everything on google drive. upload music to google play. its safe, backed up, and can't be lost in a hard rive crash.
plus it comes with 100gb for a year promo. after that its like $7 a month or something for the storage and ANYWHERE capability of all your music and photos. have a droid phone and it all syncs up too, all your music when you want it wherever. plus all access to play music (like Pandora pro only you can download too)

250 bucks.


I use my chrome book for 99% of my computer work these days. I turn on my pc only when I need photoshop or to use my scanner, and that's only because I never even tried to hook it up o the chrome book (its old and not network based). There's apps for basic photo editing (cropping, lighting), drive apps for word docs/etc, but if 99% of your use is screwing around on webpages, the cromebook is where its at.
 
Thats an interesting idea brian, but i kinda like the tradtional keyboard and mouse, i just feel like its easier. Ill keep that chromebook in mind, its cheap, and seems fairly easy to adapt to. i have an assload of music and pics on my current desktop, stuff accumulated over the last 10 years that ive had it, i have an external hard drive as well to back up stuff with. Uploading/transferring will be fun.
 
If you don't end up getting something from Chris, my only advice would be get something with a Core i5 or Core i7, and at a minimum 4GB of RAM. I know Dell has stuff for under 500 bucks in that price range. I haven't bought a consumer PC in over 10 years so....that's about all I can say.
 
I dont know if this will work for you but my 8 year old desktop was acting up so I installed ubuntu on it and use it for a back up computer. It was easy to install but takes some getting use to. I was going to install a program to make it like chrome but never got to it.
 
Thats an interesting idea brian, but i kinda like the tradtional keyboard and mouse, i just feel like its easier. Ill keep that chromebook in mind, its cheap, and seems fairly easy to adapt to. i have an assload of music and pics on my current desktop, stuff accumulated over the last 10 years that ive had it, i have an external hard drive as well to back up stuff with. Uploading/transferring will be fun.
It has usb ports. You can plug in a standard usb mouse, usb keyboard, and even plug in an hdmi-based (or hdmi-to-dvi convertor) external monitor.
It also has SD card slots, so if you want to instead put music by genre/etc on 32gb sd cards, that could work too. plus if your music is on external drives already, there's usb ports to plug them in to.

the battery lasts, seriously, 9 hours while using it. there's next to no fan noise. it doesn't get hot. the two finger mouse works is a little funky at first but now I wish my windows work machine had it too.
 
yeah licensed with windows 7 plug in your shit and go online.
 
Back
Top