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My daughter's in 7th grade and my wife and I would like to get her a computer of her own next month. Any recommendations are most welcome.
My own thoughts are something similar to my 1 yr old Dell which runs Win XP, 1.8 GH P4 and 1/2 GB ram (I added 256MB of ram myself).
I don't mind building it myself too if that's a better value -- I've got the skill for that pretty sure. One thing though is it would be nice if it had a wireless nic, though I might just end up running a long cable under the house and then outside into my office which is on a slab. That part depends on expense.
Money is a part of our considerations, having a video card that'll take input from my camcorder though would be very nice along with a DVD burner.
Am I expecting too much for under $1,000?
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Certainly not if you can build your own. That way you can easily change/upgrade too, as time goes by.
Check out pricewatch.com, and dealers newegg.com, monarchcomputer.com, and cpmpu-plus.com for starters. I order online all the time, but only from stores that have 800 numbers, indicating that they've been in business for a while.
Get a midsize tower with at least 300W power supply (should cost $75-125 incl. shipping), and the mobo and cpu (approx. $100 ea.) in retail boxes (for the heat sink and factory warranty). Any cpu over 1ghz will be satisfactory; I've been partial to amd athlons and pentiums, and would not advise using a celeron or a duron. Make sure the tower will take at least 2 fans for cooling, besides the fan on the power supply.
Besides that, all you need is a $60 HDD, 512mb memory, graphics card and a few odds and ends like floppy, CD, and DVD drives, keyboard, mouse and monitor. Last one I built (last fall) cost around $750 including 17" monitor and XP Pro.
If you don't mind used you can try some "Off Lease" web sites. I bought a 21" Monitor for myself and a PII 400 for a friend's kid from Dell Canada's off lease page.
My own thoughts are something similar to my 1 yr old Dell which runs Win XP, 1.8 GH P4 and 1/2 GB ram (I added 256MB of ram myself).
I don't mind building it myself too if that's a better value -- I've got the skill for that...
Am I expecting too much for under $1,000....
Sounds like a perfect time to rebuild your computer and use the spares to start building your daughters computer....... just a suggestion.
I'm thinking along the same lines as Dennis L, although I would "pass on" the Dell and build a new one for myself (young ladies should not be in control of powerful machines too early . Only joking, I have three girls).
Main thing is to get a decent motherboard (although watch that you are not paying for extras that you will never need). High powered additions can be saved for and upgraded later, eg. more RAM, better CPU, better video card, better sound card, extra HDDs etc. The prices tend to drop after a while as well, so you can save a lot that way.
I would jump on any opprotunity to build another machine. I tend to want to future proof the MB as much as possible (or practical).
I would hardwire the network whenever possible if you will transfer large amounts of data on the network. Backups and video are examples. I also have wireless for my portable but wouldn't want it on a busy desktop if I had a choice.
. Only joking, I have three girls).
