Is this heap of junk worth a punt?

MT

I urgently need to buy a cheap computer that will be compatible with broadband. Thing is, I know sweet FA about 'puter innerds. What do you think of this one going for £132 on ebay + £15p&p (195 + 22 Euros)? Would it surf the web/ be usable in chatrooms, etc. at a reasonable speed? No games/video editing and so on will be run on this.

The Education and Library boards' libraries up here in the North are kitted out with PCs that, superficially atleast, look like this?

In case you're wondering I don't need a monitor.

Sponge Bob

It will have a network card so it will work, €150 is a bit high for it though.

Are there no pc only / no monitor / new celeron jobbies on dell.co.uk for about £250 .

Martyr

the specs look ok, just don't expect to upgrade it easily at some point in future.

Ruu_Old

That would be fine for browsing the internet, it would be the speed of your internet connection to would determine things anyway and not the machine (mostly anyway). If you want something closer, try adverts.ie->For Sale Adverts->Computer Hardware FS. Bound to get a good deal there too.

hefty_langer

Looks perfect for what you want it for; net, email, word processing etc... not a bad price either

MT

Thanks for the prompt responses, guys.

The thing that's making me have second thoughts is that a number of Dell pcs similiar to this have sold on ebay over the past few weeks for about half the price of this one. Now they've averaged a lower processor speed of about 1.7/1.8 Ghz, 256MB ram, only 20GB of hard drive and no keyboard or mouse (compared to 2.4Ghz/512MB/40GB on this one).

What I'm wondering is is twice the price worth it for these extra specs, etc. for all that this PC will be used for? Should I wait until one of those cheaper/lower spec Dells comes along again?

MT

Here is one that just went for £92 (£72bid + £20). Is the additional 0.1Ghz/256MB Ram/20GB in the hard drive plus a mouse and keyboard worth the extra £55 (81 Euros) that I'd pay for the one at the start of this thread?

Ps. is it possible to stick a DVD drive in these Dell PCs?

Sponge Bob

optiplexes and gx series are better than a dimension seeries with the same chip in them , about £100-120 is fair enough UK delivered and with 256mb ram minimum , hard drive does not really matter and they will take a dvd yes.

MT

What is the minimum processor speed that you would recommend to the casual broadband user. I mean, is there much of a difference in performance between 1.8 Ghz and 2.4 Ghz all other things being equal?

Sponge Bob

a different socket and bigger cache size so quite a large difference , the new socket came with a big cache. To make matters worse there are 2.4ghz models of both sockets but 2.2ghz and lower is old while 2.6ghz is newer.