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Family PC recommendation please
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19-10-2011 1:54pm#1Hi all,
I've an 11 year old boy who's into all things gadget. He mastered my Android phone a couple of years ago (now has my old cast off android phone), loves messing around on the HP Touchpad I bought a few weeks ago for general browsing, watching movies and emailing etc on the move and is mad into Minecraft which he installed on my work laptop and is constantly adding mods to etc.
I don't want my work laptop to be wrecked by him but I do want to encourage his interest in all things IT in a controlled manner so it's time to get a family PC which we can all use but it will probably be more important to and used by the 11 year old than anyone else.
I definitely don't want to get a laptop as the temptation to bring it to his bedroom and play all night or surf onto the type of websites all (soon to be) teenagers will find their way onto will be too much and cause serious grief. I want the PC in our living room where we can control the amount of time he spends on it and the very location of the PC will act as somewhat of a deterent to inappropriate surfing. (Along with NetNAnny or similar
)
Bearing the above in mind what PC would you recommend I get? Like everyone these days I'm looking to get the maximum bang for the minimum € outlay.
These two Dell machines caught my eye but I can't really see much difference between them other than one is 3kg heavier than the other :eek:
This Inspiron 620 http://www.dell.com/ie/p/inspiron-620/pd?oc=d006202&model_id=inspiron-620#TechSpec
or this XPS 8300 http://www.dell.com/ie/p/xps-8300/pd?oc=d00x8301&model_id=xps-8300#TechSpec
A Dell 24" monitor is €192 on top which would bring the total package to around €700.
Are there better/more suitable machines out there???
Ben0
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If you want a new computer you are mostly always better of building the machine yourself, it will work out cheaper mostly and will be more upgradeable/modifyable down the road. Ask the lads here about what you want and they'll spec something up. You can even get the likes of Hardwareversand to build the machine for you if your not comfortable with the idea, but its quite easy to do yourself
. If you want to see what it involves Youtube "Build computer" or something, loads of vid tutorials out there!
As for the monitoring you can get K-9 Internet Security which allows you to specify internet time limits, it will also block 'dodgy' sites and you can add new ones to it's blacklist. I've played around with it before messing and its very hard to bypass, disabling it the usual ways cuts off the internet completely!
Nick0 -
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I can appreciate that but at the same time if this is a computer for a kid then introducing them to something like the concept of building their own PC could be a good thing. I think it would help build an appreciation for the machine and just give them a much better understanding of what's happening.I appreciate and respect that you both want to promote self building of PC's guys but I'm simply not interested. I have never been into any sort of DIY or meccano type activities and I ain't starting now.
You may be afraid of condemning the child to a live of geekdom but it pays off in the long run.
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You're dead right thereYou may be afraid of condemning the child to a live of geekdom
Thanks for the recommendation Massey, given his age and my budget (€600 max inc OS and monitor delivered) I'll just have to go with the Dell Inspiron I guess.
In 3-4 years when he's 14/15 if he's into RPG's we can look at a game centric machine then but for now all I need is something which will play Minecraft. My old 3 year old laptop seems to handle that fine so I'm assuming a new i3 based desktop machine won't have any problems on that score.
Ben0 -
You're dead right there
Thanks for the recommendation Massey, given his age and my budget (€600 max inc OS and monitor delivered) I'll just have to go with the Dell Inspiron I guess.
In 3-4 years when he's 14/15 if he's into RPG's we can look at a game centric machine then but for now all I need is something which will play Minecraft. My old 3 year old laptop seems to handle that fine so I'm assuming a new i3 based desktop machine won't have any problems on that score.
Ben
That Inspiron you linked to would be useless for gaming (Only Onboard Video), it will play Minecraft ok, and Flash games ok, but good luck playing much else new games on it. Thats more of an Office PC spec, fast for using the net/applications etc but not for gaming.
If fact looks like you may even have issues running Minecraft on that machine, source. If you did go for that machine you'd need to buy a dedicated video card, which would be a minimum of €40-€50, thats relying on the fact Dell include a PCIe port on that model lines motherboard (this is likely).
You could get a decent PC specced up by Hardwareversand, for €30 they'll put it together for you, ask over here with your budget and requirements and people will help
Nick0
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