Those are really undemanding tasks.
So don't get lured into buying a "hot fast" machine, a Celeron or a AMD with 512MB RAM will do everything you need. And today's "hot fast" machine will be old bargain-bin stuff in a year, so there's no point in buying more PC than you need.
Do make sure you get Office bundled, if you don't already have a copy (since you mentioned Excel). I guess that's fairly obvious, sorry.
Before you choose a printer, go to the library and find a Consumer Reports test of inkjet printers. Check out the $/page cost. Lexmark printers have appealingly low upfront costs but surprisingly high $/page ink costs. DELL-branded printers are (currently) made by Lexmark.
Oh, I see you mentioned digital video too but you say that's only 5%. That's a demanding task, but are you serious about it? If yes you'll want a P4 with lots of RAM, lots of hard disk, and good graphics and sound cards - it's getting to be more of a high-end machine.
I'm a big Mac fan too, although you won't be able to get into one for $500. I used to be a 100% PC bigot - built all my own PCs on dual-processor server boards using all the RAM and the fastest SCSI drives I could afford etc. Then I got sick of constantly fixing and patching Windows, downloading new virus definitions, running Norton Utilities, rebooting, etc. So I started using my wife's Mac more and more. The last time my PC crashed I didn't bother fixing it, and now we're shopping for a second Mac. The things are just so damn easy to use.
As for Mac software, with a $129 student edition of Office X (they'll sell it to anyone) and the built-in Apple digital photo / music / video apps, webbrowser, and email client, you're all set. The only major consumer usage where Macs are disadvantaged, software-wise, is PC gaming.
Finally, remember to back up your data since PCs do crash and take your irreplaceable photos with them. I use an external hard drive (Maxtor makes some nice "One-Touch" products) but I guess you could just use a stack of 5 cent recordable CDs or DVDs.
Quote:
Originally posted by makaio
Yes! Since I'm not a real big computer user I think I'll stick with a Windows based machine. I should have included what I'm going to use it for so here goes:
70% Surfing the Pelican BBS
5% purchasing from Pelican
10% Digital pictures
5% E-mail
5% Misc. surfing
5% Other Misc. Digital videos, Excel, etc...
I'm pretty sure I'm going with Dell. For about $500 I can get the machine I want with printer, scanner, copier, & monitor.
It sounds like the celleron will be fine for what I need.
Thanks guys .
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