Recommend a PC For Me

[belle67]

DH and I desperately need a new pc. We just need a hard drive as we recently bought a new keyboard and a flat panel monitor.
I was looking at dell.ca (and I would get cashback!) and the specs and prices look good. What is your experience with them?
Are there any other brands we should be looking at?

[Judstir]

I just spend over an hour and a half on the phone with them to get them to send a box so that I could send my granddaughter's computer back to be fixed on Warranty. I was transferred five different times to five different departments. They are in India and the accent thing was a real problem. They ended every conversation with me with Thanks for choosing Dell. At the end of the fifth call I told them that I don't think I would ever choose Dell again. We are now awaiting a box so that we can send the laptop computer back to the manufacturer repair shop in Canada (somewhere???). They will not let any local repair shops work on their computers unless they are a Dell Representative. Just my experience to date.

[karalin9]

My DH has a brand new supped up Dell, and he loves it. I'm a MAC girl myself.

Dell still has a bad rep, but if you buy one of their computers that aren't the very cheapest, you shouldn't have a problem. Good luck!

[MissGodiva2u]

My experience with Dell back in October was that one morning I turned on the computer only to find that it had a striped background , so I thought to myself : OMG the poor dear is still in it's jammies and turned off , waited 5 minutes and when it came back on , now I had a blue screen with a message for a tech. So I looked in the phone book for a Dell's repair shop and there wasn't any so I called them up, told the person what the computer message said with the error code and this guy replied that my computer was fried and that they didn't have any repair shops !!!!!!!
So I called an independant tech who had to change the hardrive.
Not sure if I would buy from them again just because they don't have a repair shop as you never know if you'll get a lemon.

[rachel1496]

My experience with Dell back in October was that one morning I turned on the computer only to find that it had a striped background , so I thought to myself : OMG the poor dear is still in it's jammies and turned off , waited 5 minutes and when it came back on , now I had a blue screen with a message for a tech. So I looked in the phone book for a Dell's repair shop and there wasn't any so I called them up, told the person what the computer message said with the error code and this guy replied that my computer was fried and that they didn't have any repair shops !!!!!!!
So I called an independant tech who had to change the hardrive.
Not sure if I would buy from them again just because they don't have a repair shop as you never know if you'll get a lemon.

If you're still under warranty you should be able to send it to them for repairs. Dells have an awesome warranty, they're one of the only ones I know of who will cover accidental damage. When I broke my laptop screen(my fault, I dropped it on the floor) they sent me a shipping box to send it back to them. Not only did they fix my broken screen, they repaired a hinge that was going to go soon and cleaned out my keyboard for me.

[belle67]

Ok, so it sounds like Dell may not be the way to go.
Maybe building one from a shop might be better?

[rachel1496]

Ok, so it sounds like Dell may not be the way to go.
Maybe building one from a shop might be better?

What do you need it for? If it's just going to be a basic home PC you can get a Dell from Future Shop and Best Buy and if it breaks you just have it bring it in to the store and they'll send it out for you. If you need it to do something special (gaming etc) you'd be better off building one on the website so you can get the exact specs you need.

[belle67]

What do you need it for? If it's just going to be a basic home PC you can get a Dell from Future Shop and Best Buy and if it breaks you just have it bring it in to the store and they'll send it out for you. If you need it to do something special (gaming etc) you'd be better off building one on the website so you can get the exact specs you need.

Forgot about being able to take it back to Best Buy if there is a problem... I hate dealing with stuff like that.
It is not a gaming pc that we are looking for.

[April07]

I really like my COMPAQ..... had real issues with DELL and will never buy one again. We bought one last year and it lasted about 5 days.. it kept crashing ( blue screen of death ) took it back and bought this Compaq and have not had a problem since. It ia also a better puter with a better video card and a few extras for the same price.

[belle67]

Thanks April!

[kikikollects]

I am in the same boat-totally overwhelmed with buying a new PC. Was looking at an e-machine whatever that is..... and my nephew said go Dell now reading this unsure. Don't want to spend oodles just want to speed things up and have more memory my son likes to play runescape and we have some computer disc games that we cann't use on our current piece of crap. Sometimes on this I cann't give rep, or post pics on facebook Drives me CRRRAAAAZZZZEEEE!

[belle67]

Cross posted:

DH and I desperately need a new pc. We just need a hard drive as we recently bought a new keyboard and a flat panel monitor.
I was looking at dell.ca (and I would get cashback!) and the specs and prices look good. What is your experience with them?
Are there any other brands we should be looking at? Or should we go and try to build our own?
We are not gamers but do use video and music a lot.

[karalin9]

Honestly, if it's a basic pc for email/internet etc. you could try a MAC. I was really freaked out by them when I bought mine, but once you get over the fear, play around with it a little, and figure it out, it's wonderful!

Almost all viruses and spyware are build to attack PC's, I've never had a single issue with my mac, and you don't even need a firewall or spyware protection. My computer reboots in under 30 seconds, and is pretty much idiot-proof.

[Scooter]

Check out the recommendations in this thread:

http://forum.smartcanucks.ca/55562-g...er-buy-canada/

[Scooter]

Honestly, if it's a basic pc for email/internet etc. you could try a MAC. I was really freaked out by them when I bought mine, but once you get over the fear, play around with it a little, and figure it out, it's wonderful!

Almost all viruses and spyware are build to attack PC's, I've never had a single issue with my mac, and you don't even need a firewall or spyware protection. My computer reboots in under 30 seconds, and is pretty much idiot-proof.

I work as a tech with Macs, and you do still need a firewall. Everyone does. There is one built in to OS X 10.5 (Leopard). You can find it in System Preferences under the Security section. Try turning it on, selecting to block unnecessary connections first, then test that all your filesharing and internet/network function as they should. The idea here is to block your computer from view on your network and to shut out unsolicited data for security.

And Macs can still get trojans. Having an antivirus program installed is a wise thing. It may never find anything, but better safe than sorry.