Gonna Buy a Computer....

[thatkidPB]

First post here, just recently got into computers and programming(been learning to code lol) and I really wanted to build a computer after seeing all the things you could do to it and just the experience of doing so. However... I still live with my parents and both of em said no. My dad was looking at this one from costco cause of its warranty(dad's crazy bout warranties lol) I still have a lot to research about new computers, but wanted some of your takes on this one,http://www.costco.com/HP-Pavilion-h...3770-Quad-core,-3.4GHz.product.100036542.html thanks. By the way the budget is $800 for a computer, and I would be the main/pretty much only user. I want speed for some gaming if i decide to play, i use excel a bit, watching movies, have a lot of music and will eventually try get to other programming stuff.

Edit: Oh yea, i would be upgrading from a Sony Vaio that came out in like 02-03, it has an intel pentium 4 processor lol, and it got a 1051 score on the Geekbench Benchmark

 

[Dangman]

As long as you don't plan on playing heavy 3D games and don't mind HP quality, that HP will be fine. If possible though, I'd look at a Dell with similar specs and price.

To get that PC to gaming standards, you'd have to upgrade the PSU and add a video card. That's another $250 to $300 minimum

 

[thatkidPB]

As long as you don't plan on playing the games and don't mind HP quality, that HP will be fine.

To get that PC to gaming standards, you'd have to upgrade the PSU and add a video card. That's another $250 to $300 minimum

Oh ok, I might game, but nothing serious because I have a ps3. What do you mean by "HP quality?" guess this is part of being a noob. Thanks for the help

 

[Dangman]

Personally, I don't trust the quality of HP PCs. They're definitely higher quality than many other manufacturers (Toshiba, Sony, CyberPowerPC, iBuypower, etc) but I'd recommend a Lenovo or a Dell over a HP any day.

If you are doing 3D gaming, from a bang for the buck value, you're better off building the gaming PC rather than buying a prebuilt PC. But if you're just playing 2D games or 3D games from 2006 and older, that HP will be fine.

 

[darkangelamd]

If you have to buy from costco, and at the 800 dollar pricepoint, I didn't see anything on their site that I would consider better.

 

[thatkidPB]

Personally, I don't trust the quality of HP PCs. They're definitely higher quality than many other manufacturers (Toshiba, Sony, CyberPowerPC, iBuypower, etc) but I'd recommend a Lenovo or a Dell over a HP any day.

If you are doing 3D gaming, from a bang for the buck value, you're better off building the gaming PC rather than buying a prebuilt PC. But if you're just playing 2D games or 3D games from 2006 and older, that HP will be fine.

Alright thanks for the advice, i'll take a look at some other places because like darkangel v said, costco doesn't have a better pc at $800 imo. There is a dell (http://www.costco.com/Dell-Inspiron...Core™-i5-3330-3.0-GHz-.product.100019523.html, but it has a worse processor, smaller monitor, same PSU wattage, OS, memory. But the pros for that one are bigger harddrive, HDMI slot, and more USB slots. Gonna look through the reviews tho, theres a ton(not sure if I should trust em tho). Thanks again

If you have to buy from costco, and at the 800 dollar pricepoint, I didn't see anything on their site that I would consider better.

Same, but i'll take a look elsewhere to see what else there is, thanks for the input.

 

[OrangeWolf]

Pity you can't build one, but perhaps next time. I assume you need all the peripherals as well for that price? Monitor/Mouse/Keyboard? Or do you already have some of that?

Dell Alienware X51 & Dell XPS 8500 can be configured in your price range with discrete graphics (though not the best ones), but including a monitor might bump you a bit over that.

The Dell 660 gives you room to buy a monitor but no discrete GPU.

...and I haven't personally purchased (or helped purchase) a desktop from anyone but Dell, so not sure what else to say. Cheers!

 

[thatkidPB]

Pity you can't build one, but perhaps next time. I assume you need all the peripherals as well for that price? Monitor/Mouse/Keyboard? Or do you already have some of that?

Dell Alienware X51 & Dell XPS 8500 can be configured in your price range with discrete graphics (though not the best ones), but including a monitor might bump you a bit over that.

The Dell 660 gives you room to buy a monitor but no discrete GPU.

...and I haven't personally purchased (or helped purchase) a desktop from anyone but Dell, so not sure what else to say. Cheers!

Definitely next time, prob when I go to college. And yea, I'll need a new monitor, the mouse and keyboard aren't neccesary(already have a wireless set.) Thanks for your help, I'll take a look at those dells tommorow. Looks like the general consensus is that dells are the way to go when buying premade computers.

 

[thatkidPB]

Alright so I've been thinking, and realized that getting a laptop would probably benefit me the most(for school and the fact that I won't really be gaming.)

Uses:
Microsoft office/school work
Watching movies
Managing all my music and photos
Learning to code
A lot of web browsing

Screen size wise, I'm going to a store and see how the different sizes feel.

I've found these so far($600 budget):
http://m.costco.com/Lenovo-IdeaPad-...-Core-i5-3337U-1.8-GHz.product.100029246.html

http://m.costco.com/Dell-Inspiron-13z-Laptop-Intel®-Core™-i5-3317U-1.7GHz.product.100026426.html

http://m.costco.com/Lenovo-IdeaPad-...l-Core-i5-3230M-2.6GHz.product.100027414.html

Edit: updated links

Yes I'm a noob when it come to computers... I have yet to learn the difference between ram sizes and the"Ghz" which I'm guessing is gigahertz? If you guys know any places with good warranties please post those links. Thanks

 

[Dangman]

The last three links/laptops are exactly the same. And yes Ghz means Gigahertz

 

[OrangeWolf]

Computer for school and not much gaming? <$800?

Thinkpad T430

Strongly suggest giving that one a go. The current "deal" isn't that awesome compared to what they sometimes have though, so you might keep an eye out for more coupons (or wait for Haswell even, if you aren't starting school until the Fall).

 

[darkangelamd]

Computer for school and not much gaming? <$800?

Thinkpad T430

Strongly suggest giving that one a go. The current "deal" isn't that awesome compared to what they sometimes have though, so you might keep an eye out for more coupons (or wait for Haswell even, if you aren't starting school until the Fall).

+1 on the thinkpad T series, there is a T430 as well that has a 14" screen vs the 15" on the T530.

http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/...rnesnoblegold&ConfigContext=StdAffinityPortal

Sign up there for a better deal.

 

[thatkidPB]

I edited the OP with the correct links

@orangewolf
That is a pretty good laptop, thanks for the input, but yea it's a bit pricy so I might wait til it goes down. And yea, forgot to add in the OP, I can wait, maybe even til Black Friday(if there even are THAT great of sales.)

@darkangel
Thanks for the advice, I'll sign up once I get home.

 

[OrangeWolf]

Shop around the Thinkpad X and T series, and yeah, prices on Black Friday last year were pretty good. But Lenovo has sales all the time, so you might not need to wait that long. Waiting for Haswell though (June-ish?) might be worth it though, since you'll probably be getting integrated graphics and they're meant to be better on Haswell.

The Dell Latitude series would be comparable if you are interested in those.

Dell Precision and Thinkpad W are probably going to be out of your price range but are also nice.

Thinkpad Edge & Dell Vostro are the "budget" versions, though I think your budget is good enough that you can go mainstream.

 

[saedrin]

My T420 for work is pretty bulletproof.

 

[thatkidPB]

Shop around the Thinkpad X and T series, and yeah, prices on Black Friday last year were pretty good. But Lenovo has sales all the time, so you might not need to wait that long. Waiting for Haswell though (June-ish?) might be worth it though, since you'll probably be getting integrated graphics and they're meant to be better on Haswell.

The Dell Latitude series would be comparable if you are interested in those.

Dell Precision and Thinkpad W are probably going to be out of your price range but are also nice.

Thinkpad Edge & Dell Vostro are the "budget" versions, though I think your budget is good enough that you can go mainstream.

Ok yeah i will, and yea Lenovo seems to be one of the few companies that sells their products cheaper directly then through a third party. I don't mind waiting till Haswell comes out, but as a the "new" thing wouldn't it be more expensive?

My T420 for work is pretty bulletproof.

Thats good to hear, another vote for the T-series, Lenovo seems the way to go lol



You guys know if buying a product "new" vs "refurbished" would make that big of a difference?

 

[bigted]

Alright so I've been thinking, and realized that getting a laptop would probably benefit me the most(for school and the fact that I won't really be gaming.)

Uses:
Microsoft office/school work
Watching movies
Managing all my music and photos
Learning to code
A lot of web browsing

Screen size wise, I'm going to a store and see how the different sizes feel.

I've found these so far($600 budget):
http://m.costco.com/Lenovo-IdeaPad-...-Core-i5-3337U-1.8-GHz.product.100029246.html

http://m.costco.com/Dell-Inspiron-13z-Laptop-Intel®-Core™-i5-3317U-1.7GHz.product.100026426.html

http://m.costco.com/Lenovo-IdeaPad-...l-Core-i5-3230M-2.6GHz.product.100027414.html

Edit: updated links

Yes I'm a noob when it come to computers... I have yet to learn the difference between ram sizes and the"Ghz" which I'm guessing is gigahertz? If you guys know any places with good warranties please post those links. Thanks

so the laptops you have linked are either 13.3" or 17", with the 13.3", you are going to find this to be just too small to work with in Excel, you will be scrolling everytime you want to get somewhere. then you have the opposite spectrum of 17", where the whole laptop is going to just be too large to be portable enough to carry around. 14" and 15" are the sweet spot for compromising between these two. that being said, you'll only know once you have tried them out, since you are looking at all of these at costco links, you should be able to use them in store before you make your decision. i am unfamiliar with costco, but you might also inquire as to what the return/exchange policy is in case you did decide you chose the wrong product.

welcome to the wonderful world of [H]. stay a while

 

[thatkidPB]

so the laptops you have linked are either 13.3" or 17", with the 13.3", you are going to find this to be just too small to work with in Excel, you will be scrolling everytime you want to get somewhere. then you have the opposite spectrum of 17", where the whole laptop is going to just be too large to be portable enough to carry around. 14" and 15" are the sweet spot for compromising between these two. that being said, you'll only know once you have tried them out, since you are looking at all of these at costco links, you should be able to use them in store before you make your decision. i am unfamiliar with costco, but you might also inquire as to what the return/exchange policy is in case you did decide you chose the wrong product.

welcome to the wonderful world of [H]. stay a while

Thats true, i'll probably head over to an electronic store tomorrow to check them out. But I'm looking at some other sites now too, like staples, and lenovo.com. I'm fine with any site as long as they offer good pricing/warranty. Oh yea, and costco has like a 90 day return policy i think. Thanks for the help