What is the best desktop for home office?

Question

I am a stay-at-home mom who is looking to do work from home and I currently have a Compaq Presario notebook but not too happy with it. I work with spreadsheets, word processors, etc. as well as playing games, downloading pictures and listening to music. What should I look for in a desktop and who makes the best one (in your opinion)? Thanks.

Answer 1

I would suggest getting a computer with a duel core 1.8 - 2 Ghz processor, 1gb ram, 80 - - 120Gb hard drive. For now less 512mb ram would do but 1gb would mean that it wil last longer in the future.

I would look at Acer computers (for desktop and laptop) as they are resonably priced and reliable. I only buy acer laptops and i make my own desktops but the acer's are great

Answer 2

I don't ever suggest a notebook if you are basically going to use your laptop as a desktop. They tend to be more expensive and harder to upgrade.

Now...as for the best desktop. I would suggest a company that has a brandname (Compaq, Dell, HP, iMac, etc). Basically if you've never heard of it, don't buy it.

Warranty is another thing to consider, but if you buy a brand name it's not such a big deal as 1 year is the minimum and extended warranties are usually an option.

So, now for my favourite...I would say I'm stuck between a Dell Dimension or a Compaq Pressario. I just ordered a new Dell desktop because of price, plus I wanted to majorly customize. The price was also great. But, my current computer is a Compaq and I've had very little problems with it. One of my favourite options with mine is that I can format my harddrive if I'm having ANY issues by pressing one of the F keys during startup. It's much easier than a regular formatting.

Basically what I would do is go to Dell.com and find a desktop. Print off the specifications and bring it to your local computer store. See if they can match the computer and the price. Then, buy the best priced one as long as it's a known brand.

Answer 3

I suggest two methods in choosing the best computer desktop. First, choose the best package that suit your need. It will comes from any branded company such as microsoft, apple, sun microsystem and so on. There you will not worry about anything since everything is on the package, and nothing i can explain about. Second method is "clone" term that we used for assembled our own computer which is buying differents part and assemmble it. Here you can choose for the best part, like if you prefer for gaming and good audio, you should prefer high ram and high storage, and also quality graphic card. Then focus on audio system...i choose altec lansing technology...

Answer 4

If you're not into heavy duty graphics aps (games or otherwise), you can pick-up a "vanilla box" at any retailer.

However, if you're going to a store where the sales staff is "compensated" (ie: on commission), be prepared to say "No" *alot*.

For a "business" computer able to do the rest, you can go big name (IBM, Dell, etc), or go store brand. The "Name" units are costlier, but (if you avoid Dell), good worth for the cost, and can come with guarentees and low-cost to free help lines.

The store "generic" brands are cheaper, but not always shoddy.

The decision on which way to go is up to you, but when taking it in (or shipping it) for servicing, you can be without for days to weeks. Depending on your kid's age, a Service Plan of some sort will be a must. (I once had one pay for itself on a laptop 16 months in when the HD crapped-out and they had to replace it with a drive twice the size.)

Finally, AMD or Intel are functionally interchangeable for a "small" business with no "Power Users." If the additional apps are not graphics intensive, the on-board card will generally be enough. If you do need some extra "oomph"...if you were a gamer I'd say ATI hands-down (especially when their R600 comes out in June), but since you're not, anything you can find and doesn't hurt the pocket book much, should be fine. You should have a minimum of 1Gb of memory if you're going to run XP. If you want to wait for Vista at the end of the month, 2Gb would probably be better. In any case, you'll probably want to go with a computer that can use DDR2.
Clock speed, you'll want a minimum of 1.6MHz, and can go single or dual core (since most office apps, esp MSOffice, aren't multi-threaded yet). Generally, for Office apps, clock speed doesn't have as much of a noticable boost in useage as scads and scads of memory (and for Vista, you essentially NEED 1Gb just for it to run smoothly, especially if you go Ultimate!).

Save yourself some trouble, and go with a DVDRW/CDRW combo drive.

Hope this helped!