Advice please on buying a PC?

Computers, Internet, Mobile, TV, Audio etc - Help & advice on your tech questions.
User avatar
Richard
Posts: 3347
Joined: Tue Mar 11, 2014 3:36 pm

Re: Advice please on buying a PC?

Postby Richard » Tue Aug 09, 2016 5:13 pm

I will never buy from a retail shop again as I can get way cheaper online.
As for Monitors:
23" are often cheaper, with little noticeable difference.
If you are into graphics, design etcetera, consider running two monitors side-by-side:

http://www.online-tech-tips.com/compute ... n-windows/

User avatar
moonjiver
Posts: 423
Joined: Sat Jul 05, 2014 4:44 pm
Location: St Leonards-on-Sea

Re: Advice please on buying a PC?

Postby moonjiver » Tue Aug 09, 2016 5:57 pm

Thanks for the link Richard, useful article and rather a good straightforward website. The best one I have found so far is the excellent PC Advisor, also freepchelp.co uk (not at all so good). I'm not doing advanced imaging work for now but may well be later.

Yes, I've noticed that the smaller monitors drop considerably in price, also those with old-type input ports. I'm trying to get a large and up-to-date monitor, feel very restricted by the much smaller screen on my laptop when editing photos

Price is not my main concern (tho hardly a case of money no object!). But I'm not techie enough to know totally what I want and shop around. More important to get something that's suitable and which I like the look of.

User avatar
Richard
Posts: 3347
Joined: Tue Mar 11, 2014 3:36 pm

Re: Advice please on buying a PC?

Postby Richard » Wed Aug 10, 2016 11:47 am

I'd just look at review sites and you can easily become too obsessed with detail - it looks like you just want a basic cheap one since you are not doing massive graphic work with high-end programs.
Almost anything should be good enough.
The thing that would annoy me is if there were noticeable 'dead pixels' on the screen, but that seems to be a thing of the past - I've never encountered this problem!
depends if you need usb ports, speaker ports, charger-docking for mobile.
Perhaps look for a thin bezel type - looks sexier!

User avatar
moonjiver
Posts: 423
Joined: Sat Jul 05, 2014 4:44 pm
Location: St Leonards-on-Sea

Re: Advice please on buying a PC?

Postby moonjiver » Wed Aug 10, 2016 11:49 pm

I've learned a lot in the last few weeks - one thing I've noticed is that some of the monitors, especially cheaper ones, seem to be very thick, ugly and on awkward space-consuming stands. I'm gratified to find that the review sites often agree with me!

However, I am focussing on a 24-inch Acer S240HLBID currently at £114.99 in Currys - really nice-looking slim black screen on a small stand and tonight I also discovered it's a best buy on some sites! I need it to be fairly modern with good ports because I don't know how far my photography stuff will go. Been doing a lot of work with local bands and hence a LOT of tricky editing. I do need some good photo-editing software.

I'm sure all my fussing over the technology has amused some people but this is a very big step for me! There'll be plenty of late hours poring over the Dummies books .. I quite like what I have seen so far of Windows 10, but it seems much more complex than Windows 7 and I can't find familiar things!

User avatar
Derek Jempson
Posts: 377
Joined: Fri Jan 17, 2014 6:56 am

Re: Advice please on buying a PC?

Postby Derek Jempson » Thu Aug 11, 2016 6:03 am

I am not wishing to put you off buying an Acer monitor - I have one and generally, I'm pleased with it. The single bad point for me is that the control buttons are under the bottom edge and are not marked. That means that if you need to use them, you have to refer to the manual to learn the position of each button, and then fumble for them. It also means that if you pick up the monitor while it is working, you will inevitably press buttons and mess things up.

User avatar
moonjiver
Posts: 423
Joined: Sat Jul 05, 2014 4:44 pm
Location: St Leonards-on-Sea

Re: Advice please on buying a PC?

Postby moonjiver » Thu Aug 11, 2016 10:33 am

Brilliant! Thanks for that. It does sound odd (do the people who design these things ever use them and try them out?!).

I think I can live with awkward buttons, wiil have to remember to grip the monitor at the sides.

I'm slightly confused - will not atleast some of the controls also be adjustable via the Control Panel settings?

I was surprised at how extremely ugly some monitors were. If you have to stare at it all day, you want sonething decent looking. And I hate the new curved monitors , odd to look at and they seem gimmicky to me!

User avatar
Richard
Posts: 3347
Joined: Tue Mar 11, 2014 3:36 pm

Re: Advice please on buying a PC?

Postby Richard » Thu Aug 11, 2016 5:22 pm


User avatar
moonjiver
Posts: 423
Joined: Sat Jul 05, 2014 4:44 pm
Location: St Leonards-on-Sea

Re: Advice please on buying a PC?

Postby moonjiver » Fri Aug 12, 2016 12:17 am

Thanks Richard for the link. However, too small for me, and 24-inch and above seems to be the way monitors are going these days - as far as I can gather, what one should be looking for when working with images.

User avatar
Geoff
Site Admin
Posts: 1122
Joined: Sun May 08, 2005 3:39 pm
Location: Blacklands, Hastings
Contact:

Re: Advice please on buying a PC?

Postby Geoff » Fri Aug 12, 2016 12:52 am

Having been in the graphics profession all of my working life I have tried all sorts of monitor combinations and think I have now found the sweet spot - both for my eyes at age 44 (no glasses) and amount of screen real estate on offer.

The perfect balance between size and readability for me is dual 25'' HD screens. Anything bigger on HD res and you will see pixels, anything smaller doesn't seem enough.

The QHD monitors are too high res for me - I trialled a 27'' for a couple of weeks but text and menus were way too small. I would need a 32'' QHD to get the icons and text at the same size as a 25'' HD, comfortable reading size without having to resort to the half baked windows screen scaling. QHD is great for gaming i'm sure but that's not my thing these days. As for 4k monitors, even worse situation for any serious work unless you can afford a seriously big screen.

Fiddly control buttons was mentioned previously. Not really a concern as you won't be touching the controls once it's up and running. The monitors on my 2nd PC I have had for 8 years plus and must have only ever touched the menus twice in their lifetime. Certainly not a deal breaker.

Just my two peneths worth :pirate:

User avatar
Derek Jempson
Posts: 377
Joined: Fri Jan 17, 2014 6:56 am

Re: Advice please on buying a PC?

Postby Derek Jempson » Fri Aug 12, 2016 6:11 am

What I usually do with a new monitor is make sure that the controls are set to default and thereafter use the monitor software to adjust brilliance, contrast etc. With the Acer though, you just have to be careful when lifting the thing. If you are doing a lot of photographic work, it would be worth investigating monitor calibration, otherwise photos that look perfect on your monitor might look awful on other devices.


Return to “Technology Chat”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests