Advice please on buying a PC?

[moonjiver]

I'm very grateful for all the advice, it's been a difficult learning path for me. But with monitors and the pc, I'm now much better armed re: what I should be looking for.

However .. my self-confidence taken a battering today! A computer advisor guy came round and looked at all my notes, he meant well I think but was pushing me to set up broadband first (on my laptop) and then look for new hardware later. Well, ok but the whole point was to upgrade from a small laptop on which I feel cramped and limited (especially when working with images) and move onto a big monitor and a pc which will cope with Photoshop. I'm impatient to move on and don't see the point of first spending time getting the laptop online -with all the inevitable upgrades and software downloads which will result. I want to actually keep the laptop offline - as a spare in case of problems.

Also, I have identified some quite decent hardware in Currys etc , checked things out on the review sites and, although I'll pay a bit more for something off the shelf, it's the safest way for someone like me. But my computer advisor was pressing me to buy quite different and non-mainstream things from specialist suppliers, even came up with a sort of compact pc box which literally bolts onto the back of your tv monitor! I didn't know such things existed! And I'm not so so desperate that I need to save money by using my tv monitor.

I think a case of making things more complicated than they need to be; so not very helpful to me just now.

[moonjiver]

Well, been thinking about my unsatisfactory experience yesterday - the guy who came round (advertises himself locally as a computer advisor etc.) was unhelpful. He didn't like the hardware I have been looking at (without giving me specific reasons why) and was woffling a bit about searching around again online and getting better value for my money. But he knows what he's looking for, I don't! Have to rely to some extent on others.

It was all quite negative and I suspect that he was rather out-of-date and didn't actually know the latest technology well.
Certainly he was one of those people who wasn't listening to what I wanted, was telling me what I SHOULD want!!

In contrast, the comments I have received here from people have been very specific and helpful, shaped very much my view of what I need to look out for.

I'd also highly recommend the PC Advisor website/forum. Apart from their range of useful articles, I posted the details of an Acer pc (was a "best buy" in some reviews) and got some very helpful feedback and reassurances. As Richard suggested, I don't need the latest, fastest
pc on the market - just a decent middle-range machine which will meet my needs and do the job.

Thanks again for people's input and I hope to finish this somewhat exhausting journey shortly.

[Richard]

It is possible to get incredibly 'anal' about computers and monitors - a bit like anything really - a basic vehicle will get you from A to B but it should be your choice if you want anything more than 'basic'.
Don't let anyone decide for you, that never works, does it!!

See Geoff and his 25" monitors - now that is personal preference that would not be really important to 99.99% of people

[Geoff]

You are right Richard, what works best for my eyes and workflow is probably not going to be the sweet spot for everyone else. At the end of the day you have to make up your own mind based on your own usage needs, and of course budget.

[moonjiver]

Exactly! At the end, you have to make up your own mind based on the evidence.

And any advisor who tries to decide for you is not tuning onto your wavelength properly!

Thanks again. I'll recomnend the forum for some sort of award one day!

[moonjiver]

Got there! Got myself a pretty decent Acer Aspire XC-710 desktop PC, with an Intel Core i3-6100 processor (fast I gather). I'm going to update the RAM myself later to 8GB. Also an Acer monitor which was a best-buy on the review sites. Because the pc is being discontinued by PC World, the eventual price tag came down from almost £450 to about £370!

Exhausting exercise and I couldn't possibly have managed without all the advice from this forum and some other sources - thanks very much to all.

I have three funny-shaped cables with the monitor - no idea what they do, so need to head for the user manual! One is the HDMI one.

I have also found some very promising computer workshops in Bexhill - on a range of different topics (the Windows 10 one I will need like my right arm). I can post details on here if anyone thinks it would be useful.

[Geoff]

Excellent MJ, congratulations on your purchase. Acer is a good brand that seems to last, both my base units started off as standard Acer boxes and have seen me very well.

Do post details of the computer workshops, you never know who reads this in the future and may well be interested as it's fairly local.

[moonjiver]

The moral seems to be that you really do need to do research - it's been painful but the advice from others has been invaluable to me, enabled me to counteract the bullshit from (some) salesmen!

I'll post info about the workshops as a new thread, make it easier to spot.

[moonjiver]

Well, after all that and getting helpful advice from several quarters - PC World have messed me about for two weeks and now told me the Acer pc is not available! (It's still on their website). Start again. That's one reason I've taken so long to plunge in with a purchase - it's an extreme hassle. (I did get an excellent Acer monitor - but they gave me the wrong cable with it!).

The Acer Aspire XC-710 desktop I was aiming for was, I gather, a good pc with a fast processor (much faster than Adobe's minimum spec. for Photoshop). However, it was still a compact pc with no graphics card. I wonder if I should be willing to spend a bit more, get a more powerful, full-size tower pc with graphics card and more room for upgrading later? I will want to do much more photo editing and, who knows, more advanced stuff in other programs maybe.

Would be really grateful for some comments!

[Geoff]

Yes, if you can afford more then upping the specs is always a good idea. On board graphics are notoriously rubbish for anything but basic office apps and use some of your system memory to operate, so performance is taking a double hit compared to using a separate card.

Also, as you rightly point out, why limit yourself to a compact box which will make upgrading harder? Generic sized components will be made to fit a generic sized box, so any repairs/upgrades will be cheaper if they are a standard size. Unless of course it's a space saving thing for you?

Perhaps the out of stock thing was a god-send in the long run?