"choosing a new PC is a piece of cake when you follow this advice"

Although we don't sell PCs we encourage you to use our labour services. 

Our opinion may change from time to time as products develop so please check this page regularly

We recommend going to a store and finding any PC within your budget first and foremost. We believe in avoiding false economy situations and often i'm afraid to say the cheapest PC is not always the best deal. So if you want a PC that will last as long as it can, in terms of speedy responses etc, then we recommend the following rules.

Follow these rules and ignore the salesmen trying to sell you cheaper systems.

Brand

At the moment we recommend

• Dell
• HP
• Toshiba
• Compaq

We don't like

• Sony
• Acer

Component - CPU

The CPU is the most important component to have inside the PC these days. Just look on the spec sheet of the machine and it will mention one of the following:

We recommend the following types - if you get one of these inside you'll get a long lasting speedy PC. They cost a bit more to have one of these inside but its money well spent. It will be faster, faster faster!! for longer. In ascending order of age and thus the best-spec:

• Intel i7 (64-bit)
• Intel i5-7xx (64-bit)
• Intel i5-6xx (border line models of the i range, still good though) (64-bit) 
• Core 2 Duo (32-bit)
• Core 2 Quad (can be 32-bit or 64-bit - enquire if it matters to you)
• Quad Core (usually just desktops have these) (can be 32-bit or 64-bit - enquire if it matters to you)

we do not recommend the following types - they are cheaper, they sometimes sound the same as the above, but they're not, they're slower, slower, slower!! The salesmen try to sell you these, either to satisfy their sales quota, or because they are... well...... thick! or to be P.C. (no pun intended) 'not trained very well'.

• i5-4xx, i5-5xx (these are border line, they'll be good, they're not an entry level) (64-bit)
• i3 (basic entry level standard, similar to the dual core's below) (64-bit)
• Dual Core (32-bit)
• AMD Athlon (32-bit)
• AMD Turion (32-bit)
• AMD X2  (32-bit)
• Core 2 Solo (32-bit)
• x Celeron x (32-bit)

The CPU component is the most important thing to get right these days. Everything else (memory, hard disk space, DVD Drive, Battery Life) all fall into place nicely if you make sure you get one of the recommended CPUs listed above inside your next computer. Please don't call us asking us 'what about the memory, will it have enough memory?' the rest all falls into place, you'll get plenty of everything, more than you would if you went for the other cheaper PCs - choosing a new PC is a piece of cake when you follow this advice.

Operating system.

It's up to you if you want to stick with windows XP. You can try and track down a PC that comes with windows XP on it preinstalled, but it's becoming more and more difficult so you're going to have to bite the bullet eventually and go for windows 7 or vista.

Businesses sometimes have old software that wont run on Windows Vista or Windows 7 and is very expensive to upgrade the software that won't work, so it's worth tracking down windows xp. If you're desperate to have windows XP, you can call Dell business team via their website and ask them if they can supply you with a PC that has windows XP on it. We like Dell at the moment, overall we think they're the best. Make sure you get one of our recommended CPU types listed above whichever way you decide to go but bear in mind that older software will want to run on 32-bit type CPUs (it doesn't matter what that means except that the new CPUs these days are 64-bit type which causes problems for older software). So just make sure you ask for a 32 bit CPU with the windows xp machine. If it's that mission-critical then it might be worth hiring us out to consult and place the order with you as well as hiring us to fit your new PC. It costs money but it's money well spent in order to avoid costly mistakes.

Windows 7 professional version and ultimate versions promise to allow most windows xp programmes to run. We know that this is 'techncially speaking' difficult for Microsoft to accomplish for all software speaking specifically with regards to old and complicated database dependent programmes. But also we haven't tested this out yet so we can't recommend it but if you trust Microsoft enough then this is an option. We think they'll have done a good job at it but it won't be perfect for every piece of software is all we're saying.

Desktop PC or Laptop

The above specs apply to both desktops (towers) and laptops.

Cost

Prices seem to have risen since Windows 7 came out. But i think you'll be looking to spend £400 or above to get a very good PC with the components mentioned. That usually includes a monitor if buying a desktop PC. Dont go for a £300 manager's special rubbish! If it doesn't have the above spec you won't get the same quality for less money. False economy.

Games Machines

We don't make recommendations for Games Machines as the market moves so quickly. Nearly all of our customers dont care about playing the latest games, and frankly neither do we (it rots your brain and we've seen whole days disappear in seconds when you play games). So the above recommendations are for getting a useful and practical PC that will be fast and last as long as possible, 4/5 years easily if not longer. If you do want a Games Machine then spend a lot of money - atleast £800 for a long lasting one that will play games that are coming out in future years- still making sure you follow our advice about CPUs.

Disclaimer: We don't accept any financial responsibilty for any content on this website. The above is our opinion, based on our experience and is a reflection of the decision algorithm we use when purchasing PCs for ourselves at this time. Read it, dont read it. Believe it, don't believe it.