Lefty

I posted this on the sale forum, don't know what I was thinking. Here it is:

I am looking to buy a new computer and looking at one that has a dvd and cd burner. Can I find a good one for around $1200.00, including a monitor?

Someone told me to stay away from HP and look at a Dell or Gateway.

Toro

I love the two Dell's I have had.

jw7

$1200 should be way more than enough.

If you decide to go Dell, this is a site I recommmend: http://www.gotapex.com/deals.php

They have daily Dell deals rebates and coupons. But you have to watch the configurations, sometimes the hot deals only come with 128MB memory and you really should have at least 512MB.

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Chaz

Also there is Dell outlet that has good deals on refurbished computers with full warranties.

Nick C

I bought an E machine at Fry's Electronics for $600 without the monitor. I haven't had a problem with it at all

AMD Athlon 300+ 2.17GHZ
512MB of Ram
NVidia GeForce4 MX 64MB
DVD Rom and CD/RW drives

CaptTurbo

I bought a 3.0 hyper threaded pent 4 with 1 gig of ram. a 256 nvidia graphics card, soundblaster live sound card, 19 inch monitor, 120 gig hard drive and 120 gig external hard drive, wireless keyboard/mouse all for 1300.00



Cant beat that on dell. That same pc goes for 2500+

Chaz

How computer literate are you?

What do you want to use it for?

What kind of monitor do you want (Flat panel or CRT)?

arthurracoon

nice!

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Signed,

arthurpostpadder

az240zz

What Did you buy and where?

az240z

Lefty

I am not one of those guys who knows a lot about computers. I would like a flat screen, size 15 or 17. I would also like a dvd burner and cd burner. I want to be able to transfer my tapes(VHS) over to dvd and I want to be able to edit my videos. I also want to be able to put my pictures on a disk and I also would like to make music cd's.

Do you have any good suggestions on what model would be best for me for around $1200.00?

CaptTurbo

Just listed what I bought. Bought it from a company here in PA that builds custom PC's

jw7

Here is a thread where this is discussed.

http://www.gotapex.com/forums/showthread.php?t=73069

I would have recommended Dell as well, but the transfer of video throws a wrench in it. You need a video card with a TV tuner, or a vivo or a video capture card, and Dell does not really seem to have a lot of good options for this. (at least as far as I can tell, I don't really know how to do this).

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Chaz

OK sorry for the delay.

The only thing that looks like a potential problem there is your transfer of video to DVD. You will need a video input device of some sort. Very few graphic cards have this feature but you can get a usb device or a pci card that will do this. It will need composite or s-video in depending on the output of your source video. The only cavet with the DVD burner is be sure you have the right type of Media there a couple of different kinds of DVD writers.

There are also services that will transfer VHS to DVD for you.

Make sure you have plenty of Hard drive space probably 60-80 Gigabytes and more never hurts. At least 512 MB of system memory (RAM) and more never hurts. You don't really need the fastest processor any current 2.5+ GHz processor is fast enough.

For the monitor the flat panel is the thin LCD monitor and the flat screen is the CRT type with a flat front glass. A nice 17" Flat panel is about $350 - $400 but the 15" are pretty inexpensive. I would recommend the 17" you will will not regret it.


I would look at Dell and Gateway they each have models that come in at that price. Alienware are rated very high but the systems start at $1200. Go with a company that has a good warranty and that you feel comfortable with. I don't recommend the cookie cutters off the Best Buy shelves (Compaq/Acer). What is going to push your price is the added cost of the video input device and the $300 upgrade to a 17" flat panel.

Shop around, if you have any question about a particular system let me know.