Buy second hand corporate machines and add a bit of memory – dirt cheap, stripped of software and unless you really need modern day performance will meet your needs for a tiny price.

You won’t want to after experiencing a Mac. I’ve used PC’s since school. Well, BBC Micros, upwards. Got a MacBook earlier this year and have had zero issues with it, not one, not a single bit of malware or third party software installed, not a single blue screen or reboot required. And I use it a lot (most of the time).

I can see a few major issues like the key bits of software I run most days not working at all. I probably have 2 computers running most of the day, I’m using the laptop every day and it gets a hammering on the road. I’ve reinstalled windows twice as the amount of development software was getting too much (I had MS & My SQL on it at one point) and the rebuild was simple and easy. There was no 3rd party software or malware installed on it and it’s still running fine.

Also the OP knows about Macs and uses them just they don’t make something anywhere near suitable in his price range.

A semi decent CPU with a GTX 780 is not to be sniffed at…

johndoh – Member
But this makes for a pretty shocking user experience for users – I can’t imagine my mother-in-law having a clue what to do when some stupid pop-over starts telling her about some virus she has ‘got’ on her machine, although it is just a panic ad to make you subscribe to their service.

There’s a bloke in a call centre somewhere who’ll do that for you.
I had one only yesterday, told him he was lying and he could **** off.

Buy second hand corporate machines

Any recommendations on where to look?

Try contacting one of STW’s IT Army when they are mulling over a new and expensive bike.

Also the OP knows about Macs and uses them just they don’t make something anywhere near suitable in his price range.

Also the OP knows about Macs and uses them just they don’t make something anywhere near suitable in his price range.

(At least not a laptop)

Just resurrecting again – so now I have removed all the bloated anti-virus rubbish (Avast flashed up a ‘You have malware’ message as I removed it (nice way of scaring people guys), what is the best free anti-malware software I *should* install?

AVG Free?

Windows 8? Then install nothing. It’s already built in.

Fair enough, and to be fair it won’t really be used for much surfing other than online shopping (Amazon, Tesco etc) and email checking.

I tend to use my Macbook Pro for surfing and my wife uses the iPad.

Your best bet, if you can be arsed, is as above – try and get hold of a plain copy of W8.1 and install that using your license key. It’ll fly. Can you still download windows images?

Like some of you I’ve used Windows and Mac machines. Both have their positives and negatives. A clean vanilla install of either OS makes a world of difference to the user experience and system performance.

The OP might have had better luck with a Mac Mini and external storage for all the, music, video and photos, though I suspect that would have been a bit more than £360.

Windows 8.1 enterprise trial edition has a command line that lets you use it for up to 270 days…for free 🙂

Didn’t want a desktop though, wanted something we can move around (for example if our girls have friends round and they want to play music we can pop the laptop in the room and we can choose music together).

This is an interesting thread for me, I’ll be in need of a new PC in the not too distant future, it probably has to be Windows for a lot of the CAD (probably only smaller assemblies in Inventor and/or Solidworks, maybe a bit of “Light” FEA) and some other software I plan to run with it, I’d possibly consider dual booting Windows/Linux, really not sure ATM.

The main thing is I’d been thinking new laptop all along, I’ve been away from computers generally for a while and need to get myself back up to speed anyway, but now I’m toying with the idea of a desktop to live in my Garage, I don’t have any other “home Office” space and I’m not that keen on pitching out the laptop on the kitchen table every time I want to use it.

So who would be good to look at for a vanilla spec Win 8.1 desktop? or even a barebones system, I don’t mind a bit of self assembly and doing some installation/decrapifying, but what’s actually worth buying today knowing I may well want to “Upgrade” it in the future rather than simply replace the whole thing?

Initial budget would be as far under £500 as I can keep it, including the OS and a monitor/TV… thoughts?

The component sellers online always do systems – much better than off-the-peg:

scan
overclockers
aria
dabs

etc

Your best bet, if you can be arsed, is as above – try and get hold of a plain copy of W8.1 and install that using your license key. It’ll fly. Can you still download windows images?

Indeed – I recently had to do a complete re-install of this computer and after failing to get the recovery partition to work I downloaded an MS installation disc (for Vista) to do a clean re-install. I then found my recovery DVDs and did consider for a while doing a factory re-install, before remembering all the stuff I’d want to remove and realising that I didn’t actually use any of the add on stuff which came with it.

Looks like Win 8 is available, though not completely straightforward (personally I’d use W7 given the choice)

http://www.howtogeek.com/186775/how-to-download-windows-7-8-and-8.1-installation-media-legally/
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/upgrade-product-key-only

Just be careful with PC Decrapifier – its got some freeloading garbage bundled up with it that is a pain to remove – v9 for examble!

*Strokes Hackintosh*
*Smiles*

Initial budget would be as far under £500 as I can keep it, including the OS and a monitor/TV… thoughts?

usual advice but take a look at Dell outlet, great prices. Don’t think there was much on the last machine I got but I wiped it back to Win 7 anyway.

I spent years of my life babying PCs from the scum of the internet, constantly vigilant like it was on the Liverpool Pathway or something…. until i bought a Mac.

Like the old cliche, it just works. No spending hours pulling my hair out trying to get it to boot up off a USB because some lithuanian gold tooth **** decided to zombie my computer or shit like that.

Worth the price a million times IMHO.

Like the old cliche, it just works. No spending hours pulling my hair out trying to get it to boot up off a USB because some lithuanian gold tooth **** decided to zombie my computer or shit like that.

Really? What the hell were you doing with it? No issues like that with a PC here.

Constant updates, constant virus scanning. It was an XP machine that I spent more time frigging around with than actually using to do stuff. Safe to say on my shiny lovely mac I have done zero of this and its as fresh as the day i turned it on. If you want a computer that works and looks nice buy a mac.

You realise that XP is a twelve year old operating system, yes? And that virus scans are nothing to do with the OS. Might as well relay the awful time I once had with an Apple II.

all in my experience mate, from friends who’s houses I’ve been invited over, “to have a quick look at their computer” only to spend the next few hours performing open heart surgery on their spangly new Windows machines. The amount of bloatware that comes with them is atrocious. Then you have the constant updates, week after week..

After using computers since i got my first Speccy zx80 as a spotty kid, I always loved Apples simple ethos. Windows has always been its poorer cousin. Regardless of its proliferation, for the average user, Mac ticks all the boxes for just working without needing to be an emeritus from MIT.

The amount of bloatware that comes with them is atrocious. Then you have the constant updates, week after week..

One is a retailer issue not a platform issue, even by the time of win 7 updates are mostly background things that are done automatically with very few resets required. I’m more surprised when they come up these days as I’ve mostly forgotten about them.

Apples ‘just work’ because they control the hardware, so things cost more. It’s not better, just different.

My PC just works. It even just connects to my printer, which is more than I can say about the Apple product in this house. Don’t do anything special with it, just have the usual router firewall and MSE, which I’ve never touched – though the latter has never detected a virus in 4 or 5 years I’ve had this PC. Have never had to touch Windows updates either – they just do their stuff in the background.

I do wonder what it is with these people who manage to mess up their computers and need hand-holding technology to stop them doing that.

Then you have the constant updates, week after week..

No, you don’t. Updates are monthly – second Tuesday of every month – unless there’s an emergency patch. And if there’s an emergency patch I’d rather have it, thanks.

Spent another hour today taking ‘safe filter’ off , more crap skimming Search details Etc off the computer. Really %#^*Ing shit really.