Our base unit is still playing up and looks like might be time to get a new one.

What does the collective STW wisdom recommend. A new laptop, which has advantages and could be plugged into the existing monitor and keyboard, etc., or just get a new (and upgraded) base unit for the existing peripheral equipment?

Any wisdom on what are good to look at for either / both of these suggestions? Looking for home computing, websurfing, photo storage, odd music and video downloads, etc. but not looking particularly for gaming or ‘entertainment’ applications.

What’s your budget and any specific requirements?

Mac Mini.

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mac mini

Second that, or a imac g4/g5

wait till next week to see if Mac mini gets an update

No specific budget but like I said – it’s not a massively high spec we’re looking for, just general ‘home office’ and websurfing duties.

Next weeks supposed Mac Mini refresh should suit your needs nicely. 😉

I’ve got a G4 powermac under my bed you can have for a couple of beers if you want to pick it up…

Seriously? Mac Mini? is that the answer to everything?

Ucks sake you mac owners want to get a life.

There’s nothing as entertaining as swapping out hardware when you need some more power, oh you wouldn’t know would you, you’re all locked down to specific hardware aren’t you? 😆

Stuck with what apple will write drivers for, bunch of egotistical tosspots you lot of you. 🙄 overpriced intel hardware with a unique unix OS over the top of it come on folks, wise up. If you want unique learn to use Linux or unix FFS!

spend £400 buy a laptop with Windows,
it works.
it breaks.
fix it, it works again.
get fed up with the above cycle,
buy newer windows and appropriate hardware go to top.

I sometimes wonder about the vitriol against macs, I use both, the mac works, the windows machines are more fiddly to set up. As for upgrades? it does what i want why fiddle. If you want a games machine then macs aren’t for you. The lack of OS mapping is a pain. but is now easily solvable by running an emulator. The included software that comes with macs is far nicer than that that seems to come with Windows machines,

There are other issues to be aware of, if you need full Macro compatibility in Office, MS removed it from the most recent version. But will apparently be reintroducing it on the next version. Some of the keys are in different places, @ and ” being the most obvious.

The OS is more easily setup than Vista, and currently anti virus isn’t as vital as it is on a windows machine. They are just another Intel box these days. But by being a rigid spec the OS doesn’t have to have as much crap in it to cope with all the potential setups that Windows is forced to run on.

The OS is more easily setup than Vista

The Vista installation on this box worked straight out of the… box. No fuss, no problems.

I had the same just before Christmas. I bought a refurbed Dell system unit from an ebay shop for £100, here in two days, XP already loaded and running, works fine.

Cheap base unit and something like an EeePC.

Personally, I like laptops, so would probably get a laptop and the EeePC.

Heh! LOL@ Whatsit!

Hmm, my PC needs upgrading: More RAM, ok, that’s cheap and easy enough. Oh, these new softwares need a faster processor to run, hmm, fiddly. And now, the graphics card can’t handle it…

Etc.

So, you spend, say, £500 on a desktop. How many people will actually be constantly swapping bits over? 90% just want it to work, and be reliable. The vast majority of PCs, like Macs, get little more than extra RAM added, and maybe a bigger HD. And as for ‘oh, they’re easy to upgrade’, and “There’s nothing as entertaining as swapping out hardware when you need some more power”, the number of dead PCs I’ve seen in people’s houses…

‘What happened to your PC?’
‘Oh, I tried to upgrade something, but it just went dead’.

Not everyone is a geek.

And the thing is, Macs don’t need ‘upgrading’ as often. I have two old CRT iMacs, one 8 years old, the other, possibly 10. Both run OSX 10.4 without fuss. Granted, 10.5 is beyond them, but show me a PC older than about 3 years, that can run Vista without some serious tinkering.

My Mac Pro can take all sorts of ‘upgrades’; HDs, graphics cards, PCI cards, SATA devices, Blu-Ray drives, processors, etc. Oh, and it can take up to 32GB of RAM. I think I’m sorted for a couple of years, yet!

Getting back to the OP; I suggested the Mac Mini, as it is such an easy solution. Quiet, very efficient, tiny, and packed with loads of good stuff for a little home media centre. Probably suits the needs of the OP, perfectly. And won’t cost too much, either.

superlurch; you’re not in London, are you? I’d have that G4 off you!

PS44; any chance of a link / web address?

What’s an EeePC (off to Google it)

bought a new tower from Mesh, really happy with it.
It replaces an earlier one, where I still have good new-ish functional monitor, keyboard, printer and sound system, so only needed a new tower.
Very happy.
It also depends what you want and how you want to use it.
I like to go and hide when my daughters look at Strictly and other cr*p on telly, so I go into another room with my tower etc, check up emails ,surf etc whilst winding up the sound system.
My wife and daughters like to browse and surf with one eye on the telly in the sitting room beside the fire……
each to their own!
cheers
Q

theotherjonv : try here http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Marks-Computer-Sales-and-Supplies (disclaimer: I’ve got nothing to do with this guy other than being a happy cutomer 🙂 )

A friend just popped round, to use my internets to download some podcasts. So, we tried to get his little notebook thingy working with my wireless network- FAIL.

No indication of what was wrong, no explanation of how to sort it out, just no connection. And then the wireless connection doctor thing refused to work on my PC. Discovered it’s because I used the software that came with my broadband package, to connect my PC to the wireless network, which has overridden any ability of the OS to connect. Useless. I’m going to have to faff around now, to try and get it to work.

Problem with a lot of PC stuff, is you often need a fair amount of knowledge, to actually get things to work. That is no good, if you aren’t a computer whizz.

Mac? Airport, type in password- bosh. Connected.