[GTALUG] Brand-name desktop recommendation?
D. Hugh Redelmeier
hugh at mimosa.com
Sun Nov 12 14:56:43 EST 2017
| From: William Park via talk <talk at gtalug.org>
| I've been asked by few people about which desktop to buy. They are
| technical enough to swap components, but definitely don't have time to
| troubleshoot. They have more important things to do. So, I said any
| brand, new or refurbished, except HP.
|
| Things may have changed, and HP may be good now. Which brand would you
| recommend for desktop computer for business people?
It depends.
For real business people, willing to spend a bit more, most
manufacturers have a business (as opposed to consumer) line of
computers. Or even lines.
Brand names include: Lenovo Think*, Dell OptiPlex or Precision, HP
something-or-other (Z? EliteDesk? they keep changing names), Acert
Veriton.
What follows are some hints of inexpensive not-new boxes.
If you do care about price, you can get an off-lease business computer
from a variety of places. But then you need to know what you are
missing by having an old machine.
My general rule is: Haswell and later processors are pretty safe.
Those processors have 4 digit models that start with 4. Sandy Bridge
and Ivy Bridge (2 and 3) use more electricity and probably don't come
with USB 3 but are still useful.
I have recently bought off-lease computers from refurb.io (look for
sales) and Dell Financial Services (look for sales). For some reason,
Haswell isn't showing up often. I suspect that since progress in
processors has slowed down, companies are holding onto their computers
longer.
There is a second kind of discounted machines: open-box or refurbs.
Actually "refurbished" is pretty confusing: sometimes it means
computers returned by purchasers and checked over by a refurbisher;
sometimes it means off-lease and checked over by a refurbisher.
(The refurbisher might be the manufacturer or it might be a different
company; it makes a difference.)
I used to buy refurbs of the almost-new variety from Staples. They
didn't always have them and they didn't always sell them at a good
price. They moved that business to ebay. That's where my main
desktop came from.
<http://stores.ebay.ca/Staples-Canada>
No desktops at the moment. Or laptops. Maybe they aren't doing this
any longer.
Dell Financial Services:
<https://www.dellrefurbished.ca/>
Deal ending today (but there will be more for Black Friday):
<http://forums.redflagdeals.com/dellrefurbishedca-dell-refurbished-weekend-sale-40-desktops-30-laptops-20-monitors-until-nov-12-2141322/>
Refurb.io's ebay store. 10% off with coupon PERFORM until Nov. 14:
<https://www.ebay.ca/rpp/refurbio-coupon-1109/refurbio>
This is a pretty good deal on an older business-class computer with
monitor, keyboard and mouse (the keyboard and mouse I got from
refurb.io a couple of months ago were horrible). This is a Sandy
Bridge processor, an i5 2400 -- a decent older processor.
This computer is also a business desktop but it has a Haswell
processor.
<https://www.ebay.ca/itm/HP-Elite-800G1-Tower-i5-4570-3-2ghz-8GB-Ram-500GB-HDD-Windows-10-Pro/122714693672>
These have hard disks. For most purposes I'd install an SSD. Modern
desktops (Windows and Linux) perform a lot better when running off
SSDs. Only the system itself, not your files, need to be on the SSD.
So a small one is OK. But 256G (bigger than necessary) is a sweet
spot.
RAM matters. I think that 2G is OK, not great. More is always
better.
This is more or less what I bought a couple of months ago. I paid
less and mine probably had smaller resources. Note that these SFF computers
have proprietary power supplies which are expensive to replace.
<http://www.ebay.ca/itm/HP-Elite-8300-SFF-Desktop-i5-3470-3-2ghz-8GB-500GB-HDD-Windows-10-pro/122078090918>
NMicroVIP is a pretty good source for almost-new Asus stuff. They
have weekly deals. Only some of their prices are good.
<http://www.nmicrovip.ca/>
Not many desktops at the moment.
There's lots of stuff on Kijiji. I would not want to explain how I
figure out which offers are trustable. But I've had very good luck
(touch wood).
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