[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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