Computer for the auld fella

G

gramlab

Registered User
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My dad is lookin toget himself a puter (want a laptop ). All he wants it for is emailing and surfing the net. He has no interest in music, video, other software packages etc.

Doesn't have a clue when it comes to computers -like myself, so a second hand buy is probably out and doesn't want to spend too much. What are the options?? go to a shop, buy direct from dell etc??
 
For older folk (me included!!!) size matters. Big screen, large clear keys, are important as eyesight tends to lose clarity.

Get the largest you can afford. Avoid models with silver keys.
 

You're probably as well to buy an entry level Dell.

Windows Vista is supposedly more secure than XP so I would go for that as you don't want to spend lots of time getting rid of computer viruses and Trojans on his PC.

As Gulliver says above, get a large screen (17" or 19" if you can afford it). Bear in mind, though, that the native resolution of these screens is very high which results in tiny pixels and hard-to-read text. Some of them don't look so good at more average resolutions like 1024x768.
 
Looking at dell alright. Have one myself and it's been fairly good. Heard vista can be troublesome though with a lot of bugs to iron out. Checked with dell site and only option seems to be vista.

Probably a stupid question and I'm showing how naive I am when it comes to computers but is there anything out there which you can use for the net and mailing which would be as fast as a PC but without all the other hardware, software etc. ??? (less buttons/options he has the better)
 
HI gramlab

I wouldn't dumb it down too much. In time, he might well find that he would like to use some of the other features. OK, he is probably not going to bother with gaming, but he could well become a Skype user if he has relatives abroad.

Brendan
 
Also Dell have no problem shipping with XP Home/Pro if you ask - I just bought 2 pc's off them last week - just do up the spec you want and save to your basket. Then ring the Dell Sales Line - you will get transferred to Desktop Sales in Dublin and the sales person will ask you to email the basket to them - keep them on the line, send it through and get them to switch it to XP.
Personally I won't be upgrading any of my pc's (work or home) to Vista for quite some time yet. (at least until SP1 comes out) - Years of experience advise against any new Microsoft Product - just think of all the anti-microsoft hackers deconstructing the OS shell to find loopholes and flaws !!
 
Watch out for Vista on a base Dell model. My mother in law ordered a Dell Inspiron 1501 in its base configuration (512 MB of RAM). It is chronically underspecced for Vista - perfectly ok for XP. The base requirement for Vista should be minimum 1G of RAM. With 512Mb it take 5-6 minutes to boot up and monitoring the memory consumption I can see Vista consumes 90% of the RAM simply in standby - at this level the PC is so slow as to be unusable. I have ordered another 512Mb of RAM and hopefully this should fix the problem.
 
yeah - sorry should have mentioned that too about the ram requirement - when on the dell website they will recommend 2gb for vista !
 
Cheers for the advice.
Will probably go the dell route alright. Wanted to dumb it down because he is useless(almost dangerous) when it comes to electronics.
Got him a 'plug n play' DVD player and some westerns last year and he rang me to say it was broken and it wouldn't play. Long story short - never put the discs in - he thought it would automatically "play the films on the boxes" he said.

Computer should give him minutes of fun
 
Why not ask about and see if you can get a 2nd hand PC. An old machine with Windows 98 will be fine for Emails and Web. Then if he starts to outgrow it, get a new one. Ask around.
 
Already has one that my brother gave him a few years ago. Seems to have a mind of its own. Brother has been able to keep it operating until now but half the time it wont even come on and is extremely slow surfing. Not really worth fixing up and the space freed up by a laptop would be handy for him(small house)
 
You might consider a macbook from Apple - especially if your Dad is a novice. With all due respect to Windows, the mac os is just plain easier to use. An entry-level macbook will cost you a lot more than an entry-level Dell (although many macs are less expensive than an equally specced Dell). You can get certified refurbished models from the online Apple Store [broken link removed].
 
BlueSpud said:
Why not ask about and see if you can get a 2nd hand PC. An old machine with Windows 98 will be fine for Emails and Web. Then if he starts to outgrow it, get a new one. Ask around.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't recommend this route myself.

The PC will be very slow - ok for basic surfing maybe and running an old version of Office (maybe) and a very small and slow hard drive, no USB support.

But then he will install Google Desktop and other free software and it will start to slow down. Next, someone will buy your Dad a digital camera, and he will start shooting pictures & video and want to transfer them via USB and edit them using free software such as Google Picasa, then email them etc. Windows 98 on an old PC is not going to cut it.
 
I agree with Monsieur Bond and Brendan. Why not try the Dell Outlet site? Their lower-end laptops seem mostly to come with XP Pro SP2, not Vista. Here's a half-decent Inspiron 640M (1.83 GHz Core Duo Processor, 1024MB DDR2 SDRAM) for around the €700 mark, for example.

The man's worked hard all his life; surely he deserves better than a creaky old paving slab of a yoke that takes five minutes to boot up and keeps freezing on him? Get him something halfway decent and he'll be blogging away with the best of them in no time!
 
Apple sounds better for him user wise but will probably go with the dell option. 700 quid probably isn't too much to spend on him I suppose.

He will have to guarentee me he wont kick the bucket for a few years!!(may get a heart attack if he gets into the porn sites though )
 

Just in case, it may be worth checking this PC for trojans/spyware, browser hi-jacking or malware. A lot of puters seem to "slow down" etc, due to these infections.

Watch the sites the auld fella is visiting, and make sure you take precautions regarding the above mentioned.

Also, stop using MS Internet Explorer and start using Firefox. Much more secure and less prone to attacks.

check out this link for help with this.

Simply buying a new computer isn't always the solution.
 
He got a basic 1501 Inspiron from dell which arrived yesterday (complete with vista). Brother had ordered it and didn't hear about the vista issue. Hopefully it wont cause too many problems for him.

Cheers for the info.
 
Hope that PC has enough memory - it needs at least 1G of RAM. See my earlier post.
 
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