Computer speak

[tamidon]

So, Alyssa's computer died and we need to replace it. We can't find an XP recovery disk,and even if we did, it's probably cheaper just to buy a new computer given it's other problems. I take it when a refurbed computer is described as being "off lease" that means it was once leased to a company before being resold?

Comments

[chocorua.livejournal.com]

Yep. Usually ~3 years old, which would make them XP-capable but not much use for Vista. Watch the fans and hard drive for end-of-life, as a lot of corporate machines will have been on 24/7.

Regarding the old machine, HP still will sell you disks to restore all the factory software, but I don't think Dell will.

[tamidon.livejournal.com]

I suspect we will go for something like this (http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11269721&whse=BC&Ne=5000000%204000000&eCat=BC|84|56671&N=4017755%205000014&Mo=15&No=3&Nr=P_CatalogName:BC&Ns=P_Price|0||P_SignDesc1&lang=en-US&Sp=C&hierPath=84*56671*4773*&topnav=) since it's backed by Costco,who,tho limited in choice,seem much better at supporting and backing up their products. I could go cheaper with tiger direct,but not so much trust

[chocorua.livejournal.com]

The $329 PC has more disk and CPU than I'd buy for myself. I would probably try to get a pre-installed WinXP rather than Vista, but for that price you can throw the Vista away if it annoys. My current quandry is buying something in that class for FreeBSD/XWindows, which requires much poking about re: display controllers and LAN interfaces.

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

Yes, but your requirements for multimedia capabilities are far below (I'm guessing) the requirements in the next 2-3 years of the owner of this machine... and 160 GB of disk holds far less (legally obtained, even) video than you'd expect.

I wouldn't go top of the line for her, but I'd go up from the bottom of said line, too.