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Im thinking of buying a basic Dell PC for my daughter, she will use it to download/play music, web browsing, burn CD, watch DVD, MSN, etc

Will this be Ok?

 http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?b&c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&oc=D01116&rbc=D01116&s=dhs&sbc=ukdhsrsdimen_1100_2



Thanks, Tom

ok here goes.

i would recommend more memory - 256MB is a little "light" for running XP - also I believe that these machines have "integrated graphics" on the motherboard which steals some of your 256MB to run the graphics. This would leave you even less.

In saying that 58 quid for 256MB of memory is a bit steep - you could buy a 256 MB memory DIMM for about £30 from any computer store and fit it yourself, but I dont know what that would do to the warranty.

I agree with Lazaroonie on this front.

Other than that the machine is more than enough to handle everything.

Thanks, the total price comes out at £286 if we include speakers and drop the extended warranty

could we add extra memory easily after the standard warranty expires?

Will that processor be ok? I understand that's difficult to change later

Can I do it with a hammer and chisel?

Adding memory is easy, and I think european law dictates that it can't invalidate your warranty - would have to double check that though.

Processors are trickier to change but that on will be fine for normal usage.

I recommend 1gig of ram. More than anything else this is the bottleneck in most pc's these days.

Unless you are planning to play cutting edge games on the machine (which are the only real processor hungry programs you can run), everything else looks fine. 80gig of hard drive should certainly keep you going for now. Its not huge but unless your downloading dvd's it should be fine.

changing the memory is really easy, especially with these new cases they use on pc's. no tools required whatsoever.

Processors are a bit more difficult. I doubt you would be changing this though. Unless you are going to want to play the latest games or do video editing and the like the celerons are good enough.

One other thing which may be worth enquiring about would be if they would supply the memory as one single strip of 512MB - generally these machines only have two slots available and if you put in 2 X 256MB , then you are "full up" so to speak. If you put in one 512MB then you have some room for expansion in the future without having to throw away one or both of your memory strips.

The Dells are good machines. I have in the past bought A LOT of ex-lease dell pc's from a supplier and they are all going strong, with no noticable failures.

Thanks Guys, I really appreciate it, when it comes to computers I'm lost

On the other hand, if you ever need a pig worming......

I just upgraded my machine to 2 Gig of RAM.  It's a bit smoother but not really miles faster. Previously had 1 X 256 and 1 X 128 of RAM, lots of pauses and the odd crash.  None since the upgrade.

I echo the sentiments here. 512Mb is the minimum I would consider, although for £286 you can't grumble really.

If I were to buy a desktop system at the moment I would be hard pushed to find a better deal than those at Aldi. Although they would probably be out of the price range you are considering.