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Still pushing Macintosh, but until then...

J

jshelton

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 4, 2008
528
8
My Mom is getting a new computer. I have tried to influence her decision, but she doesn't want to spend a lot on a Mac.

I know this is MacRumors, but I don't want her to end up with a POS. She doesn't really want to spend more than $500-$600. What desktops in that price range would you suggest.

She just needs it for the basics e.g., surfing, email, photos.

Thanks for the help.
 
If she already has a monitor, keyboard, and mouse then a mini would be fine.

Or an ipad if all she's doing is surfing, email, and photos.
 
+1 on a new Mini...if she already has a computer, then she already has a monitor and mouse.
 
She doesn't have a computer at all. She and my Dad were divorced recently and he is taking the old Dell desktop.

No monitor, keyboard, or mouse.
 
jshelton said:
She doesn't have a computer at all. She and my Dad were divorced recently and he is taking the old Dell desktop.

No monitor, keyboard, or mouse.
Click to expand...

For general use, I'd say iPad if you have another computer to sync it with (your computer?) or a MacBook.
 
Tell her to get one of the mid-range Vaios. Still Windows, but at least they're not Dells :)
 
Shame you live in America, I am in the UK and was going to offer you my first gen Macbook Air at an amazing price!!!! Just got a Pro so no longer needed.
Oh well ebay it is.
HP are actually doing some fairly nice if basic all in ones now. They are like an imac just no where near as good but should be fine for basic stuff. Try this one
http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/computer_can_series.do?storeName=computer_store&category=desktops&a1=Category&v1=All-in-One+PCs&series_name=MS230z_series&jumpid=in_R329_prodexp/hhoslp/psg/desktops/All-in-One_PCs/MS230z_series

As I said pretty basic stuff but the ones we have sold here have actually been ok for the price
 
No vaio's, no hps, both have terrible build quality (YES Vaios have TERRIBLE build quality unless you spend $$$ then itll be good at first then die later). I fix these two brands (and dells) ALL the time.

What I don't fix all the time because they almost never have a problem and are the only win machine I would buy is Asus. (Please do not confuse this with acer)

Asus gives you a pretty good bang for your buck and have a great built quality. IMO Asus is the Apple of the windows world.


I'm not basing my experience with dells, sonys and hps on just a few machines either. I've worked for several large companies and had to service these brands (and others) all the time because I worked in IT. Dells by far were the worse, followed by Sony, followed by HP as far as needing repairs and having hardware failures.
 
For a desktop, non-mac, you get good bang for your buck (and I've had good luck) with scratch'n'dent from revonate.com. The ones I've gotten are hardly scuffed at all even though they are labeled scratch and dent- so for most practical purposes they are new. Really good price, but if something goes wrong, I suspect the service is rather non-existent.
 
From the sounds of it, you're going to end up being the IT tech for your mom. So you should carry some weight in the decision. Think of it this way, if she buys a PC, it'll come with 1 year of virus protection, but after that, you're on your own. Sure, there's free AV software, but who wants to mess around with that.

Have her buy a mac and you won't have to worry about tech support. It'll save her a lot of time and save you a lot of headaches. Trust me, being the family IT support guy isn't fun. I find that I got fewer calls from my sister when she went Mac.

At $600 you could get a previous gen Mac mini (perhaps a refurb). Throw in keyboard/monitor/mouse and you're set.
 
Not sure if you're in the states but if your only alternative is Windows, Ubuntu is a great way to go. Dell has pre-installed machines, although it is running 9.10 as 10.10 is coming out, I would upgrade it for her. No worry about A/V or general security issues.

http://www.dell.com/ubuntu
 
jshelton said:
My Mom is getting a new computer. I have tried to influence her decision, but she doesn't want to spend a lot on a Mac.
Click to expand...

Sadly: her money, her decision. Your sig. says you have you have a MacBook. You could share, or if your old enough to have your own money, chip in.
 
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