Good friends asked me to assist them to purchase a new PC. Their five-year-old Win95 computer was choking on new devices and plug-ins for their Internet browser--it was definitely time to upgrade.
We began by talking about what they wanted to do with the new computer. They went back-and-forth with one another about this-and-that. In the end they decided on a good quality PC with average features and a flat-screen monitor. The key was keeping the price under $1,000.
I recommended a Dell Dimension 4600 with a Pentium® 4 Processor running at 2.66GHz with 533MHz front side bus...
For the operating system we went with Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional. It is more expensive than the Home version, but we were going to set up a network and there were a few other possibilities that pushed things in the Professional direction.
We included 256MB Dual Channel DDR SDRAM running at 333MHz and a 40GB Ultra ATA/100 Hard Drive (7200 RPM). We also put both a 16x DVD ROM Drive and a 48x CDRW Drive with Sonic RecordNow software and added Microsoft Worksuite® and Norton Antivirus® 2003 with a 12-month subscription upgrade.
We opted for the 64MB DDR NVIDIA GeForce4 MX™ Graphics Card with TV-Out and DVI because they were into both still and video cameras. When combined with Integrated 5.1 Audio with Dolby Digital 5.1 capability, the PC would be a decent multimedia performer--not an official Multimedia PC, but close enough. A few other details were selected and the total came to $984.
I made the purchase for them and a week later the PC was delivered. A few days later Janet and I stopped by for dinner and I moved their old PC to a new location and got their new computer installed and configured in a total of forty-five minutes. They were very excited.
I stopped by today to play with them and we setup new email accounts. They are purchasing some supplies and I will go by for a few minutes tomorrow to network the computers and install Quicken for them. It is a lot of fun to see people who are truly enjoying the features of a new computer.
