[J.W]

Buying a new computer for a friend for around 400 / 500 sheets (normal, not laptop).  Just wondering if anyone had any suggestions for decent deals.  Was thinking of looking at a Dell - anyone got one from there? - any good?

Also, whats the up to date thinking on XP v.s Vista?  If I'm buying a new computer does it make sense to get it with Vista on - doesn't seem to cost much more...  Or is it still so slow and hopeless that everyone is still using XP?  Also if anyone is using Vista, whats the deal with free software - does AVG etc work no problems...

Any suggestions welcome...

[GCW]

Personally I would avoid Vista, far too hungry.
Where you go depends on what specs you want and what you will use the PC for.

[slackline]

Wouldn't be the same if I didn't wave the flag for GNU/Linux 

Dell now ship with Ubuntu pre-installed.  About the only thing you'll have to be wary of is ipod's can be a bit of a faff to get working under GNU/Linux, but still perfectly achievable.

[Jim]

don't get vista. everyone I know thinks its shit (apart from uncle)

[underground]

don't get vista. everyone I know thinks its shit (apart from uncle)

I'm doing OK with it but it was a right twat to get working with half my hardware (the Netgear modem just wouldn't go wireless). And the explorer interface is a bag of shite. I replaced it ASAP with Directory Opus.

I had to create a javascript thingybob to get the ipfilter blocklist to work with utorrent also.

It looks nice though 

[Jim]

so does the new yorks guide, doesn't mean its any good now does it?

[GCW]

Bill Gates= Mick Ryan?

[J.W]

Thanks folks.

Think I'll get one from Dell...  Gonna have to have a proper look into the XP versus Vista thing.  Guess I was hoping that people would say - "Vista was rubbish early on, but now SP1 has come out things are much better"...  It kinda seems daft buying a new computer with an old operating system on, which Msoft will probably stop supporting in a year or so...  But if Vista really is that slow, maybe I'm gonna have to do just that...

(If it was just for me, I'd be very tempted to have a look at Linux...  But for the person this computer is for, that really wouldn't be a good idea...)

[Control freak]

You could start off on Vista and then when you're feeling up to it, upgrade to XP

[Jim]

nice link Nick. Vista really is a pile of steaming dogshit thats come out of a cats arse

[xelaxela]

Dell arnt bad try Acer aswell there usually not bad and quite cheep. in my opinion id stay away from vista and go for a unix based o/s such as fedora core 8