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Raw Bytes Computer News KPBX FM 91.1 Radio National Public Radio Network Frank Delaney Producer Broadcast on Thursday Morning 7:35 AM During Morning Edition Support Public Radio ! The Theater Of the Mind |
In computer news this week - 12/14/2005 |
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Buying that Christmas computer
– have prices ever plummeted .... Dell computers
is #1 in
the direct market channel, followed by Hewlett Packard. I have more
confidence in Dell. Dell is
offering a Bargain
Basement CPU for $ 299 with a mail-in rebate. This is a complete computer
and Monitor and keyboard for this incredibly low price. It’s a little
underpowered in terms of it’s Celeron processor, a little short on RAM
at only 256Mb, has no speakers, no writable media drive, just a regular cdrom drive, and of
course no floppy disk drive anymore. But it is a complete system, 40 gig hard
disk, and comes with a word processor and a lot of other software, a modem, a
network card, and would actually be a nice gift under your tree with a few
additions. But often
you can get much better value when you buy up just a little higher in
Dell’s specials. I think I’d look up to the next model - at their E310
model for $ 499 – which comes with a true Pentium processor for a
little more horsepower, an 80 Gig hard disk, and a free upgrade to a flat
panel monitor. But again, you’d want to upgrade the ram in this to at
least 512 MB for another $ 40, get a writeable cdrom drive which adds another
$ 40, again you’d need speakers for another $ 20 to hear all the
internet sounds, I think
I’d probably buy their next
model up – their XPS
400 – at $ 899, which comes with a faster Pentium processor, 512Mb
ram, 80 gig hard disk, better video card, a DVD and writable cdrom drive, free
upgrade to a better flat panel monitor, but again you have to buy better
speakers for another $ 30. Again it comes with free word processing software
– Word Perfect –( does anyone remember
word perfect ?) but I’d buy the Microsoft office basic package for $
149 which includes Word, Outlook, and excel. This puts it over $ 1000 but you have
a powerful computer and good software. On
Notebooks, Dell is offering a budget model Inspiron 510 at $ 499 but I’d but the Inspiron 6000 for $ 789 with Rebate, which is a wide
screen Pentium processor notebook, 512Mb ram, 60 Gig hard disk, combo cd/dvd
burner, Centrino technology wireless card which is the best, and again
I’d add the Microsoft
office basic package for $ 149. This is a really nice notebook computer as I
helped a friend set his up and was very impressed with it ,
for under $ 1000. I was
thinking we’d have to plug into my dsl line
to test his internet connection, but his wireless card detected 8 wireless
networks in my neighborhood, 6 of which were wide open, so we just mooched
off somebody’s unsecured network for awhile. We didn’t even have
to get in my car and do some Wardriving.
They were all right there at my kitchen table. I hope
Santa leaves you that one computer item you’ve been hoping for –
if you’ve been good of course. For Raw Bytes This is Frank Delaney (C) 2005 MTA Micro
Technology Associates http://www.mtamicro.com/kpbx.html PO Box 31522 Spokane, Wa 99223-1522 (509)624-7230 |
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