South Africa. Affordable desktop & on site.

[cavortingcheetah]

Hello there one and all.
My father in law, who is rather less computer literate than I am, lives in Johannesburg and thinks he wants to buy a desktop with 4GB RAM and a minimum of 500GB memory. Lenovo has been suggested as a brand but, as with so much of SA, on site maintenance is pretty non existent as so much in the computer industry, including Apple, seems to run through franchise or reseller outlets.
Thank you in advance for any information or suggestions.
cc

[Tableview]

When I recently replaced by 2 year old HP desktop after a lightning strike, I took advice and generally the suggestion was to get a laptop rather than another desktop. Whilst the desktop is cheaper the laptop offers other advantages, and if it does go wrong, is easily transported back to a repair facility. I bought a Lenovo Z580 which has 1TB memory, probably a zillion times more than I need, and if I use it at home I hook it up to a bigger screen and keyboard.

[mixture]

Whilst the desktop is cheaper the laptop offers other advantages, and if it does go wrong, is easily transported back to a repair facility.

Wrong buying decision.

The laptop is more likely to go wrong. Its smaller, more parts squashed closer together, more complexity, stronger heat stresses. They are also more expensive than desktops and less powerful than desktops

The rule of thumb is ..... don't buy a laptop unless you need one. They are not really made for continuous operation day in day out.

If you really need an easy to transport desktop, look at "small form factor" models that range from stupidly tiny to the size of a couple of chunky phone books. But for stability and reliability you want a tower form where stuff is less crammed together.

[Milo Minderbinder]

the truth is, for reliability you can't really beat Dell desktops
In the main they're overengineered with oversize heat sinks and go on forever. The downside is the contruction tends to mean that motherboards and power units are non-standard, and adapting something to fit a failed one can sometimes be a challenge (though usually resolvable).

As tlo a laptop - avoid unless you really need. Too unreliable, and as good as unrepairable if a motherboard fails out of warranty (and it will.....)
If you have cats or children around, consider yourself lucky if a laptop lasts more than a year

[Saab Dastard]

It would appear, judging by the posts by cavortingcheetah and Tableview, that in SA "memory" means HDD capacity.

Is this the case?

The laptop is more likely to go wrong.

They are not really made for continuous operation day in day out.
Regarding laptop vs. desktop - I have probably spent as much if not more time using a work laptop than a home desktop, and observed laptops in use in corporate environments hugely outnumbering desktops, but never experienced or noticed a significant failure rate of laptops.

My personal experience of this is borne out by a quite recent study by MS Research: Cycles, Cells and Platters: An Empirical Analysis of Hardware Failures on a Million Consumer PCs - Microsoft Research (http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/default.aspx?id=144888).

The relevant findings are that laptops are actually more reliable than desktops, and that branded PCs (e.g. Dell, Lenovo, HP, etc.) are significantly less prone to failures than "white box" PCs.

It is true that for a given cost, a desktop will usually have a higher specification than a laptop, and desktops have the greater upgradability, although in reality this difference is probably (although significantly) limited to video card upgrades, as it's just as straightforward to upgrade memory (that's RAM in SA) and HDD (that's memory in SA) in a laptop as in a desktop.

SD

[Milo Minderbinder]

that research used data from the "windows error reporting system" which only reports on machines which throw crash errors
It doesn't report on machines which have failed. In the main more machines die than error, often the failure on a laptop is due to external causes e.g. broken screen / case / chassis keyboard, or else is a direct result of an overheat killing the motherboard. Or is an instant failure -e.g. the nVidia graphic chip issue, where the board suddenly fails when the solder cracks.

The M$ report is too selective in what it analyses to represent the real overall failure pattern

[Saab Dastard]

Milo, I appreciate that.

However, I have observed the massive increase in the use of laptops in the corporate environment, and I have not been aware of a commensurate increase in failures. At least not in the "professional quality" laptops that corporates (can afford to?) buy.

I see laptops being hammered day-in-day-out without problems. Possibly the office environment is less damaging than a home environment (absence of pet hairs, soft furnishings etc.), although I wouldn't say it is less dusty! :hmm:

There does seem to be a noticeable difference between "home" and "office" quality in reliability surveys, even from the same manufacturer, so perhaps the moral is to buy from the "office" range.

FWIW, my personal laptop is a Lenovo Thinkpad, so I do practice what I preach! ;)

Having said that, 3 out of 4 home PCs are self-built, as is my home server. At least I know how to fix 'em!

SD

[Milo Minderbinder]

as regards the actual mechanics thats probably true: too many purchase laptops from the low cost makers where the motherboards and cooling quite simply are not up to the job. With the low availability of spares due to the short production runs, these low cost machines are a liability.
Machines from Dell & Lenovo, and the higher end HP machines tend to be more reliable - when you take one apart you can see why, with much more robust construction.
However, you can buy a reliable desktop for half the price of one of these better spec laptops
To make a true evaluation, besides the cost price and component reliabilty, you have to also factor in
breakability
ease of repair
availability of parts / commonality of spares
and on all those laptops come a poor second

[Fareastdriver]

I'm with Saab here. My 1997 Twinhead Win95 is still goimg albeit the irreplacable Nicad battery will last only ten minutes. However it can still turnover PPICA and floppy discs. My 2004 Acer XP3 goes on and on though it shuts down sometimes when it overheats. It has had two serious snags; a hard drive failure that saw it's original 40Gb unit replaced by an 80Gb. A memory card failure caused all sorts of problems until it was identified as not a programing glitch. A birthday present of a Samsung 170 notebook caused that one's retirement.

The Samsung as upgaded fowm W7 basic to Premum and a notebook cradle and fan purchased (Poundland) to keep it cool. It has a seperate DVD R/R. keyboard, mouse and is topped wih a 24" HD TV display. It has been running like this for over two years with only one programing issue that I solved. The whole lot, except the TV, can be put in a drawer and if I want to take it with me somewhere it can go into a big pocket.

Gaming and heavy video use, yes, a desktop, but for personal use the smaller the better.

[cavortingcheetah]

Saab Dastard, thank you for the response and yes, memory and HDD, as I understand it, are the same.
Understanding RAM versus hard-drive space via an analogy | MacFixIt - CNET Reviews (http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20039455-263.html)
It's a tricky persona decision for the individual concerned because he is very old and dangerously computer illiterate outside of his very narrow usage envelope. He's also limited by finance and the fact that there seems to be little in the way of manufacturer back up in South Africa, everything seemingly having to go through resellers such as Game or Dion Wired.
If he could afford it, I daresay the best option would be a laptop, keyboard and decent sized screen with the laptop remaining on but lid closed most of the time but that does bring a cost penalty into the equation and no one, apart from Apple/Core Group, seems to have anything approaching a service back up system. Laptop brands in SA seem to change flavours almost monthly so parts availability can be difficult. The matter is further complicated, as some will know, by the additional fact that lightening strikes are an ever present problem and if you don;t pull the plugs in time....?
Thank you all very much for the input and please do no desist from further comment. It's all useful and much appreciated. Enjoy your weekends.
cc

[cockney steve]

C C -whilst I'm not as thick as pig**** where computers are concerned, I'm no Einstein either. (I leave it to 2 sons in I.T .!)
There are several websites which review all computer stuff. being old and semi-senile, I can't remember the one I used about 6 years ago when I built my current desktop.

Easy-peasy.... case with power-supply.
motherboard to support the.......
.... cpu of choice.
Graphics card
memory modules
Hard-drive (storage-memory)
Sound card (if it's not on the motherboard)
DVD read/writer.
floppy disc drive if required/available/supported.
Keyboard/mouse.
monitor.
You may well have some of the peripherals already and reuse them.

Anyone with basic reading and tool-skills can screw in or plug-in the various bits, a couple of hours for the newbie. Easier than flatpack furniture and NO tech knowledge required.

Apart from the graphics card croaking, upgraded to a newer, better and cheaper one(old one had a blown capacitor,-replaced and now a spare unit) mine has been in constant use plugged in 24/7....sometimes there's a power cut ....press the button away it goes.....Operating system is FREE ...primarily developed for Africa, iirc,- It's UBUNTU LINUX from Canonical....free to download, or email for a free CD....the whole world's Linux users are (sometimes unwitting) developers and there are regular FREE upgrades....NEVER again , the Microshaft "blue screen of death".

Recently plugged in a colour laser printer...recognised, worked:).....and I haven't upgraded my OS for about 4 years...my version is well obsolete and not supported any more- don't care, it aint broke, leave alone!

to reiterate,- cheaper ,better quality. more robust, universal,compatible vomponents readily available. if he's put it together, he can maintain it, even if just to hoover out the dust and fluff occasionally.

Can't think of a downside other than portability.

The trusted reviewer i used was tomshardware dot co dot uk :ok:

[cavortingcheetah]

What he opted to do was to buy a Dell tower this afternoon.
6GB RAM and 500GB HDD, Windows 7 Professional which includes basic office and a Roxio DVD burner from the local branch of the Johannesburg Dell distributor. On site maintenance (apparently) is good for three years. The cost was £380 including keyboard and mouse. The tower came with 2GB RAM as standard and he wanted to put 2GB on it as an add on but IC only had a 4GB chip so they threw in the extra 2GB. It all helps. It's so fast compared with his now old tower which had 800MB of RAM that he'll be up all night just chasing his emails around the screen.
Thanks to all of you for your help and advice. I hope I don't need to ask how to put right a faulty Dell tower.