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New desktop advice


-Alex-

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Yet again I turn to CR for electronics advice.

 

Here's the deal. My wife and I, like most people, load our iPhones up with pics and vids and very rarely back them up. We use our phones and iPad for Internet surfing at the house because our laptop is outdated and pretty much out of storage. Recently she had trouble with her 5, had to get it replaced, and since she had not backed it up since July (yeah, I know lol), she lost a lot of random stuff, including a video of me bringing our son into our home for the first time (them feels). I will not stand for this, no sir. Since we never take our laptop out of the room it's in, I've decided to buy a desktop to take over those duties. Seems like you get better hardware for less money when it's immobile, right?

 

I'm a simple man. I don't need anything above average really, looking to stay around $500ish. I'm pretty clueless when it comes to computer stuff, so talking about little details will probably mean nothing to me, haha.

 

CR, I appreciate your help and am forever in debt to your wisdom and lol's.

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Best advice i have:

 

Stay away from big box stores. Attempt to build one yourself, or have someone do it for you. Head to micro center with your budget in mind. Tell one of the reps in the Build Your Own department what you want to do. They will help you pick our some cost effective hardware. Bring it home and follow this guide: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/274745-31-step-step-guide-building. Post to CR any issues you have.

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icloud backup is free up to 5 GB? If it happens to be larger you can always backup your iphone to your computer laptop or desktop. If you want a desktop figure out your price budget. You can get a slow refurbished PC that will run netflix, youtube, and word processing for $200 at micro center. What do you want to spend and what do you want to do on the computer?

 

Try this. They are all around $200-500

 

http://www.microcenter.com/search/search_results.aspx?N=4294967292+519&Ntk=all

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Budget is $500ish. I live in the sticks, so I've never even heard of Micro Center. It will most likely be purchased from a big name retailer, as I don't have the time or knowledge to build my own or know anyone who will. Basically I'm looking for advice on what's a decent computer I can walk into a store, bust out 5 bills or so, go home and be done with my desktop shopping. This is more of a "take care of the wife and kid" luxury item than "pls help need ultimate computer on budget" kinda thing. I appreciate the advice on the iCloud and whatnot, but that's not what I'm looking for. I want a computer with a keyboard and mouse, not only for my wife and I to use, but I also figure in a year or two my son will be able to start using it for educational games.

 

Saw this last night after I quick search. Seems to have twice as much storage/memory as the Dells in the same price range. Opinions? Again, just looking for something for basic use that should last a few years. Boring, I know, but I'm clueless about electronics is why I posted this here.

 

http://www.walmart.com/msharbor/ip/24699992?adid=1500000000000012981640&veh=mweb

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Also in regards to pics and videos you take if you download the photobucket app it will automatically download the pic or video you take after you take the picture/video. So that way its always there In case stuff breaks. Now this is how it works on android but im sure it works the same on iphone.
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There are definitely some options for you. You could explore cloud storage as others have stated. It is possible (depending on your wifi/setup) to hook an external USB hard drive to your router and create your own cloud. You could just send photos/videos/etc... to the networked hard drive. That would be a cheaper option than a desktop even if you have to buy a new wifi router to do it.

 

Building a desktop is very easy as others have stated if that is the route you really want to take. Microcenter is nerd Mecca and they are great at catering to BYO PC builders. You can get software such as the OS at a cheaper price if you ask for the system builders version. You'll pay a little more for the hardware at Microcenter but no waiting on stuff to be shipped and you can just return it and replace if a component doesn't work.

 

I personally would recommend staying away from any mass manufactured desktop. Hard to avoid if you want a laptop but there are so many better options if getting a desktop. The major manufacturers (such as Dell) are all struggling financially and I wouldn't trust most (especially Dell) to be around too long and you may lose product support. That and they tend to load their computers with software that just bogs everything down.

 

Just my .02 cents.

 

Pavo

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Pass on that hp from walmart. Pentium processors suck donkey dick. Find a quad core amd or i series instead.

 

Thank you. This is the kind of stuff I'm looking for. I realize some of you are just as knowledgable and passionate about computers as you are cars, so I feel like you may need to dumb it down a bit for me lol

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Thank you. This is the kind of stuff I'm looking for. I realize some of you are just as knowledgable and passionate about computers as you are cars, so I feel like you may need to dumb it down a bit for me lol

 

Ugh, i dread the idea of buying a prebuilt PC from somewhere. They ALWAYS load them up with all kinda of trial, and BS software that pester and bug you to buy full versions and slow your machine down.

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