UKC

Hi folks,
Does anyone have a recommendation for a cheap and cheerful tower pc with fairly large monitor and decent keyboards?

My wife needs it to basically get on the net so via our wifi box down stairs and store 1000's of PDF's and word documents so she will need an up to date word package and whatever the newest Microsoft package is.

Written in a rush so I may have missed something but hopefully you'll get the jist. Also, is a couple of hundred quid enough? (Her work have given her this towards it but am hoping this will cover it all, should do shouldn't it?)

Thanks in advance, Den

PS, don't really want a laptop unless you can recommend one the same as above within that price and we can just buy a monitor.

In reply to Denni:

You can get a basic desktop computer for £200 but one that includes a screen (let alone a "fairly large" one) will be a bit of a stretch. You certainly won't get a complete version of Microsoft Office included at that kind of price.

In reply to Denni:

£200 is pretty low for a PC, but you can them, things like this

http://www.ebuyer.com/662244-zoostorm-desktop-pc-7260-6013 for example

But for that you don't even get an operating system or a screen, let along Microsoft office etc. Also although I've no doubt it would handle PDF's and word it'll be really lacking power and be quite slow.

I'd get her to go back to her work and say there is no chance you can get what she needs for £200. £500, would be more realistic and even that's cheap.

In reply to Denni:


Sorry, I'd say that her work is more realistic in that £200 will fund part of the kit, no chance of getting it all for that I'm afraid.

In reply to Denni:

You will either have to revise your budget upwards or go for a modest specification and go to guys like these.
http://www.reboot-forres.co.uk/

There should be outfits like that all round the country in various forms.

In reply to Denni:

Does anyone else find it pretty irritating when someone posts asking for advice, gets a load of helpful replies and then can't even be bothered to come back with a thank you?

In reply to Luke90:

Give the bloke a a chance its only been 2 days.
Besides, there was an advanced thanks in the op.

In reply to Run_Ross_Run:

He's been back on the forums to flog his stuff, he just didn't bother with this thread. I'm not all that annoyed with this individual, it's just a bit of an irritating pattern on this forum generally. To be fair, the forum software doesn't make it easy to spot when people reply to your threads.

In reply to Luke90:
Thank you for your replies above and I did say advanced thanks meaning to me I can just glean the information with no need to reply but I'll check in more often from now on ;0)

Have scoured the net and found a tower, monitor and keyboard for £280 but I'll just need to purchase office now.
Thanks all for your replies, defo needed more money, I thought for some reason they would be fairly cheap.

In reply to Denni:

A copy of Microsoft Office 2013 for business use would set you back £200 on its own! You might be able to avoid shelling out that much by:
1) Getting a copy from her work. Depends on what type of licence they have, larger organisations often have licences (called site licenses) that allow them to install it on work machines, even if that machine is off-site.
2) Paying (or persuading work to pay) a monthly or annual fee for office 365. Currently £6pcm or £60pa
3) If the documents are simple, using an alternative piece of software. Examples are WPS (formerly Kingsoft) Office, OpenOffice and LibreOffice. None of these programs are perfectly compatible with Word, but they get quite close. You can also get remarkably far with Google docs.
4) Buying a second hand copy. Office licences are transferable, so it is legit. You have to be careful though, as a lot of "second hand" copies of office available online are actually pirated. So they might suddenly stop working.