

A PC For Tightwads 19
ThinSkin writes "What can a $159 fetch you these days? Apparently a PC that includes Linspire, a keyboard, mouse, and speakers. ExtremeTech's Loyd Case took the plunge with this $159 PC and come out quite impressed--with a little cheating of course. From the article: 'If you're willing to spend just a bit more for some more memory, you'd end up with a highly capable light duty office system for less than buying Microsoft Windows and Office.'"
A message from SCO. (Score:1, Funny)
cheap for a reason... (Score:3, Insightful)
If all you want is something to write emails with or whatever then that's good.
I guess it serves a purpose but I'd rather see some innovation. This isn't creative, it's just OLD. How about you make a PC out of an IBM 405 [or 440] PPC processor, 128MB of SDRAM, 512M flash. some Linux distro, etc. That box would take far less power, be smaller and be just as capable to write emails.
Tom
[*] you could build the same PC out of a MIPS or ARM processor... I just have a PPC fetish lately
Re:cheap for a reason... (Score:4, Insightful)
I thought ECS was some company that just makes junk disguised as something that might be useful.
For game play, one might as well just stick to a console computer.
Re:cheap for a reason... (Score:2)
While a RAID setup is not a "backup" it's more reliable then just putting it on a single drive. Losing even a single "really productive day" of work can be disheartening and a setback.
Tom
Re:cheap for a reason... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:cheap for a reason... (Score:3, Insightful)
Copying to another HD is a good temp storage but not a backup.
Tom
Re:cheap for a reason... (Score:2, Informative)
An ECS motherboard, onboard video, small PSU, 256MB of RAM is exactly (it's creepy how exactly actually) the machine we buy for most people in our office. If I could tell my boss that a new computer was $159 (or $200
Re:cheap for a reason... (Score:2)
On the otherhand when I chose ECS a few years back [around 2003 or so] I had no end of trouble. They didn't really support AGP and the over
Re:cheap for a reason... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:cheap for a reason... (Score:2)
A 400Mhz PPC [IBM 405] processor draws less than a Watt of power, in turn the power supply doesn't have to be as big [and wasteful, keep in mind they're not 100% efficient]. You won't need a huge moth
Re:PC for the Low Paid (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:PC for the Low Paid (Score:2)
Re:PC for the Low Paid (Score:1)
True, there's not a lot of room to upgrade, which is what I always look for in a personal system. I think that by throwing on a case you can upgrade, the extra $20 at newegg (how much I got mine for, which has 3 spare CD/DVD bays and 4 HD bays) saves you so much more down the line when all y
You don't need much these days (Score:2)
Re:You don't need much these days (Score:1)
I was able to pick up a $220 dollar computer (granted after rebates) with 512MB ram, 160Gb sata drive, 16x dl dvd+-RW, amd 64 3500+. The biggest down side for me is that it says compaq
keep an eye out for those 6 hour only sales at compUSA... The key is to look at upgrades carfuly.. for 20 dollars that ma
Bargain PCs (Score:1)
It's the old adage of you get what you pay for. These PCs are perfect for a first PC where the user might not be able to handle a high end PC's capabilities.
Not everyone is after a high end gaming machine. Some literally just want to use an office type program, surf the web, email, and play Solitaire.
It's the stupid salespeople selling these expensive computers just for the purpose of getting their profits up so they can win that incentive the big bosses put out. Not all salespeople are like that but th
Imagine a... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's got a good network card, a half decent amount of RAM and a harddisk. I'm seeing a fileserver, bittorent client, tomcat, CVS, distcc, firewall, game/print server etc. It takes cheap DDR, so if you want to run JBoss or MySQL that is a real possibility, but what I'm thinking is stick a $20 WiFi card in it, and stick it in a cupboard/basement away from harms reach.
I have a PowerBook and a iMac G5, and although both of these are fully capable of running all of those applications, I like keeping my development boxes 'clean'. Farming out essential, but resource nibbling tasks out to smaller, disposable boxes makes a lot of sense to me.
ECS Motherboard (Score:2)