I’ve read every response here. A good sampling of data.
A follow-up question would be, Who buys these $2000-3000 systems for home use? Maybe those are the people with the Cadillac SUV’s?Of my OP.
My theory is that, financially speaking, one reaches a point of “diminishing returns” in regards to money spent in ratio to power and capability gained.
From what I have observed, the difference between two thousand and three thousand dollar computers in terms of capability isn’t nearly as big as the difference between eight hundred dollar and eighteen hundred dollar computers. I like that eighteen hundred dollar range as a nice compromise between power and economy.
“The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance – it is the illusion of knowledge.”
–Daniel J Boorstin
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- I don’t think I ever heard of AOL removing a comment for such a reason. This was when AOL CD’s were still raining from the skies. Then as now, pretty much every OEM computer came with AOL auto-loaded, with 50 or 100 or whatever-amount of free hours. AOL wouldn’t have had any reason to spare any brand on its help request boards; and anyway, reporting technical problems (and hopefully getting a solution) was what the whole thing was for. In fact, I’d see where if a user’s system was locking up, AOL would want to show that it wasn’t AOL’s fault.(-at least, not yet anyway)
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- I don’t know that the number of owners has any bearing; it’s the number of problems I’d be concerned about. I see a product with a lot of user problems, and people with a lot of different complaints. How many people I didn’t know, but the complaints/help requests weren’t the same question repeated 175 times; it was over a broad range of issues: some complex but most simple. That doesn’t sound like any computer I’d want. - MC
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i picked my computer up a few months ago at a pawn shop. i paid about 300 bucks for it and it was obsolete years ago.
but all i really need is internet access and a word processer.
but, it’s so much better than the antique i was running.
my old one was a 386 tandy. with a 14.4 modem.
and that one was top of the line when i bought it to replace a commodore 64.
i don’t need a 2000 dollar computer. and this one will probably suit me for a long time.
People give the thrift shops their old computer parts. Right now we have like ten dot matrix printers & 7 vga monitors. Neither of them seem to sell at $20.00 each.
$600 computers usually have the cheap chips. Used to be Cyrix’s which were only ‘performance’ rated. Another way of saying they are only 150hz but we did some odd mathematical equation youwouldn’t have to do in a million years and it did it as fast as a 300mhz pentium, so our chip is 300mhz PR.
Amd k2 450hz chips right now are about $45 each, the same price as a Intel 233. Go figure.
My computer cost $13,000.00 US dollars. I built it myself over a period of about 8 months. Although I think I spent too much on it, I don’t regret the decision and I use it for several hours daily for both work and play!
If anyone is interested I’ll post the specs and a picture if I still have one somewhere, if not I can prolly snap a quickie with the Webcam if ya ask nice!
-SS 
FWIW…
I drove a Honda Civic, and hate SUVs.
Teaching: The ultimate birth control method.
Um…that is, I drive a Honda Civic.
Well, I drove one, too, before it was totaled (no, not by me) a year ago.
Not me! This machine here a AMD K62 400MHz with all the trimmings. I built it myself when this was the hottest thing around. As a matter of fact, i did tech support for a big computer company. Thier comparable systems sold for $2,500. That’s BEFORE you add tax and shipping, etc (which by the way brings the total to about $3,000). I barely paid $1,000 for mine. 
The thing here is, if you really know what you are doing with computers (and everyone seems to think they do, but i digress, that’s another thread in itself…) building your own is a fantastic (and IMHO the only) option. However, for the average person that knows very little about them, that’s really hard, not to mention risky. Little fly by night computer shops really love to screw people over. Mostly on warranty and support issues really. Also, there are little shortcuts in building a computer that these people use to cut the cost on thier side. Things like winmodems, integrated motherboards, cheap refurbished hard drives, and celeron processors are ALL things to avoid. Sure they are cheaper, but you pay for it now in the form of cash or later in the form of mental anguish, lost data, and/or cash. And you thought mechanics were crooked. Geeez…
Though the big companies are not completely innocent of these practices, far from it. But, thier support is much better, and you can get replacement parts pretty easy if it is still under warranty (and ALWAYS buy the extended warranty).
And this posting comes with an asterisk… I absolutely HATE the deceptive shit these people do. I know what to look for and i see it every day, so i call b.s. on it really quick. But, all the little deceptive crap is really getting old, because its REALLY easy to fool the general public. An example of this (albiet a minor one, but this is my latest rant): There’s a new compaq commercial i’ve seen lately, advertising a new computer blah blah blah and FREE internet access! Of course, the word FREE has an asterisk (*) next to it, and near the bottom of your screen in really small print it says “Internet service provided by netzero”. Well, in case there are some of you who don’t know already, netzero is free for ANYONE regardless of what you own!!! That’s like if i told you, “Buy a computer from me, and you can post to SDMB for FREE!!!” Ok… </soapbox>
Where Are We Going And Why Am I In This Handbasket?
Well, I guess I’m in the minority here. I spend probably $2000 a year on computers (incremental upgrades to my main machine, with older parts waterfalled to the other computers). And I don’t drive an SUV.
I am Chaos, I am alive, and I tell you that you are free.
Azathoth: I’m in there with you. Upgrade and finally make a different computer from the parts, sell the one made from old parts.
I’m only your wildest fear, from the corners of your darkest thoughts.
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- I said before (and someone else also) that H-P computers seemed to have more than their fair share of problems. I was in Best Buy a while back, and I note that while they used to carry several different brands, now they have Hewlet-Packard, and some no-name cheapies. -Some of the cheapie models have 700 mhz chips, so they’re not quite cheap. Maybe “generic-looking” is a better description.
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- I also noticed that the H-P computers looked nicer than most others. Doesn’t say much about how they work, but maybe that’s the point. I heard a lot of non-computer-literate and semi-computer-literate people talk about how cool the Macs looked when they first came out; I wouldn’t be surprised to find that people that don’t know much about the insides of computers are likely to be sold on the outsides.
- As for me, due to software problems (likely Win98) my computer occasionally would hang. I downloaded the “Windows Update”, because with 98, that’s all I can do. Now my computer occasionally hangs, but at different times. Progress, my ass. ----- I am told that Win95 is better in this regard; anybody have experience with both? - MC
MC, buy a HP but buy the one in the store that is always on, the demo. Cuz then you know it works for sure.