Good value desktop (pcspecialist.co.uk)

Member Name: chericbaker

Product:	pcspecialist.co.uk
Date:	31/08/09 (140 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cost, configurability

Disadvantages: None

I recently wanted to replace my cranky 5 year old XP desktop with a laptop and new desktop. The laptop I got from Dell Outlet - no worries. For the desktop I waited until the free Windows 7 upgrade offers started. I was looking for a fairly cheap machine (I do lots of work on still images and music but virtually no video editing and no gaming). What swung it for me was that PC Specialist's pre-sales was excellent (an immediate response to emailed queries) and their online configuration tool is superb. They also seem to do well in detailed reviews. I bumped up the hard drive to 640Gb (very cheap) and memory to 4Gb but ripped out the card reader (I use the cables that came with the cameras) and stepped down to a slightly older dual core (Celeron) processor. The change of processor was crucial in dropping the price considerably. I also decided to stick with the onbard graphics (that brings the Windows Experience index down to 3.4 but everything else is above 4). So I got a new PC for under GBP350 delivered. Hooked up to my existing monitor etc it's fast, quiet and has caused no problems whatsoever. It's easily quick enough to make Vista Home Premium seem really sprightly (incl. Aero) and Windows 7 should be even faster. Now I've got it data synching nicely with the laptop via the router (AllwaySync and SynchPst) and it's a pleasure to use. One example is using some Steinberg software to de-hum and crackle an old LP I was converting to CD took around a minute - more than 10 times faster than the old XP desktop.

I cannot really comment on PC Specialist's after-sales. They answered my one query about Windows 7 promptly but after a month of intensive use I've had no problems at all with the machine.

Summary: A happy customer