What is a state of the art PC nowadays?

[DS23]

indeed i am. time will tell but as a workhorse it seems spot on.

[El_Diablo]

FaQQer, how's the cube247 PC working out?

Any good?

[TheFaQQer]

FaQQer, how's the cube247 PC working out?

Any good?

Pretty good - a few niggles.

- I wouldn't bother with the 7.1 surround sound system that I paid extra for, unless you have plenty of space but in a small enough room to scatter the speakers around.

- I added a card reader on the front of the machine, which hadn't been connected to the motherboard, so didn't work

- Adding the card reader means that four USB sockets on the back don't work, as the card reader takes the USB connection from the motherboard.

- Floppy disk drive wasn't connected, either.

- No instructions at all, so a bit of guesswork was required. e.g. when you plug a cable into the sound card, the drivers ask you what you plugged in. But I did it when the machine was off, so got no sound. A simple note would have helped.

- There is a BIOS password set. I haven't got round to calling them to find out what it is though.

- No paperwork at all - no invoice, no receipt.

- Hard drive is 3x500GB in an array to appear as 1x1500GB drive. No big deal but it means that there is VERY little room for expansion if you want / need to.

That said, I'd still buy it again, and have recommended it to some friends. One final thing to watch for (on any new machine!) is to make sure that you have drivers etc. for everything that will run on 64 bit Windows - I've only sorted my scanner out today with lots of trouble, and ZoneAlarm doesn't run on it, which is annoying.

HTH

FaQ

[beaker]

indeed i am. time will tell but as a workhorse it seems spot on.

I'll second that. Bought my wife one for her birthday and I enjoy using it more than my laptop PC. Starts up quick, runs fast, everything works, great for watching DVDs. Mac software (iWorks etc) is good an inexpensive. Battery lasts around 4 hours as well. Ideal for lounging round the house with.

I'll probably end up getting one and dual booting Vista in case I need to run anthing in Windoze. Cleaned up mine and ran a few things to make mine run faster to make it last a bit longer... but the battery life is down to about 45 minutes!

[El_Diablo]

Cheers guys, I use to build my PC's but that was years ago.

The cube247 one looks pretty good, I will keep an eye out for the points you highlighted FaQQer. Though seeing as we are IT types we know what to look for, hopefully someone non tech doesn't get caught out.

PC hunting time, yay!

[DS23]

I'll second that....
I'll probably end up getting one and dual booting Vista in case I need to run anthing in Windoze...

i've done it (xp not vistas) and i reckon this piece of kit is the dogs danglies. i really do.