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Re: [LUG] Cheap PC

 

On 14/12/11 16:50, Gordon Henderson wrote:
On Wed, 14 Dec 2011, raymond.knowles@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

Hi All,

CPC are offering a Linux PC for £99 + VAT.
Model
number SB 046 9141.
No keyboard or mouse, but what do you
expect at this price.

Has anyone bought one/thinking of
buying one?
Comments please.

If it's this:

  http://cpc.farnell.com/acer/pt-nbzec-004/pc-sff-acer-emachines-er1401/dp/SB0469141?Ntt=SB0469141

then it appears to be no-longer stocked.

However £99 +VAT for that is about the going rate. Is it a good PC? Depends on what you want - it's not the fastest and it comes with Linpus Lite which the first thing you'll want to do is remove and install something decent. It *might* be good as a media PC / set-top box type of thing if it can play HD movies via your TV (it has HDMI)

Gordon


Don't do it, they're basically the newer versions of AcerPower 1000s which I once removed from a London primary school by the trolley load when they all blew up after a power surge. That's the ones that hadn't already had a component failure due to overheating. They're basically customised laptop boards crammed into a mini case with a full size HD so the cooling is rubbish and all the parts are proprietary - forget upgrades or easy fixes. The only thing worth keeping out of these units will be the HDs and a 250Gb SATA2 isn't exactly anything to write home about. The RAM will be laptop style, thus more expensive.

Nvidia 9200 is a woefully under-specced integrated gfx solution and the Neo K325 isn't a competitive CPU either: even with vdpau output enabled under linux it's going to really, really struggle to output HD. Basically, this is a crap computer and nobody should think about buying one. Quite frankly, I wouldn't even pick these up from freecycle for nothing, let alone pay money for them. If you need a £100 computer, beg/borrow/steal any random case + optical drive and order cheap mobo+cpu+RAM deal from scan or somewhere.

Mat
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