Upstate PCs

What is the basic recommendations for a home computer?

I have a 80GB home computer with a 335 intel processor and its time for me to upgrade, problem is that i dont have a lot of money. what would be the recommended computer? i use it for e-mail, some web searching, and often word use. i prefer using a microsoft computer.

Public Comments

1. How much money? The more the better. The money is what will determine everything. If you have less than $500, I suggest that you keep your money, bide your time, save more until you get about $850 and then you can have a really good home computer. Remember, half the cost of the computer is in the software, that includes productivity tools and games and security software.
2. I somewhat agree with Jim. For basic home computing, RAM memory is the most important thing. Get a lot of it. At least 4gb. Don't spend money on productivity software. http://openoffice.org is free, and it's compatible with all versions of Microsoft Word, Excel, and Power Point. You can almost always find a free alternative to software that costs money. Where I don't agree with Jim is that I think you could possibly find something decent for $500. While he's right that it would have been helpful to know your budget, you can get a Dell Inspiron 580 with 4gb of RAM for $450.
3. If you haven't reinstalled your operating system in a while doing so will configure it the way it came from the factory and make it faster. I don't know if that is the reason you want to upgrade. Add the max RAM possible, this will depend on what your motherboard supports. The max for a fairly new pc running windows xp is 4gb. If you have enough money for a faster processor that would be great. If you don't have a DVD/RW maybe it's definetely time to do so. If you have around $450 to spend Dell has some bitching pcs for around that price. Of course assuming that you already have the monitor.