My thanks to Hio for having provided the following piece from Barron's and for his ongoing efforts to keep the thread up-to-date and informed on what's happening in the tech world by his non-stop job of ferreting out articles from hundreds of sources and posting them here. Sure makes it easy for us. Hio...thanks again for all of your hard work!
Saturday, Nov 13 1999 7:32AM ET
Mailman!
From Barron's
--
Penny Wise
How to buy a first-class PC at a bargain-basement price
By RANDALL W. FORSYTH
We at Barron's love to discover an overlooked bargain, whether its an unduly
depressed stock or a company with undervalued assets. What we don't like is
paying dearly for the newest, hottest thing. And so it goes with personal
computers.
In the interest of full disclosure, I should point out that I was born with the
cheapskate gene. I've been told I throw nickels around as if they were
manhole covers. I would argue that I simply want to get the absolute most for
my money.
Of course, knowing value
means knowing enough to
pay up at times. So I'll buy
generic seltzer instead of
Perrier, but never cheap
Scotch.
The way I see it, personal
computers these days should
be sized up a lot like bubbly
water. The value is in the
lower-priced models, though
not the cheapest ones. This
last caveat is a lesson
learned from hard
experience. Dirt-cheap PCs
can be mighty costly in time,
money and frustration. The cheap machines I've bought in the past have made
me intimately acquainted with the innards of PCs. And who needs that?
The good news: It is no longer necessary to suffer to get a real PC bargain. As
recently as a year ago, when bargain PC prices had already dropped below the
$1,000 mark, we thought most Barron's readers would be happier spending
upwards of $3,000. Now, by contrast, it's possible to buy a complete home
system for $1,000 -- including a brand-name PC, a decent 17-inch monitor and
a good printer. And that's exactly what I decided to do.
Clearly, one old rule about PCs no longer holds: You don't need to buy the most
expensive PC you can afford now, and prepare for future upgrades. That may
have been true when the average PC cost more than $2,000; it's not when
computers cost a fraction as much. For instance, PC World magazine recently
found that you could double the performance of a 1996 vintage PC with $639
worth of upgrades. But that's more than the cost of a new computer, and it
doesn't count the cost of your labor.
So I'd advise you to forget about upgrades, except for relatively cheap and
simple ones that you can do yourself (or unless you have unpaid help from an
expert, preferably one about 14 years of age) and you have a Pentium PC
that's not too out of date. The most cost-effective upgrades these days are
adding memory and moving up to a 56 kilobits-per-second modem, as long as
you don't have to shell out an extra hundred bucks for some slack-jawed techie
to do the job. Also, if you've got one of the early 56 KPS modems, the ones
that used two competing protocols, you might check out your modem
company's Website for an upgrade to the current V.90 standard, which should
be a free download. When I did this, I saw a slight increase in connection
speeds, although, as they say, your results may vary.
According to Russ Walter, author of The Secret
Guide to Computers, switching to Windows 98
from Windows 95 isn't worth the trouble. Updated versions of Windows 95,
which should provide most of the benefits of Windows 98 without the expense
and hassle, are available for free downloading at
windowsupdate.microsoft.com.
The clear choice these days is to buy a new PC, especially when they can be
had for as little as $399 (excluding the notorious $400 rebates to hook you into
committing to Internet access contracts -- see "Virtually Free"). When I set
about buying a new PC this time, I'd had enough of hassles and headaches. In
years past, I'd spent hours on hold with technical-support folks, or trying to get
to them, anyway.
Part of my problem back then was that I started with a $200 "kit" from Tiger
Direct, a mail-order merchant. I had to add my own hard drive and memory
chips. That sounds like a big deal if you've never explored the innards of your
PC, but it's really about a 30-minute job. The only problem was that it didn't
work. Of course, Tiger insisted my hard drive and memory were the problems,
even though they worked fine in my old 486. Then Tiger had me replace every
single other component. That meant shipping each suspect part back to Tiger
and awaiting the return of the replacement, after another interminable
telephone call that wasn't toll-free. Finally, Tiger agreed to send me a new kit,
as I'd requested in the first place. Sure enough, that worked. It took only from
Labor Day until Christmas to get that bargain.
Even so, a nagging problem with the Tiger PC's video meant my daughter still
couldn't run her Reader Rabbit software. That helped me decide to buy
another PC for the family and reserve the Tiger for my work. This time, I was
lured by a small ad in the New York Times' Science section for a PC with a
Pentium 200 megahertz processor, at just $599, not a bad deal in early 1998. It
was built to order at a factory in an industrial park alongside the Long Island
Expressway.
But any resemblance to Dell or Gateway ends there. This PC not only lacked
any software like word processing, it did not even come with Windows. And
payment was strictly cash, no credit cards. Naturally, it wasn't ready when I
went to pick it up. Fearing a sale was about to walk out the door, the salesman
offered to deliver the PC to my home, no extra charge. But when he came to
the door and the cash changed hands, it turned up $100 short by his count. Of
course, I could have made a mistake, since I'm so free and easy with money.
Be that as it may, this no-name clone has worked fine. While I had to supply
my own software, I was able to add 32 megabytes of memory for nothing
($59.99 minus a $59.99 rebate, another bargain born of the Asian economic
crisis) and a 56 KPS modem for $5 ($24.99 minus a $20 rebate). Actually, I
was out the sales tax and postage, too, which doesn't escape the notice of a
true cheapskate.
By this time, however, I wanted to see how the other 90% lived. I shipped the
Tiger off to my father-in-law and set out to buy a new PC. This time, no more
oddball kits, no more street-corner specials. I was ready to go, if not first class,
then standard coach instead of a fly-by-night charter.
I tried to approximate what a typical Barron's reader would want and need in
a personal computer. That would include using the Internet, either for online
brokerage or just to get information and be able to send and receive e-mail, do
some word processing for correspondence, and perhaps record- keeping or
analysis with a spreadsheet or personal finance program. All simple stuff that
doesn't take a lot of computing horsepower, unlike videogames. This was
supposed to be a tool, not a toy. Game players would do better to get a Sony
Playstation anyway.
Being an unreconstructed cheapskate, I still was attracted to off-brands. I'm
among the 90% or so committed Wintel users, so I crossed off the iMac,
although the new $999 model is a bargain for those who want to go the Apple
route. I also eschewed Dell, the top-selling PC brand. One big-name computer
columnist praised a $900 Dell system, with a 400 megahertz Intel Celeron
processor, 32 megabytes of RAM, a 4.3 gigabyte hard drive and a 15-inch
monitor, mainly on the basis of the company's top-notch reputation. If you were
to opt for a discount model for two-thirds the price, he concluded, "I'm
convinced you'd be making a mistake."
I wasn't so convinced. I was leaning toward an eMachines PC, which had
virtually the same specs and cost $500, not including a monitor. The company,
a joint venture between two Korean manufacturers, in less than a year had
become the No. 3 seller of consumer desktop PCs by flogging $399 machines.
The PCs and the company's service record had gotten reasonably good
reviews, unlike another new purveyor of cheap computers, Microworkz, which
was hit by an avalanche of consumer complaints over its failure to deliver
ordered machines. I was about to opt for a $499 eMachine, even though I was
still a bit queasy about the company's short track record and legal problems.
(Apple has filed suit over eMachines' knockoff of the iMac, while Compaq
sued over alleged patent infringements. None of which apparently has deterred
eMachines' plans to go ahead with its initial public offering this week.)
My other options were two Compaqs, a slightly less-powerful model costing
the same as the eMachine and another that had slightly better features for
$599. Notwithstanding Compaq's recent operating difficulties, I had no qualms
about the company being around. Comparable machines also were offered by
Hewlett-Packard, IBM and CompUSA for about the same price, so the choice
wasn't clear-cut.
That is, until Staples ran a sale knocking $150 off some Compaqs, including
the models I was considering. I settled on the beefier of the two, the 5340,
which sports an AMD K6-2 400 megahertz microprocessor, 96 megabytes of
RAM and a 4.3 gigabyte hard disk, for $499. That was the same price as the
eMachines model I was considering, and the specs were not appreciably
different from the deluxe PC Barron's recommended a year ago as part of a
$2,900 system. The Compaq also included a generous software package,
including a full-featured version of Microsoft Word 97. To me, it was like
getting a junk-bond yield from an investment-grade credit, a true value
investment.
That deal, which was advertised in the New York Times, also was cheaper
than anything I could find on the Web. (Staples' cash register failed to ring up
the right price initially. Cheapskate shopping tip: Always bring the ad with you
when you shop.) I could have saved an additional $100 by opting for a model
with a less-powerful Cyrix chip and less RAM, but I knew that a year from
now, I'd be happier with the AMD.
I also felt vindicated by a test of low-priced computers by PC Magazine, which
found the Compaq 5340 among the best at running a battery of Windows
applications, while eMachines' eTower 400i finished dead last. PC Magazine
also paid $803 for its Compaq at CDW, a large direct marketer, or 60% more
than I shelled out at Staples. To be sure, that difference undoubtedly reflects
the inexorable decline in PC prices. Indeed, for the same $499, you can now
get the next model up, the 5440, with a faster 450 megahertz AMD K6-2 chip
and a bigger (six gigabyte) hard disc (albeit with only 64 megabytes of RAM).
Using the Compaq 5340 was a new experience. I took it out of the box,
plugged in the color-coded cables, and it worked with no hassles. To somebody
accustomed to endless fiddling, it was kind of boring, but the average PC user
doubtlessly would prefer it that way. You also get one month's free Internet
access via Compaq's service, which did put out more busy signals than with my
own Internet Service Provider, AT&T Worldnet. The Compaq is the fastest
home PC I've ever used, similar to my office Dell Pentium II with 128
megabytes of RAM. But it's not hugely different from my Pentium 200
megahertz clone. On the Internet, the modem and its connection make more of
a difference. Having access to a cable modem or a DSL connection would be
vastly more important than whatever PC you'd choose. (See "Bumps on the
Info Highway").
At this price, compromises are unavoidable. Compaq, like many other
manufacturers of bargain PCs, incorporates the video and sound on the
motherboard rather than on separate cards. The video uses four megabytes of
the system RAM, though with 96 megabytes available, that's not much of a
constraint. The default video setting also is limited to 1024X768 pixels, which is
the highest resolution you'd likely use with a 17-inch monitor. Top-quality audio
and video cards undoubtedly would improve the system's sight and sound, but
also would add significantly to its price. In any case, these qualities are more
than adequate for grown-ups. Compaq also omits speakers, which most
manufacturers include. (If sound quality is important to you, go for the $50
Cambridge SoundWorks PCWorks, which to my ears sound better than most
home stereos. You find them at www.cambridgesoundworks.com or many
retail outlets). Another minus: All the software on the Compaq takes up nearly
two-thirds of the hard drive, although you can delete some of what you don't
use.
The Compaq's bargain price left half my $1,000 budget for a monitor and a
printer. As for the former, I wanted a 17-inch monitor, rather than the 15-inch
bottom-of-the-line models included in most package deals offered by major
chains such as CompUSA and Circuit City. Machines that integrate the
monitor with the rest of the computer, such as the iMac or its PC imitators like
the eMachines eOne, the Gateway Astro or NEC's knock-off, also have
15-inch screens, an important limitation in these otherwise attractive one-piece
designs.
Prices of monitors have declined precipitously while their quality has improved
markedly. Cheap monitors used to be absolutely awful, with fuzzy images
certain to give you a headache. Now good 17-inch monitors are available for
less than $300. I went for an Acer 77e, which now can be had for $199, after
a $30 rebate. I compared that model with others in a computer store, staring at
the screens for about a half-hour. While the $450 Sony was definitely superior,
it wasn't more than twice as good. That's the essence of value buying. After
using the Acer for nearly two months, I'm still happy with it.
With the $300 or so remaining in the budget, you can get a laser printer or a
top-quality ink-jet color printer. If you're going to print a lot and don't need
color, a laser is the way to go. It's far quicker and, although it's more expensive
initially, it costs less to use over the long run. The NEC Superscript 870 is
available for just $261 at www.buy.com, and was recommended by Consumer
Reports. As for color ink-jets, the Hewlett-Packard HP DeskJet 882C for
$250 was PC Magazine's pick. But forget about those super-cheap $50 (after
a rebate) printers. They use up $30 ink cartridges five times as fast as the
initially more expensive HP, PC Magazine found.
Of course, if you want to blow about two grand, you can get a PC with a
top-of-the-line Pentium III processor, 128 megabytes of RAM, a 20-gigabyte
hard drive, both a DVD drive for watching movies and a CD-RW drive to
record CDs, a 17-inch monitor and a basic ink-jet printer. Or, as my
less-parsimonious colleague, Jay Palmer, points out on page V16, you could
buy a very fashionable Gateway Profile II with a flat-screen monitor. As for
me, I'd rather spend half that much and put the other thousand in a tax-efficient
growth fund for my daughter's college tuition. That's a real value investment.
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