Mine is royally fekked.....hard drive controller gone.

I now need one for France:
It needs to be:

Portable, (it will get to do at least five 1600 mile round trips per year.)
[ I've tried leaving one there, it didn't like the cold/damp over winter and neither did it's predecessor].

Have about 4GB RAM to run my stuff.

Have anything from 80GB hard drive. I only store music and photos on it.

Be capable of connecting to French internet. Pref by cable as well as WiFi.

I HATE laptops, with their stupid cramped keyboards, their even more stupid touch pads and their even MORE stupid screens you have to look down at...neck ache.

I already have a decent keyboard, mouse and monitor.

What to buy?

Budget up to about £400.........

 

Portable desktop is quite an ask, maybe hp slate 21

I just have blackberry playbook myself

 

I had one of these bolted onto the back of my old Samsung 40 LCD beofe i got my smart TV, it was the older model running windows 7 the bottom one is bargain if you have a copy of windows 7

 

As above or quietpc.com search on right for NUC.

Very small core I5 just add external 1tb drive or internal ssd

 

All very good, but you've to wait ten minutes for the thing to "update " before you can do anything usefu

 

(for the ten minutes you actually only really need it for)

 

Here is the Acer RL80 with windows 8 for £249 delivered to your door.

http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/produ.../c~Desktop+PCs

 

tbh, I'd rather have half the hard disk space (they all seem to be 1TB or so), and a better, faster processor to allow me to run more than one application at once without bogging down.

An Intel i3 isn't really good enough.

Is that what I should search for, "nettop PC"??

Sorry I haven't understood this? Can you explain?

 

Oh I was just alluding to frustration of owning a windows machine.

( particularly the girlfriends netbook )

 

nettop PC won't have 4gb ram nor a processor beefier than an i3 I don't think.

 

If it's just for music/video, an i3 will be more than enough. In fact, for such light work, an Atom would be enough.

 

Been advised that an i3, or an AMD E4 would struggle to let me play music while doing photoshopping, or using Word? Is this not right?

How do you add programs to a computer without an optical drive?

 

Get an i5 intel based processor, with minimum 8Gb ram.

What's wrong with a laptop - you could connect your external monitor, keyboard & mouse?

 

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...=43&catid=2476

Spec how you want!

 

Yes, you can, on most. Some of the ones I've been looking at have only two USB ports and no VGA etc, so I'd need USB adaptors etc? Plus my keyboard out there is VGA.

Also, I've assumed.....and this may be wrong......that to buy a box with just a PC in, no keyboard, no screen, no touch pad, SHOULD be cheaper than to buy a laptop with all those included that will see little use, if any.

That would mean, if I'm right, that the little PC ought to have better processor, and RAM and HD than the laptop, for same money?

Doesn't seem to work like that.

About three years ago I looked into having a PC built to take to France. It worked out dearer to get a 1GB RAM, 250GB HD unit built, than to buy an ACER with 4GB RAM and a 1TB HD, complete with monitor, wireless keyboard and wireless mouse.

Go figure........

 

Sadly, way outside my budget.

 

Have a look as Asus laptops.
They're usually pretty good spec for the money.
I bought two recently.
Intel i5 dual core, 17" HD screen, 8Gb RAM, 1000Gb HD, bluray and dedicated graphics cards for approx 550.

 

£150 outside my budget.

See, it's just for web-surfing, e-mails, storing and editing pics, and the occasional Word doc. Nothing else.

So I can't really see myself clear to spend over £400.....

 

A i3 will run a music program when you are doing office work/photoshopping etc.
5 years ago witht the computers they had then it was possible, so with an i3 being more powerfull then most of the computers available then why wouldn't it work.

So a i3 with 8gb ram, a decent videocard and a 1 TB disk is perfect for what your use.
Do not fall into the jibber-jabber told by most shops, it took the processing power of a Commodore C64 to fly Appollo 11 to the moon, and 40 years on they claim that you'd need a rocket ship to run 2 programs at the same time.

From the above overclockers site a OC UK H81 Barebone fitted with a I5 and 16gb ram (8 would do as well, but may cause a small loss of performance) sets you back about 360 quid, without a internal HD/SSD

I however do not know how portable is supposed to be.
A standard tower case PC is just a little bit larger then those mini things, but usually has room for a SSD/HDD/DVD writer etc already inside.
On the Mini PC most of the things a standard PC comes with have to be external extra's so they do still take up room in your car.
So a mini PC with external HDD and a external DVD writer is ein the end just slightl less bulky then the cheaper standard tower with everything inside the case.

The Primo iX with a i5, 8gb of ram and a 1tb HDD comes in at slightly below 400 quid as well.

 

So downscale slightly....

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...76&subcat=2492

 

OK, how about this?
http://www.simplyasus.com/ASUS_X550C...html#DetailTop

 

Mesolithic graphics, what about

http://www.simplyasus.com/ASUS_X552C...H_1470440.html

 

Not understanding the comment about graphics? That's the display?

The second is better?

 

Not the screen, but rather the card that supplies the images to the screen.
Intel 3000 although good enough for your use the link from DPB has a better graphics chip for 20 quid extra.

 

Found that same laptop at £399 delivered.

 

Yep...there is more demand for laptops. The masses love them; people think "small computer" and automatically think a laptop is perfect. I hate them...same reasons as you...my neck, my eyes (lower res unless its a high end mac) and non-standard keyboard layouts.

Flooded market+competetion means they are cheaper whilst the lesser demanded "niche" micro PCs/all-in-ones/nettops are more expensive.


Anyhoo, not ideal for you as its displayport/HDMi not VGA and supplied as a barebone - no HDD and RAM, but these are what I'm replacing the office PCs with: http://www.ebuyer.com/569728-nuc-box...FSLlwgod13cAlw With the parts required to make it work it works out at about £550 (windows 7, 16gb and a 250gb ssd, ) which is alot cheaper than a pre-built one from Overclockers.

(when I get round to it )

 

Result

 

Ordered one at £399.99. It should arrive tomorrow.

Not what I wanted, (laptop), but it's what's out there.

Thanks for everyone's help.