The Saint

Guys,

This is not bull****t (I already have a laptop and desktop).
I am after a reasonably specced PC for me mum, who has started to loose her sight. Some wasting disease of the eyes, and she feels cut off without web/e-mail.

I am going to put some software recommended by the RNIB on it, so me old mum can have e-mails played back, and same for web pages etc. Would preferably like P4> and XP.

I am in Aberdeen.Can collect upto reasonable distance.

Thanks

Saint

mynickers

Most of the decent manufacturers have a sale on at the mo, and if you get one from them you'll have the reassurance, that your mum can have some warranty and back up if it goes wrong and you're not about. Most people I know that have bought from Dell or Mesh have been quite happy with them, and the support (although Dell often charge etc for additional support other than phone). Mesh is a good one in the market, it's not such a high profile brand as Dell so you get better value for money. My dad and quite a few friends have these, and are very happy. Had a look inside my dads, and its' quite well put together. Had a quick look on the webf for you and found a bit for you to have a look at to give you an idea:

Dell From £399 in their sale

see more details of their latest offers see here:

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/pr...men&l=en&s=dhs

This one caught my eye it is £699 down from £799 (£20 a month on credit), quite a good spec for the money from Dell anyway. See here:



http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/pr...=uk&l=en&s=dhs

Full tech specs Dimension 2400

Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor 3.06GHz with Hyper-Threading Technology
Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition and Microsoft® Works 7.0
256MB (333MHz) DDR RAM
15" Analogue Flat Panel Monitor (15.0" v.i.s.)
40GB IDE Hard Drive
8X DVD+ReWriter Drive
Integrated Intel® Extreme Graphics
Dell Stereo Speakers

Mesh computers

Here is a good offer £499 inc vat:



http://www.meshcomputers.com/updated/news_mat2400iq.htm

Full Specification Matrix 2400+ IQ

AMD Athlon XP 2400+ Processor
Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition
512MB DDR RAM (PC2700) Memory
80GB 7200rpm Ultra DMA-133 HDD with 2MB Buffer
128MB Integrated nVIDIA GeForce 4 Graphics (SMA)
17" CRT Digital Colour Monitor, .26mm DP (16" VIS)
48x CD RW & 16x DVD-ROM Drive (Combo)
5.1 Surround Sound 6 Channel Audio
Creative Soundblaster SBS250 Speakers
Internet Ready V.92 56Kbps data/fax/voice modem
Network Ready integrated 10/100 Ethernet Adaptor
FREE Microsoft Works 7.0
FREE Pinnacle Studio 8 SE Video Editing Software
Logitech Internet Keyboard & Optical Mouse
FREE 3 Year Warranty (Back to Base)
Black Mini Tower Case/4 USBs + Additional Features

Personally my advice would be to go for the Mesh Matrix 2400+ IQ - it's a very high spec for the money (much better than dell) plus free warranty, you will probably pay extra on both cases for delivery though. Also might be worth buying what PC and the like, and checking the back for the jan offers this is the best time to buy.

Hope that helps, sorry to hear about your mums sight, hopefully this will make her life more comfortable.

Cheers

Nick

Edited: to say if you need any more help, feel free to email me..


[Edited by mynickers - 1/9/2004 9:30:03 PM]

hedgehog

Be aware that some of the software for visually impaired folks tends not to be as fast through the development stages (small market I suppose) and so some of it may not work on XP. I believe that some of the speech software (JAWS) has been upgraded recently to work on XP but you'd need to check.

A lot of this software can be very expensive, again probably because it is a small market, and upgrades can be costly as well.

You might also be interested to know that I believe there is a mobile phone becoming available for folks with visual impairments. From what I heard it has a small QWERTY keyboard that folds out for texts and it can also "speak" any texts you get. I think the price was to be about £250 on Vodaphone.

The reason for my interest in this is that I have a mate (I call him a mate but when I go past in the car and wave he never, ever, waves back) who is totally blind and, through him and folks he knows, have also got to meet lots of other blind folks. Many of them are regular computer users so in passing I pick up some of the details.

mynickers

You might be able to apply for funding for that software though, so check out that as well.

My best friend is a web designer, and he makes all his website's compatible with these text reading programmes, I believe it's a legal requirement to be accessible for visuall impaired people know, quite right too..