Computer, printer (camera) shopping HELP!

I'm looking to purchase a new desktop computer, first one in 12 or so years. I'm also thinking about replacing my laptop ~2 years old. I need a new printer and also want to take the leap into a digital camera. My budget is about $3,000 a little more or less would be OK.
Main requirement is that my wife needs to be able to use it/them. In her words, more or less, 'Dummy proof, easy to use'.

We are not heavy users, light record keeping. Graphics for simple signs and posters. Internet useage but not heavy. No video games. No heavy number crunching. No programming.
I'd like DVD/CD recording. Easy hook up to camera/peripherals. I was thinking a B+W Laser printer and an Ink Jet for color. I did see a couple nice Color Lasers at reasonable prices, page costs? Real life use?
I'll add more details as people make comments/questions.
Oh, I'm not bound to PC, Apple OK-Maybe?
Thanks

there has been discussion of color laser printers on another internet group that I frequent lately. This One by HP for $499 has been getting good reviews (street price somewhat lower than the suggested retail) But the final advice that people (and me) are giving is to do the combined route of a good color ink jet and a B&W laser. I own the B&W version of that printer above (looks the same on the outside) and it's been terrific, and very cheap too. I'm less happy with recent Epson ink jets though, the ones I've been hearing the best about for printing pictures lately are the canon ink jets. What people like the best about them is that they dont (yet?) incorporate the chip in the ink cartridges that stops third party companies from selling inexpensive ink for them like Epson just did.

As for a camera, test out the new search engine here by trying to find some of the myriad of threads about them that popup in the cafe periodically. For myself I'm practically a canon poster boy Have a look at their 3 or 4 mega pixel models, they are terrific. Getting more than 4 for family pictures and such I think is way overkill and the price does start to go up fairly quickly after about that size (not to mention all the bother of moving much bigger files around and needing the more expensive cartridges and whatnot)

For the computer, if you're not wedded to windows with a huge investment in windows software then i think you should definitely do some research into the Mac offerings. I develop software for a living for several platforms including windows and Mac but I do all my work on a Mac. All the hardware above that I mentioned is all compatible with either type system. Apple has some really good deals on refurbished equipment right now. go to http://www.apple.com/store and scroll down until you see the SALE graphic on the right hand side. Scroll past all the iPods and you'll get to the computers. If you want to burn DVD's you'll want one with what they call a "super drive" And I wouldn't even consider a model with less than 512 meg ram. If you already have a decent monitor then you should consider a tower model, excellent ones on that list for around $1300 or so. They will be the fastest and the easiest to expand with more drives and ram and such. Or you can go the cheaper route as there are several mini models there too, but here I'd get the models that are already listed with the 512 or better ram as installing it in those is much more difficult. You can do it, but it's a pain and the models with it already in there aren't that much more expensive. You can get the super drive and the ram for $540 or so. But they have less snappy processors and generally less hard drive space available (but you can always plug in a USB2 or firewire drive for more external storage and you can get a big one and still not spend the difference in price ) If you dont have a decent monitor have a look at their eMac models. I got one of those for my mom a couple of years ago and it's really got a wonderful screen, best CRT I've sat in front of that I have a hope of affording... So have a look at those. Another company that I purchase both new and refurbished gear from and have nothing but cheers for is http://www.smalldog.com/ dont be afraid of refurbished gear, save the money and buy the extended warranty if you are so inclined.

Plus if you go with the Mac you can feel free to email me personally with questions I like to help people get their Macs setup! And there really is quite a large Mac user population around here that will pipe up with further answers to your questions and suggestions. Feel free to drop me a PM or an email if I can tell you specific stuff about it or how to do something or look up if such and such hardware or software is available for it and how much it costs. To do photo manipulation and printing and archiving you can use what comes with the system as their iPhoto included software is excellent. I own photoshop, but I dont use it for regular photo managing and printing at all.

I too welcome most comments about printers. My HP Deskjet 610CL is still dead....

User formerly known as Playboyjoeshmoe... too stupid to find/have written my Password. This ID is only temporary... maybe.

Dell always has some great offers on complete systems. Check www.crocodeals.com indexes some of Dell's offers.

Tip - PCs are relatively cheap these days - put you money into a NICE display. Your eyes and photos will thank you. Also go digital on your display. Make sure the PC and Display have the digital connections.

Thanks for the help, so far. I was hoping for more input on the 'computers for dummies' side of things.
Our only desktop was an Apple II GS bought new, with an outrageously large 1 Meg of RAM . That was easy to use for the whole family. We had Apple's software suite and some educational programs for the children.

Our next computer was a laptop, we decided on a laptop as we were moving beyond the powerlines and would have limited access to power. A Radio Shack 8086 based model an 1100 I think. That had Tandy's software suite and we did OK with it. Though the low resolution black on green screen was hard on the eyes for extended use :huh:

Next was a Dell laptop a Windows '98 machine. Lots of problems, bad hinges, other hardware etc. Shortly before the 4th year of extended warranty expired on it, it was replaced by Dell with a Windows XP machine. This one has done well with a few glitches but few real problems.

So are Macs better for less crashes, easier use etc? I was thinking about getting a freeware software suite. I need a simple accounting program, PeachTree has way too many features for my needs. Does Mac have much in the free software relm? What about service and support?

I looked at HP computers at Sam's Club. There were several machines that I would guess would cover my needs. P4 630 HT, 3.2 GHz, 1 Gig DDR, 250 G 7200 SATA, Light Scribe on the DVD . My inclination is to stick with an Intel based machine for compatibility, is that a concern?
WHat is the 630/640 after the P4? HT=Hyper Threading? SATA on the hard Drive? Light Scribe?
All that with a (to me) nice looking 19" LCD monitor for $1300. Good price?
I know a computer could be built for less but I am very concerned about support. My family tends to be hard on stuff. When you have 5 times the typical sized family you wear things out faster

Printers. I was thinking about a Samsung laser with scanner/copier and an Ink Jet for color. Any strong printer recomendations other than Canon? Any specific recomendations?

As far as Camera, I've been reading the posts here, as well as reviews here and there. Canon does seem to be safe. I recomended my son get one, he got an A75 and was happy till he left it in a photo lab at Wal-Mart, by mistake. It never turned up . So I'm thinking A75 or 85.

Do yourself a favor and step up to the Canons with the bendy screen. I have an A80 and love it. Friend has the upgraded A95 and it's fantastic as well. Canon just came out with reasonably priced 7.1 megapixel version! So that's what I would go with, pending good reviews. LINK


I'm also a Mac advocate (check the sig). I know there are lots of accounting programs out there, I don't know of any free ones off the top of my head, but I'm sure they exist. Are we talking about tracking home finances or more buisness-y stuff?

Saaby said:

Do yourself a favor and step up to the Canons with the bendy screen. I have an A80 and love it. Friend has the upgraded A95 and it's fantastic as well. Canon just came out with reasonably priced 7.1 megapixel version! So that's what I would go with, pending good reviews. LINK


I'm also a Mac advocate (check the sig). I know there are lots of accounting programs out there, I don't know of any free ones off the top of my head, but I'm sure they exist. Are we talking about tracking home finances or more buisness-y stuff?

Click to expand...

Answers generate questions...and answers.
Bendy Screen? Flexible or repositionable or movable or ....?
Why go w/ high resolution if you are mostly going to do 4x6's?

Accounting-Buisness-y stuff, but small scale. I know I'll need a little more in the future but by the time I need a lot more I'll hire someone else

[size=+2]For the 'everyday simple user' are Macs 'easier'?[/size]

OK I see what the bendy screen is
I forgot to mention, or remember, that my wife would like a 2"+ LCD screen.
Any recomendations.
Camera is a sidetrack BTW but On Topic

The bendy screens are 2.0" exactly.

Yes. For everyday use Macs are simpler. It can be a bit harder to find hardware for them, for example (Walking down the aisle at CompUSA only 30 of the 33 printers will be Mac compatible) but plug something in and It Just Works™. Nothing like the "Found new hardware" dance Windows puts you through. Also no Spyware or Virii, way more secure...ah heck, just go read the SITE already.

The A80 is listed as 1.5 and the A95 as 1 13/16ths for the display.

It seems to my untrained mind that the Apple costs more. The higher end consumer HP's that I was looking at were $1300 with a 19" LCD monitor. This is new not refurbished. I can't compare Apples to (forgo the obvious) PC's but for similar uses can I get a PC for less than an Apple? Even adding protections etc.?

yes, you can get a Windows PC for a little cheaper, not much for the same features though. You can also get a much more stripped down windows PC than you can get a Mac.

But for that you trade off a lot of your own time and energy. The firewall on the Mac is the same one your ISP uses on their webserver, only on the Mac you can set it up with a few checkboxes and it's included. There is no spyware blocker necessary right now because there is no spyware. There is no virus blocker necessary because there are no active circulating viruses. So you do not have to purchase those and you do not have to spend time each week updating them and re-scanning. Without all that stuff running in the background sucking CPU cycles your Mac will be more reliable than a windows machine patched all the way down to the hardware interrupt level by software trying to stop malicious programs. My mac has crashed, the most recent one was due to a bad USB cable that had a short and the computer thought I was pulling the plug and replugging the printer a hundred times a second Can't get too angry at it for not liking that. However it restarted fine. I have NEVER since 1988 lost a single file on a Mac due to a crash. I did catch a virus in about '92 when I brought home some questionably acquired software.... This was my one and only virus that I have ever had on my machine and I have never run virus blocker software, never.

If you maintain regular internet hygiene a Mac is safer and easier to use for regular internet functions. If you're the kind of person who eagerly double clicks on the attachments that spammers send to you, then no OS is going to help though there are none of those for the Mac yet, someday there will be so keep your wits about you.

Quicken is the only accounting package for the Mac that I've used, but there are others. There is no need to purchase most of your day to day apps, there are excellent ones already installed with the OS. You might want to invest in a copy of MS Office though. I stopped using it last year when Apple's "Pages" program was released. It loads and saves word files, but I like the interface better to actually making documents. So I'd recommend that but if you need excel then you'll need the MS Office package. If you have kids in school (which I think you do ) then you can get it for the educational discount it's not too expensive.

Apple is having a 30 day return deal on the mini right now. If you get one you can return it if you decide that you dont like the MacOS in that time. I dont think that will be a problem though.

PC vs Mac, Canon vs Nikon, etc.
I'm not going to get into any of those arguments, nor am I going to direct you towards a specific make/model of equipment. What I am going to do is try and help you define your real wants and needs.

For the camera, look at this article... http://www.soyouwanna.com/site/syws/camera/camera.html

BUT, ignore their suggestion to use Macweek or Cnet for reviews. They are computer people and don't know jack about cameras. Once you have narrowed down your requirements then visit a real camera reviewer like Steve's Digicams at http://www.steves-digicams.com/

Same thing for looking at a laptop... http://www.soyouwanna.com/site/syws/laptop/laptop.html

And finally, if you really want to research specific items I have found that going to google and typing "review" (no quotes) and then the item name and/or model number usually turns up a good number of reviews. NEVER trust a review written by the company that makes the item, look for independent reviews. Oh and if you use this method there will ALWAYS be at least one joker who writes a "trash review" no matter how good the item really is. I don't know why this is so but it is.

Since you are looking to upgrade both your desktop and laptop computers, I would suggest you consider just getting a nice laptop with a big widescreen. I use a laptop for my primary computer and see little insentive to use a big desktop box. Nowadays laptops are so powerful and full of goodies that they are even called desktop replacements. I really like buying from Costco and they sell Dell's with a good comprehensive warrenty. Between the Dell accidental breakage warrenty and at home servicing and the Costco all around awesome store guarentee you should be covered on all bases. If the 17 inch screen is still not big enough you could always connect a larger one and add a wireless keyboard. I am very happy with HP officejet copy/fax/scan printer. It's a great home/office color printer that works well for signs and such, but if you want a nice color printer for pictures that rival film prints, I really like the Epson R800. I'm a bit out of touch on the latest in cameras. The A75/85's were solid cameras that had the benefit of taking AA batteries. DPreveiw.com is where I went for the latest camera info. Here's a computer recommendation and review.

The Dell 9300 from Costco.com

Reveiwed by PC Magazine

Greg