Good, inexpensive (non-gaming) PC brand?

[n11n12]

I'm currently using a five year old Powerbook that might have to be replaced soon (boiling hot in under a minute, speaker occasionally cutting out, and a fan that sometimes sounds like a 360's), and judging by prices and specs, I'd probably be best served by a PC. I do love Apple but they're way too ing expensive. Christ, the Acer Aspire One is actually twice as powerful as my G4 at about a third of the price.

So what is a good brand of relatively inexpensive, but still acceptable quality PCs, either laptop or tower? Keep in mind that I don't play PC games but would use it for internet, storing music and photos, and some light video editing for YouTube or something similar.

 

[Sokkratez]

As with non-gaming rigs, but perhaps to an even greater degree, building your own is the cheapest way to get the perfect system. Whether they want to or not, I always recommend people do this because it's so much more cost efficient. Plus it's good to know how. And it's rewarding

But if I'm just recommending a source for pre-builts, Dell.

 

[chronodev]

I think Compaq has some good desktops for relatively cheap

 

[christagamer]

Check out the latest issue of Computer Shopper(Feb '09) it has a great article titles:
13 PC's under $800.000-can't go wrong! Good Luck!

 

[Richlough]

Get a can of compressed air and spray it in your heatsink , from the outlet in toward the fan .
I did this on my HP laptop and it cured my heat/fan noise problems .
Just make sure you hold the can level so it sprays air only .
My laptop fan had so much fuzz and dust it stopped the fan when I back flushed it .
It had to remove part of the bottom of the case to get it out .
You can look up online how to open your case to see how easy or hard it is .

Good luck .

 

[captainfrizo]

I know I'll be shunned for saying this, but every once in a while you can get a truly kick-ass deal on a Dell desktop.

Last year I paid something like $450 (shipped) for my desktop:
Core 2 Quad Q6600
3 GB RAM (since upgraded to 4GB for $40)
500GB hard-drive
Vista Home Premium
and you had the case, power supply, mobo, DVD-R drive, etc. included.

The only thing that was missing was a dedicated video card, but those have come down so much lately I wouldn't necessarily look at it as a reason to run away from a pre-build. And depending on what you're using the PC for it may not even really be needed (although definitely encouraged).

While I agree that building your own PC gives you a ton more room to customize your own rig, sometimes the pre-built options are actually much cheaper and can rival quite a few custom builds.