We have badly needed a replacement for our home desktop, which got fried by power outages. We have talked about all sorts of plans, but we finally settled on getting an inexpensive desktop now, and probably getting Tanya a laptop later as well. So we started looking at desktops in the super-cheap $300 range.
Our spending was further complicated by the fact that we were talking about wanting to buy locally and not from a big-box chain...if it didn't mean too much much of a spending sacrifice.
We happened to be near the Goodwill computer store at I-35 and 183 yesterday, and decided to see what deals they had. And they had good ones. The systems were older, but cheaper than retail bundles, and comparable in performance:
The systems came with monitors.
They're all clearly labeled with what they contain.
They've got lots of open source software preinstalled. Firefox. OpenOffice. Thunderbird. I could do all that myself, but it's awful nice to have it predone.
They let you pick any mouse, keyboard, monitor you want, within certain limits.
We were buying a printer too, and they threw in the interface cable for free.
We got excellent consultation from the two different people who helped us, and everyone was cheerful, even though the store was pretty busy.
We went next door to the Wal-Mart, and the Goodwill prices were still better. Not many folks can beat Wal-Mart.
All in all, it was an excellent buying experience.
They have motherboards with CPUs for $30, too. Not the most modern of machines. But by adding RAM and peripherals that I have lying around the house, I can gin up a computer for the kids for very little money. It's a great option. I might actually try a casemod project...I've been wanting to do that, but all that pesky writing sure does get in the way of my crafting time.
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