Excellent specs, amazingly low price?

Not everything is what it seems on the surface, says David Dorn, and what looks like a bargain PC can turn out to be a complete dog

I was struck by the news story today on Gateway's new 'price guarantee'. Not, as you might think, by the enormous generosity of the company in promising to beat competitors' prices (as if I'd ever accuse a PC manufacturer of being generous), but by the small print hinting at how their sales folks would 'help' you to determine whether the PC you were trying to get a price match on actually matched the advertised one.

Reading between the lines, it looks as though their sales folks will have been given bundles of paper breaking out what's actually in the competing machines from other makers, and they'll then do the comparison with the machine you're wanting to buy.

'Now', says our confused reader, 'whassat mean, then? Surely a 1GHz machine with 256MB of Ram and a 20GB Hard Disk is exactly what it says on the tin?' Well, no, not always. A 1GHz Pentium III is a 1GHz Pentium III, sure enough. And a 20GB Maxtor hard disk is a 20GB Maxtor hard disk - unless one is a 5400rpm unit and the other is a 7200rpm unit. Of the two, I'd rather have the latter, thankyou.

You see, there's a difference between a quality machine and a budget machine. One is built to a price, and the other is built to a standard - let me explain.

Let's take a mythical 1GHz PIII machine - fairly standard fare, you'd have thought. The spec reads:

• 1GHz PIII
• 40MB HDD
• 256MB RAM
• 32MB Graphics adapter
• 19" monitor
• CD-RW
• 24bit sound
• Speakers
• Mouse
• Keyboard
• Windows Me

Looks OK, doesn't it? Not a bad machine, yet you'll see prices ranging from £575 to £1200 for that kind of spec.

Budget

The £575 one will probably have PC133 RAM in it, possibly in two 128MB sticks. Its graphics and sound will be motherboard mounted - integrated, and the graphics adapter will use what's called shared memory technology to get its 32MB - it will 'steal' some of your RAM to make its own complement up, so you get to actually use only 220MB of your 256MB for running programs - the rest is dedicated to graphics. Hmmm...

Its hard disk will not be the fastest, most robust (and therefore most expensive) 40GB unit - it'll be the cheapest one the maker can find.

Its monitor, at 19', should be capable of doing a resolution of 1600x1200 minimum, but you'll probably find that it's a 1280x1024 unit, and the CD-RW is likely to be a lowly 4x4x24 unit, when there are now 20x10x40 units on the market (in other words, it's now bargain basement stuff - worth around £50 if you shop around).

The sound card will be built onto the motherboard, it won't be Dolby 5.11 compatible, and the speakers will have huge PMPO numbers on them, but they'll actually be tinny three watt two-inch drivers with all the bass response of a soggy piece of string and a bean can.

As for the keyboard, it's more than likely to be a rattley membrane-driven piece of kit that has been badly de-bounced and hurts your fingers to type on, while the mouse will be a two quid special, and, quite possibly, serial, rather than PS/2 or USB. Finally, Windows will be pre-installed with no CD to play with.

Quality

The quality system, on the other hand, will have a top of the range motherboard in it - tried and tested, hosting, at the very minimum, RAMBUS RAM - and capable of expansion up to 2GB, where the budget system will hardly hold more than what it's already got in it. Its graphics adapter is more likely to be the real deal - a proper 32MB GeForce 2 or 3 unit, at the minimum an MX, but maybe better. Its hard disk is more likely to be a decent 7200rpm piece of kit with good access speeds and capable of ATA100 operation, which the motherboard will support without a BIOS upgrade.

Its 19" Monitor will be 1600x1200, at the least, and will probably sync at 1920x1600 (although that's likely to strain the eyes somewhat), and may even have a 4 port USB hub integrated into it, while the CD-RW is more likely to be a minimum of 12x10x40, and may well be an adjunct to a DVD unit as well.

The sound card - for it will be a card - is more likely to be a proper SoundBlaster Live! 5.1 unit, teamed up with a decent set of surround sound 5.1 speakers, and you can bet that the keyboard will be better than on the budget system. You might even get an optical mouse with the quality system - maybe even a cordless keyboard and mouse system from a recognised manufacturer. Finally, you'll get the CD for your operating system, and it will have been installed more nearly correctly.

Mind you, for over £600 difference in the prices between the two systems, you'd expect one to be a lot better than the other.

Saving Money?

But, the thing is, on paper, they look pretty much identical. So where's the harm in buying the cheapo job?

Again, it depends on what you're going to use it for. Here at PPC Towers, we rather take the attitude that you may as well spend the dosh up front, because you'll part with it later if you don't. If the CD-RW in your bargain machine turns out to be painfully slow once you've seen your mate's 20x unit, you'll want a new, faster one. Bang goes £150.

Once you try running the latest 3D shoot-em-up on your built-in graphics adapter, you'll probably end up nipping out to buy a proper graphics adapter so it actually runs, as opposed to falling over because it doesn't like the integrated RAM-stealer. Bang goes another £150

Once you hear 5.1 sound coming out of a decent sound card, you may well decide to take the plunge - especially if Julio Doubleglazeias sounds naff on the built-in job to she who must be obeyed. Whoops - another £200 gone.

You'll probably put up with the monitor and RAM, because you'd have to change your motherboard to change the RAM for faster stuff, and the hard disk speed probably won't bother you - but then, you may have to change the motherboard to get the new graphics and sound going. And you're almost certain to discover that the keyboard and mouse will give up the ghost fairly quickly, necessitating the purchase of a new pair - another £50 gone.

And, of course, there's the DVD to add - £70 in round figures.

So that's why Gateway will be checking the specs to see that you're comparing like with like. Now, I'm not predisposed to be cynical (as if!) but I'd suggest that you also check out the specs of what Gateway is offering, should you decide to put their offer to the test, and be certain that their offering matches what you want in your machine - in fact, you should always seek detailed information on what, exactly, makes up the PC you're thinking about buying.

When I go to buy one, off the shelf (a rare occurrence, I'll grant), I tell 'em to get the lid off so I can see for myself what's in the box, and then that's the one I take away! Always assuming, of course, that I like what I see in there.

More usually, though, I build my own. But that, as they say, is a subject for another day.

 

David Dorn