Looking for a computer solely for e-mail, word processing, light net surfing and maybe a couple of games, not the newer graphics-intensive ones but old ones like solitaire, etc. This computer would NOT be for trading. This is for a senior-citizen relative, not me, and they're on a strict budget. Anyone know of a reputable used/refurbished firm that sells good Pentium III towers? Looking for something other than E-bay. I've found a few sites on the net but am wondering if any ETers have experiences with some of the companies out there. Thanks.
Ask around (neighbourhood / friends) You might be able to get one pretty cheap if they buy a new computer...
You can get a good deal from Dell, sometimes they have an offer for P4, with 15" flat panel for $499. Hard to beat that, unless can find something for like $100. Anyways just a suggestion.
http://www.microexchange.com i bought 1 HP P3 from them for my father micro tower with dvd player,cdrw, 40 gig hd more than year ago for about $300. work fine. 17'' monitors can be found in any store like officemax from time to time for like $60. dont buy celeron-when they compare them with p3-test looks almost same, but in real life-celeron is total crap.
There should be scads of these available at local suppliers for no more than $200. Also, an AMD K6 350Mhz should do all of this easily and be somewhat cheaper.
Cheap computing power is abundant. The best place I know to buy for the consumer is Ebay - they have the largest selection of name brands. If you have a lot of free time you could simply put one together from components but it would really be difficult to beat the deals on used equipment that can be had on Ebay or through commercial computer equipment liquidators.
I've had pretty good luck with these guys: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/category/category_slc.asp?CatId=110 Smitty