The fastest computer I have owned

[Howard]

I’ve just replaced a desktop computer. From pressing the button in the morning to the first web screen takes around 20 seconds (or a bit faster depending on how quickly I type my four digit pin).

Loading a fairly complex spreadsheet is so quick from the mouse click that I can’t time it. Similarly opening a fast site like the BBC business news is instantaneous. Videos etc play immediately too.

I’m very pleased because it only cost £168 from Amazon. It was an experiment to test being a little environmentally friendly because it’s a recycled unit. Purchased to see if it was as good as buying a new computer for multiples of the price. In fact it is probably better! It was a joy to switch on. Within a second or two of plugging in, it only showed two icons on the screen, Microsoft Edge and a “Backup” icon. So no bloatware and no irritating programs wanting me to subscribe. When I clicked the Edge icon it linked to the internet through the ethernet cable and within a minute or two I’d logged into my Microsoft account and was on the internet. Windows 10 was up to date with no issues, and security was all switched on. My wireless printer gave me a welcome screen and connected and within a minute or two I’d printed a test page.

I downloaded Chrome and logged into Google which synced the computer to my phone and Chromebook in seconds.

Clicking on the “Backup” icon allowed me to make a backup of the system and windows on a USB stick in a few minutes.

The ease and speed of setting the computer up amazed me.

The computer case has seen better days, it is scratched but it’s hidden from view beside my desk. It synced immediately with my Samsung wide-screen monitor which is the “face” of a computer as far as I am concerned, so nothing has changed really, apart from a speed boost.

A new copy of Microsoft Office 2019 was then downloaded for £12 and now I have all the functionality I need. To personalise the toolbars etc of Office and Excel was a pain to be honest because I wanted them to look like my 2010 version and to be the same colour scheme. For me, this took an hour or two, but wasn’t the fault of the computer.

Friends’ laptops I have recently used are glacially slow by comparison with the new machine. The only device which is as fast, in my experience, is a Chromebook.

I have checked the actual spec of the computer in settings and it is slightly better than that described by the Amazon supplier I ordered from (IT buffs).

HP EliteDesk 800 G1 SFF Black Desktop PC, Intel Quad Core i5-4590 3.30GHz, 8GB RAM, Western Digital 240GB SDD with Windows 10 Pro. It has 4 USB 3.0 and 6 USB 2.0 sockets. I bought an adaptor to link its displayport socket to an HDMI lead to the monitor.

I hope this experience may be useful to others considering a new desktop for surfing the web, watching videos and MS office programmes. I do not need a large disk (I’ve only used 37 of its 240 gb so far) as I don’t have more than a few hundred home videos and photos to store. Versions with larger disks are available for a few pounds more. Any questions or comments on my choice are welcome.

regards

Howard

similar to https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07 ... UTF8&psc=1

[GeoffF100]

What did you pay for it?

[johnhemming]

I’m very pleased because it only cost £168 from Amazon.

[airbus330]

3camels shows the 3rd party price bouncing around between 195 and 144. Keep watching it will drop.https://uk.camelcamelcamel.com/HP-Elite ... B07843N5G6

[torata]

A new copy of Microsoft Office 2019 was then downloaded for £12 and now I have all the functionality I need.

How did you get Office for 12 quid?

torata

[Howard]

A new copy of Microsoft Office 2019 was then downloaded for £12 and now I have all the functionality I need.

How did you get Office for 12 quid?

torata

From Amazon. It comes as a download.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07 ... UTF8&psc=1

regards

Howard

[Howard]

3camels shows the 3rd party price bouncing around between 195 and 144. Keep watching it will drop.https://uk.camelcamelcamel.com/HP-Elite ... B07843N5G6

When I looked at this link today, it indicated a price of £243.

I would advise looking at the Amazon site directly. The price does vary depending on the exact spec of the computer. There is a range available from much lower prices than this. A similar model to mine is currently £147 but may be sold within a day or two.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/HP-i5-3470-Pro ... -1-catcorr

regards

Howard

[airbus330]

3camels shows the 3rd party price bouncing around between 195 and 144. Keep watching it will drop.https://uk.camelcamelcamel.com/HP-Elite ... B07843N5G6

When I looked at this link today, it indicated a price of £243.

I would advise looking at the Amazon site directly. The price does vary depending on the exact spec of the computer. There is a range available from much lower prices than this. A similar model to mine is currently £147 but may be sold within a day or two.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/HP-i5-3470-Pro ... -1-catcorr

regards

Howard

Yes it does for Amazon supplying (green Graph), but if you tick the blue 3rd. party box another blue graph appears showing best marketplace supplier, including ITBuffs, who you bought from, currently at 195, but with a range down to 144 over the last few months. 3Camels has been around for years tracking Amazon prices which are very dynamic. It is useful for targeting things which periodically come up as daily deals.

[Lanark]

A new copy of Microsoft Office 2019 was then downloaded for £12 and now I have all the functionality I need.

How did you get Office for 12 quid?

torata

From Amazon. It comes as a download.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07 ... UTF8&psc=1

regards

Howard

They are plainly illegal sales of Microsoft Office that might work but Microsoft can cancel the licence at any time.
https://office-watch.com/2018/more-offi ... -and-ebay/

Now you might not care, compared to the monthly subscription prices £12 is cheap even if it stops working after a couple of months.

As I have said in other threads there are a lot of fakes and scams on Amazon.

[PrincessB]

I’m very pleased because it only cost £168 from Amazon.

Glad you're pleased with it, for the money you've paid the specification is very good. 8GB of memory, a quad core processor and an SSD combine to deliver a very pleasant experience for general work use.

I think it is amazing that a processor that was discontinued in 2014 is still able to deliver such outstanding results. In some respects, Intel's go slow on processor development has meant that these older units are still a viable purchase after such a long time.

A number of posters have commented on the availabilty of some very viable computers through the second hand market. Following that advice I recently spent considerably more on a new old stock Dell (£260) which needed a memory and hard drive upgrade so the total cost was probably nearer to £400 in total. Over twice as much as you've paid for essentially the same performance.

Well found,

B.

PS Could not agree more about the laptops, you don't really notice 10% performance differences, but when a desktop is five or ten times quicker and you've got a large screen built to a quality you can see clearly and a keyboard and mouse, the producivity increase is huge.

[Howard]

How did you get Office for 12 quid?

torata

From Amazon. It comes as a download.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07 ... UTF8&psc=1

regards

Howard

They are plainly illegal sales of Microsoft Office that might work but Microsoft can cancel the licence at any time.
https://office-watch.com/2018/more-offi ... -and-ebay/

Now you might not care, compared to the monthly subscription prices £12 is cheap even if it stops working after a couple of months.

As I have said in other threads there are a lot of fakes and scams on Amazon.

There are around 700 positive reviews on Amazon for this product from Sam Soft and no suggestions that the software has been switched off later. The provider has the highest ratings for service and I couldn't detect any false reviews. They all look pretty "Human" to me and, as one might expect from real reviews, they are very varied in style including a number reporting a helpful response from the help service and just a few who encountered problems loading the software, but that is as one might expect.

But thank you for your warning I will report back if there are any problems with Office in future.

regards

Howard

[PrincessB]

I've bought a couple of cheapo Office 2019 downloads too. All working perfectly.

Office 2019 has support till 2022 (I think)

Office 365 requires a subscription and allows use on multiple machines.

See link

https://products.office.com/en-gb/compa ... aprimaryr1

B.

[Howard]

I've bought a couple of cheapo Office 2019 downloads too. All working perfectly.

Office 2019 has support till 2022 (I think)

Office 365 requires a subscription and allows use on multiple machines.

See link

https://products.office.com/en-gb/compa ... aprimaryr1

B.

Yes, you are right, my download was clearly limited to installation on one machine only.

regards

Howard

[GeoffF100]

This i3 is a little slower:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dell-OptiPlex- ... QFRX8&th=1

Nonetheless, £119.15 with free delivery does not leave much room for complaint.

[GeoffF100]

Or with and i5:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01E97IVD2/ ... B00H8XZ4B2

for £135.

[GeoffF100]

Even better, I found a local ad on Gumtree for an "HP Pro 4300 SFF i3-3220 3rd Gen 3.30GHz 4GB Ram 500GB HDD PC Computer keyboard Mouse Windows 10 Pro" for £60.00. Performance should be decent with that processor. 4 GB RAM is enough for Windows, and plenty for LInux. It is easy to install an SSD under the DVD drive:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lAv0K5bHtw

The HP documentation looks good, and the machine is easy to take apart. I do not need a new computer, but it is interesting to see what is possible. They will be chucking out even better ones next year.

[airbus330]

How nabout this one. Even has a 480gb SSD for £45 extra. https://itzoo.co.uk/collections/pc-base ... windows-10

[Infrasonic]

This is thread turning into the Four Yorkshiremen (IT) sketch...

[GeoffF100]

Tha Amazon ones come with a pretty big screen, mouse, keyboard, software etc

100% Plug and pray.

Err. No. The Amazon PCs do not come with a screen, mouse or keyboard. All these PCs come with Windoze, but it should not be hard to install Linux on any of them. The Amazon and IT Zoo PCs come with a one year warranty. I do not know about the local guy. He seems to have been in business for many years, and has lots of PCs for sale. He offers a keyboard and mouse with his machines, but I have got plenty of those anyway.

[Howard]

Tha Amazon ones come with a pretty big screen, mouse, keyboard, software etc

100% Plug and pray.

Err. No. The Amazon PCs do not come with a screen, mouse or keyboard. All these PCs come with Windoze, but it should not be hard to install Linux on any of them. The Amazon and IT Zoo PCs come with a one year warranty. I do not know about the local guy. He seems to have been in business for many years, and has lots of PCs for sale. He offers a keyboard and mouse with his machines, but I have got plenty of those anyway.

Why would anyone waste their time installing Linux on an incredibly fast machine which has Windows 10 installed and which works immediately one plugs it in? Yes, I know some enthusiasts like to potter around messing about with computers, but (in my experience so far) these refurbished models are ideal for day to day use as no nonsense machines and their speedy operation saves time.

Admittedly I took it to the recycling centre, but my slow old computer might be more ideal for those who potter . I'm afraid I'm too busy to treat my computer as a hobby, I'm happy to go with the millions of satisfied Microsoft customers. (And declaring an interest, invested in their shares a few years ago, and they haven't done badly.)



regards

Howard