$159 Computer
An article posted at PC Magazine’s website this month offers a review of the unbelievable $159 GQ ("Great Quality") 3131 PC. I was skeptical that you could purchase a computer worth owning for $159, but I was surprised by the relatively decent system (for the price) that GQ is offering. The system comes with a AMD Sempron 2400+ chip, which runs at 1.67 GHz, a 40 GB hard drive, a 52x CD-ROM drive (right - no burner), and a ECS 741GX-M socket 462 motherboard, which has 4 USB 2.0 ports, built-in 6-channel audio, a 10/100 ethernet NIC and built-in modem (because if you need a $159 PC, there’s a good chance you’re still on dial-up.) There is an empty AGP slot in case you want to throw in a graphics card later, though playing games on this PC would be a joke; still, at least it’s there if you want to upgrade. There is only 128 MB of memory in one of the two DIMM slots, but hey…it’s a $159 PC! Besides, RAM is an easy, cheap upgrade these days, and in this case, almost a required one. Still, when you tack on the extra $40 to bring the RAM up to 512 MB, you’re still looking at a $199 PC, and that’s not too shabby.
What the 3131 doesn’t come with is (besides a monitor) is any Microsoft software - the PC runs Linspire (formerly Lindows) and has the Microsoft-compatible OpenOffice suite pre-installed; but so what? There isn’t much more that you can do with this PC besides creating documents and surfing the ‘net, anyway, and frankly, there’s not much more the average user wants to do either. (Well, that and using email of course, which I’m sure could be handled just fine by a freebie app like Thunderbird).
So, techies like me (and probably anyone who reads blogs like this) won’t be drooling over this one, but it’s good to see something affordable enough for the financially challenged, fixed-income, or just your run-of-the-mill penny-pincher consumers. Believe it or not, there are still people out there who don’t own or use computers, so bargain technology like this can be just the price point they needed to get wired. The only problem I have with all the hype is that this GQ PC appears to be an in-store special at Fry’s, as their website doesn’t list the deal. You can see if there is a Fry’s near you here.
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Only thing is, all the dialup software I know about is based on Windows OS. Net Zero or AOL for example. I wonder how you can keep your old dialup ISP…
Interesting article! I remember a little over a year ago, Robin Miller mentioned that the area for Linux to grow into was exactly this one: the run-of-the-mill, surf, chat, office, and email crowd. Funny that it’s target audience should be uber-techies and luddites, with very little market penetration into the middle ground of consumer computing.
Oh, it was also about a year ago that I first heard about Fry’s from one of my California-based geek friends. I’ve been waiting for one ever since.
Thanks for mentioning the article, Sarah. For $159, that leaves plenty of room in the ‘ol wallet to get a burner, printer, extra hard drive, etc.
Glad to be in TampaBLAB with you.
I’m drooling over the thought of getting like 10 of them and networking. You can still play games… just nothing released in the last 5-10 years depending. That’s no problem here.
Hi Sarah:
Connecting some of the themes in this thread. For the Linux fan, this is not a bad machine. I had friends who were computer science students. They wanted cheap boxes to study netorking, programming, databases, etc. I have tinkered with Linux. Linux Window managers are memory hogs. You will need more RAM.
If you want to upgrade, you will either have to: set up a dual-boot machine, which is a hassle, try to find peripherals with Linux compatible drivers, or make it a Microsoft dedicated box.
My two cents — Scott
I wonder what all the things might be that you do with your computer that you couldn’t do with the $159 job (199 w/RAM upgrade)?
I can do everything on my old 800Mhz P-3 home machine that I can do on my new Athlon at work or my Alienware laptop, and rarely notice any real differences unless I’m editing a big image. Of course I don’t do video editing, but it’s a myth that the old machines won’t support much new activity. Oh yes, Google Earth is a tad slow on the 800.
My son-in-law, BTW, games online with a 900MHz, and does pretty well.