Need PC for under $500.00

[lartomar2002]

I have a friend that needs a p c with monitor and keyboard/mouse for $500 or less. For now he only needs it as a word processor with internet capabilities because he wants to start writing again. But he wants to ba able to upgrade later and for that I have been told that the ATX tower was the best. Other than that I know nothing, I mean I have found a lot of "renewed" ones but when reading the reviews you hear how cheap the peripheral are and they only have a 90 day warranty. So any advice you can give me will be greatly appreciated.
Larry

 

[LordVile]

I have a friend that needs a p c with monitor and keyboard/mouse for $500 or less. For now he only needs it as a word processor with internet capabilities because he wants to start writing again. But he wants to ba able to upgrade later and for that I have been told that the ATX tower was the best. Other than that I know nothing, I mean I have found a lot of "renewed" ones but when reading the reviews you hear how cheap the peripheral are and they only have a 90 day warranty. So any advice you can give me will be greatly appreciated.
Larry

Well you have a few options. Word processing isn't demanding so it depends on what he wants to upgrade it for. You can easily build a PC with something like a 2200g and 8GB of RAM which would be more than enough and is the most upgradable option. You could get a prebuilt if you'd like or get an old office PC like an optiplex with an older i5 in it and just throw in an SSD. If you say what he wants to upgrade it for later down the line I can suggest what you could do.

 

[Deleted member 14196]

if i were writing, i would prefer a nice laptop. There are great choices in that price range, you can always add external monitor (using hdmi) and usb 3 powered hub

i gave up ATX long ago (I only game on console) for a tiny thin laptop and it's been great.

Writers can go mobile with it and work remote with it anywhere

LibreOffice is fantastic as a free office suite. I just love it. Google Docs is free and best part is, your stuff is ALWAYS in the cloud, so if your HDD fails, you don't lose anything.

 

[LordVile]

if i were writing, i would prefer a nice laptop. There are great choices in that price range, you can always add external monitor (using hdmi) and usb 3 powered hub

i gave up ATX long ago (I only game on console) for a tiny thin laptop and it's been great.

Writers can go mobile with it and work remote with it anywhere

LibreOffice is fantastic as a free office suite. I just love it. Google Docs is free and best part is, your stuff is ALWAYS in the cloud, so if your HDD fails, you don't lose anything.

Why would you pick a laptop over a mech keyboard...

 

[Deleted member 14196]

i use external mechanical keyboard, monitor and mouse and have a 10 port usb3 powered hub. i'm good. the laptop part is just for when i want to go mobile. sometimes i like to run remote software builds from my easy chair

it's easy to build a good pc for 500 or less, but you have no mobility. I can see if customer wanted to game on it potentially. ATX would be preferred for heavier lifting duties of course.

 

[LordVile]

i use external mechanical keyboard, monitor and mouse and have a 10 port usb3 powered hub. i'm good. the laptop part is just for when i want to go mobile. sometimes i like to run remote software builds from my easy chair

it's easy to build a good pc for 500 or less, but you have no mobility. I can see if customer wanted to game on it potentially. ATX would be preferred for heavier lifting duties of course.

Eh prefer itx myself, compact, easy to move and you can fit them pretty much anywhere