Raspberry Pi Or Computer Stick OR Conventionally Assembled Desktop?

[speedoholic]

I am looking for a cheap setup to provide a very basic computer to be used by my parents (Browsing, Using Microsoft Office, Printing, Watching Movies).

It needs to be connected to an HD TV and wireless mouse and keyboard. Though I am inclined towards Computer sticks, I am also trying to figure out if setting up a raspberry pi is possible.

iBall computer stick (Rs 8500): http://www.amazon.in/gp/product/B011U0S6KO?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=ox_sc_act_title_1&smid=A2LDOZCORWDDHX
Raspberry (Rs 3900): http://www.amazon.in/Raspberry-Pi-Model-Starter-Official/dp/B013NH3OZO/ref=sr_1_2?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1447833757&sr=1-2&keywords=desktop

P.S.: The last resort will be getting a conventionally assembled desktop computer.

 

[bambiboom]

I am looking for a cheap setup to provide a very basic computer to be used by my parents (Browsing, Using Microsoft Office, Printing, Watching Movies).

It needs to be connected to an HD TV and wireless mouse and keyboard. Though I am inclined towards Computer sticks, I am also trying to figure out if setting up a raspberry pi is possible.

iBall computer stick (Rs 8500): http://www.amazon.in/gp/product/B011U0S6KO?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=ox_sc_act_title_1&smid=A2LDOZCORWDDHX
Raspberry (Rs 3900): http://www.amazon.in/Raspberry-Pi-Model-Starter-Official/dp/B013NH3OZO/ref=sr_1_2?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1447833757&sr=1-2&keywords=desktop

P.S.: The last resort will be getting a conventionally assembled desktop computer.

speedoholic,

My inclination would be to find a good, used Dell Optiplex and perhaps do minor upgrades. Even quite old systems will be very good in this use. I was given a Dell Dimension E520 by an office that was closing:

Dell Dimension E520 (2007)(Original): Pentium D 830 dual core @3.0GHz > 2GB DDR2 667 > GeForce 7300LE > 2X Dell 19" LCD > Windows XP Professional 32-bit
[Passmark system rating = 384, CPU = 613 / 2D= 248 / 3D=72 / Mem= 562 / Disk=521]

And, this was used in the office to design the website and accounting, running two 19" monitors,so I believe that it would work in the proposed use as it was.

However, I'm a compulsive compu-fuss and I bought- all used:

CPU > $28
RAM > $12 (2GB)
GPU > $30
Sound Card > $30
Sound system > $30

TOTAL = about $135. Of course about half of this amount is to have high quality sound. So, if the used system cost $60 and was upgraded without the sound system, the total would be similar to Rs 8500.

The results were very good proportionally to the cost:

Dell Dimension E520 (2007)(Revised): Core2 Duo E6700 dual core @2.66GHz > 4GB DDR2 667 > GeForce GT440 (1GB GDDR5) > M-Audio 192 soundcard > Logitech z313 2.1 sound system.
[Passmark system rating = 1219, CPU = 2024 / 2D= 457 / 3D=978 / Mem= 828 / Disk=576]

And which performs very well running a 32" 1080p LCD set I see YouTube, Netflix, DVD's, and read online newspapers and journals. Recently, only to try it, I added a free trial of Sketchup and imported a very large Sketchup 3D model- 95MB is very difficult even on my fast main system, and it worked much better than I thought. It was quite slow, but I thought it would not even open the file.

For the use intended, I think that upgrading a good quality, used conventional system makes the most sense. If the space is severely limited then the options mentioned in the original post would be interesting to try, but are very limited to inputs and outputs With a conventional desktop the integrated optical disk- CD /DVD can play DVD's, the integrated sound is often quite good, you can get a good used GPU that will run a big screen, there's plenty of storage for documents, photos of the grandchildren and the cat, and so on.

These old systems can be bahoot acha.

Cheers,

BambiBoom


HP z420 (2015) > Xeon E5-1660 v2 six-core @ 3.7 / 4.0GHz > 32GB DDR3 ECC 1866 RAM > Quadro K4200 (4GB) > Intel 730 480GB (9SSDSC2BP480G4R5) > Western Digital Black WD1003FZEX 1TB> M-Audio 192 sound card > 600W PSU> Logitech z2300 > Linksys AE3000 USB WiFi > 2X Dell Ultrasharp U2715H (2560 X 1440) > Windows 7 Professional 64 >
[ Passmark Rating = 5064 > CPU= 13989 / 2D= 819 / 3D= 4596 / Mem= 2772 / Disk= 4555] [Cinebench R15 > CPU = 1014 OpenGL= 126.59 FPS] 7.8.15