The 'end' of Widows XP - New PC time!

[Maffa]

If you're looking to upgrade I would go to windows 7. 8 was primarily designed for touch screens and is very different compared to XP. Going up from XP you will probably find that additional RAM will be needed (min 4gb I think). Having kids using it will probably mean a reasonable processor is required (i5 or above) as I'm sure some amount of gaming will be needed and i3 is getting oldish. Saying that, will you need a separate graphics card?

I found myself in exactly the same place a few months ago and found that having to upgrade the processor meant I needed a new motherboard. So it equated to new board,processor & additional ram or a whole new box. Not much price difference, but I found novotech do bare bones motherboard bundles that gave me the best of both. Switching from Pentium to AMD also saves around £100 on the bundles, but they do run hotter.

 

[Maldon john]

:

If you want an almost hassle free computing life then get an Apple Mac (oops what have I done now).

I'm not bashing M$, it continues to provide me with a living at work and has done for many years, but for ordinary home users, who don't want to tinker, who want a simple to use, hassle free computer experience that will last for years without major security fixes, constant updates and expensive OS upgrades, then you cant beat Apple, I've been a convert for 6 years now and while Windows looks like it is [slowly] catching up, everytime I logon to a windoze machine I breathe a sigh of disappointment and long for my shiny Apple laptop.

In my eyes, budget is less relevant, value for money is what counts over the long term my 2008 Macbook Pro laptop is still an excellent workhorse and still relevant to the latest version of OSX. If you also have other Apple devices (iphone, ipad etc) they all work seamlessly together. I've saved my wife (and myself) countless hours of frustrating effort of fixing her cheapo Windows laptops by buying a Macbook Air for her, it does everything she wants and hasn't gone wrong in 4 years.

Get a used example of an Apple for under £500 and you'd be doing well, but there is a reason for that......

:party:

+1 :thumb:

 

[Runwell-Steve]

You really need to ask what you use a computer for.

I have just bought myself a Windows 8.1 touch screen laptop. It cost £300.00
It's a brilliant bit of kit and runs everything I need. It only had a 10 inch screen and is really lightweight and had a 6 hour battery life so is really portable. One of my better investments.