The Gadget Show

[Super Jordson]

has any seen the latest gadget show on channel Five?

they where showing you the supposed best PC's money can buy yeah but am not really big on PC's but they said that the best one was a 1gig Packard Bell it was Cack!!

i just wanted to know if anyone saw this and if so what did you think??

[BudoBob]

Welcome to the forums Jordson.
I happened to catch that particular episode and thought it was very interesting.

For those who don't know the hosts obtained 3 PCs, each from a different source. Each PC was ~£450.
The first PC was from PC World, the second from the internet from some middle-man company I have never heard of, and the third was a custom build from the local PC shop.

I think you are a little mistaken though regarding the outcome of the tests.
The overall winner was the shop built PC as opposed to the Packard Bell. Not suprising really. A shop built PC generally only comes with the drivers and OS installed instead of the usual crap and 'free trials' they bundle with other machines.

N.B. There was at least a £50 difference between the cost of each PC and none of them were the same spec so this had some bearing on the results.

http://gadgetshow.five.tv/jsp/5gsmain.jsp?lnk=401&section=Features&show=s8e10&featureid=791&description=Entry%20Level%20PCs

[latency]

The Gadget Show presenters know which way is up... They usually pick the right choice, but they can't be technical about it, since it's aimed at the general public, not PC enthusiasts.

[Westy5]

To be honest it was a crap comparison, not like with like and not worth the airtime they gave it.

Who buys a quad-core as a budget machine?

They should stick to what they are good at - interesting gadget reviews and light-hearted humour.

[ArTizan]

Sorry but that bald guy upsets me, he is clearly some form of creature from Xen.

Cross-bred with a hobbit.

[latency]

The general public buy quad-cores, because the industry tells them to.

TGS rolls with what the general public have heard about, and thus shows them what it's all about.

[Westy5]

The general public buy quad-cores, because the industry tells them to.

TGS rolls with what the general public have heard about, and thus shows them what it's all about.

But not in a budget PC - and not comparing like with like.

Sure do a comparison of quad-cores, but don't pretend that what they did was worth any value? IF anything it devalued the value of the program, not enhanced it

[latency]

That's the thing though, they don't bother doing scientific tests and fair comparisons, because the public just want to know which is better to live with.

Person has ~£400 to spend, where should they go, and was the higher spec computer worth it. That's the question, not is a quad-core better than a dual-core / single-core.

[Super Jordson]

any way hope this continues and also thanks Bubo Bob for welcoming me, thanks to u all ive allready lernt more bout pc's but tbh ive got a mate and his pc is a **** load better then when they tried to copy a cd n it took somert like 5 mins for all three on average i even know thats crap. his would have done it somert like one min if that

[six5tring]

copy a cd in 1min... maybe... but I still burn as slowely as possible! Bits seem to get misplaced all far too easily. Normally you only notice on audio cd's but seems to happen all too often!

six

[Sub]

in all my years of burning cd's at maximum speed to my knowledge its never missed a bit? :(

[six5tring]

Ah... when data CD's I don't worry too much with. But i've certainly had some problems with high end cd players making funny noises!

six

[[GPO]Solitaire]

The premis of the review was not about budget pc's as such, But what can you buy on a budget of £450 or so. Although they were crud examples... Put an extra few quid and pick up a core 2 quad dell instead. :) :) :)