The subject of buying a’branded or unbranded’ comp has been raging for a long time.and whoever writes a review will definitely colour it with his/her personal experiences. Mine will be no exception:)
Teh decision is more or less dependent on’what you are’ and’what do you want to do with a computer’. In the Indian home-user market, there are different types of users - the student/hobbyist section, the professional who uses the comp at home as an extension to work.
What the buyer is looking at is a particular price to performance+comfort ratio that he/she will be comfy with. Brandeds are usually thought to be costlier, unbrandeds as cheaper.
For people who even think that they will
damage their computers by opening it,
feel a service engineer from a compnay will be a better person to add the new piece of hardware you bought, or load up a new suite of software,
A branded computer willl definitely be the safer bet if this is your’first’ computer at home. Popular brands that offer decent desktop configurations in India are Dell, HP/Compaq, HCL, IBM and Apple. You will prolly get a decent sized monitor, a CPU, keyboard, a modem, a printer, a few free CDs, a few hours of’free’ internet.
But, if you have used a computer for a few months, and don’t feel threatened, or tend to think of the computer as just another electrical device, then a unbranded computer will be a better choice. This is not to say that a branded workstation will be a bad idea, because I saw a few excellent configurations available the last time I checked the India pages of most hardware manufacturers.
I tend to think of unbranded computers as self assembled ones, rather than assembled by a third party. Personally, I’ve had bad luck or bad products coming in through the local assembler. This was before I knew how to assemble my first PC. Since then, I’ve built a couple for myself and have had a good experience deciding what piece of hardware to buy after reading reviews at Toms Hardware Site, Anandtech, etc. Right now, for Rs 50000-65000, you can build yourself a decent system with
19’ monitor(believe me, a 19’ monitor makes using a computer a happy experience)]
2.4GHz+ processor
2 80G IDE hdds
32MB/64MB/128MB AGP
512M RAM
CD-RW
DVD drive
A decent motherboard, Asus, Gigabyte, etc
A modem, a good internet connection
Software - for Rs 8000, you cvan buy yourself a Ms Windows+Office license I think. If you are unscruplous, then you can bundle in a lot more software for a lot less
A decent sound card, your music system speakers.
You would end up with a fairly fast machine, that would be reasonably high-end. A similar setup by a branded compnay, like say IBM would be atleast 25000 more.but that is not a great price to pay to own an IBM.
I don’t think I can summarize what I crapped about above any better than by saying what machines I have now.
AMD-XP machine, built in 2002(works fast, lots of ram, but runs hot, even with 2 fans in teh case) - self assembled. Runs Linux
A old IBM workstation, huge case, large, airy, black and’desirable’, works very well, runs WinXP
A soon to be arriving cheap Dell Inspiron 1100 - laptop. this one is pretty fast.and will run WinXP
Bottomline, if you are getting yourself a unbranded one, better keep your eyes open. The supplier will usually not take responsibility for bad parts, etc.and you have only yourself accountable. If you have teh confidence in your abilities to build your own comp, buy the parts and do it yourself. All other events - buy a good well supported machine.