{"id":3101,"date":"2010-05-31T12:56:26","date_gmt":"2010-05-31T16:56:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/?p=3101"},"modified":"2010-05-31T12:56:26","modified_gmt":"2010-05-31T16:56:26","slug":"another-computer-conundrum-a-computer-for-mom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2010\/05\/31\/another-computer-conundrum-a-computer-for-mom\/","title":{"rendered":"Another Computer Conundrum: A Computer for MOM"},"content":{"rendered":"

Once again, I’m facing a computer conundrum. This time, however, it’s a bit trickier to find the “right” answer, because this computer isn’t for me: it’s for my mom.<\/strong><\/p>\n

My conundrum is this: I still have my old computer (Elysion) lying around, and since I love giving old technology a second life, I had planned to clean it up, install Windows 7 on it, and give it to my mom to replace her current computer – a very<\/em> old Dell with a very<\/em> slow early generation Pentium 4 CPU.<\/p>\n

Now, you might be thinking:\u00a0 “What’s the conundrum, Keith? Just give you mom your old computer; it’s obviously better than what she has!”<\/em> And you’d be right – my old computer is<\/em> better than what she has currently.<\/p>\n

But there’s another choice I hadn’t considered originally: getting my mom a nettop computer<\/a> instead.<\/p>\n

To put it into perspective, he’s a handy comparison chart comparing my old computer vs. a new nettop (specifically, an Acer Aspire Revo AR2600 U9022 – gotta love Acer’s insane model numbering!):<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\nMy Old Computer (Elysion)
\n<\/strong><\/td>\n		Acer Aspire Revo AR36010 U9022
\n<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CPU:<\/strong><\/td>\nPentium 4 w\/HT<\/td>\nIntel Atom 330 w\/HT<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CPU Type:
\n<\/strong><\/td>\n		32-bit<\/td>\n64-bit<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CPU Architecture:<\/strong><\/td>\n\u201cPrescott\u201d<\/td>\n“Diamondville”<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CPU Cores:<\/strong><\/td>\n1 (2 logical)<\/td>\n2 (4 logical)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
L2 Cache:<\/strong><\/td>\n1 MB<\/td>\n1 MB<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Clock Speed:<\/strong><\/td>\n3.2 GHz<\/td>\n1.6 GHz<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Front-side bus:<\/strong><\/td>\n800 MHz<\/td>\n533 MHz<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Thermal Draw:<\/strong><\/td>\n82W<\/td>\n23W<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
RAM:<\/strong><\/td>\n1 GB DDR2 PC4300 + 2 GB DDR2 PC5300<\/td>\n2 GB DDR2 PC2 6400<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Hard Drive:<\/strong><\/td>\n160 GB + 500 GB (7200 RPM)<\/td>\n160 GB (5200 RPM)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Video:<\/strong><\/td>\nATI Radeon X300<\/td>\nNVIDIA ION integrated graphics<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Other Drives:<\/strong><\/td>\n1x CD\/DVD writer, 1x CD\/DVD player<\/td>\nSD\/MMC\/MemoryStick\/xD memory card reader\/writer<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Cost:
\n<\/strong><\/td>\n		Free (+ about $120 for a Windows 7 upgrade)<\/td>\n$330 (all inclusive)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

The problem I have is that I’m not always very good at picking out technology for other people – especially for people who plan to use technology in a very different way than I would. While my recommendations are still very, very good (the reason why people keep asking for my recommendations in the first place), they are still a little bit… biased<\/em>.<\/p>\n

On the surface, it seems like the Acer nettop is the way to go – although it may be a bit slower in terms of raw clock and front-side bus speed, it is a true dual-core CPU, with all the benefits that go along with that. (Astute readers might also remember that when I upgraded from Elysion<\/a> I actually took a drop in raw CPU clock speed from 3.2 GHz to 2.6 GHz, and yet my new computer is much<\/em> faster than my old one.)<\/p>\n

On the other hand, there are other aspects of the Acer nettop that would suggest that maybe sticking with a full-fledged desktop PC is the way to go. The nettop is, with a few exceptions, basically a desktop version of my Acer Aspire One netbook<\/a>. The CPU in my netbook runs at the same clock speed (although it is not dual-core) and has the same size (and same RPM speed) hard drive. And although I love my netbook and think it is a great little computer, it is not exactly “zippy” in terms of performance.<\/p>\n

However, again, there are differences between the netbook <\/em>and the nettop<\/em>. For one, the nettop has more RAM than my netbook – 2 GB instead of 1. And the nettop has that new ION graphics package – remember, this nettop is often marketed as a great Media Center PC rather than as a desktop computer, and as such it has the necessary graphics power to drive a big HD screen. And my netbook runs Ubuntu Linux for the most part (with the factory-installed Windows XP on a separate partition), not Windows 7, so there may be performance differences there that I’m not aware of. And there’s that whole dual-core vs. single core thing, plus the fact that the nettop’s CPU is 64-bit vs the netbooks 32-bit CPU.<\/p>\n

However, my old computer also has the advantage of being, well, free<\/em> – since I already have it (I just have to pick up a Windows 7 upgrade CD). And in this case, cost is definitely a factor.<\/p>\n

Making the decision even harder is that it’s very hard to find performance data that can be used to compare the old Pentium 4 (with Hyper-Threading!) against the very new Atom 330, especially since things like chipsets, graphics card performance, hard drive speed, and so forth can all very significantly affect perceived (and measured) performance.<\/p>\n

So I’m just not sure what to do in this case – I think I will have to mull this over for a bit more still before I come to a decision. (Though I invite readers with an opinion one way or the other to chime in on this debate in the comments!) When I do come to a decision, I will post about it here (and update this article), since I think that this sort of computer conundrum is bound to be a common one among techno-savvy people with not-quite-as-tech-savvy family members. But we shall see!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I face another computer conundrum: what sort of computer to get for my mom, a casual user (as opposed to me, the power user).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[23,255,198],"class_list":["post-3101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-computers","tag-cpu","tag-hardware","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pimUj-O1","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1094,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/05\/01\/a-computer-conundrum\/","url_meta":{"origin":3101,"position":0},"title":"A Computer Conundrum","author":"Keith Survell","date":"May 1, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Once again, I've filled up my hard drive. 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