[rpoz-29]

Our old Gateway is almost 6 years old. It's been updated a couple of times, but has gotten pretty slow, and "locks up" frequently. I'd like to spend as little as I have to. It isn't used by my son's for school any more, and therefore isn't used to download music, or other memory eating stuff. We use our computer for selling or buying on ebay, poking around on the internet, basic communications, etc. Should I buy a "package deal", or keep my monitor, keyboard and replace only the modem?

[KeithO]

I just ordered my second $299 Dell. I am typing this on the first one, which will be exactly 2 years old in a few weeks. The new one is for my 11 year old since there is a constant 4-way battle for this PC. I added a wireless router last weekend and can use my work laptop when my wife/daughter/son are using this one.

This one is fast enough for Internet browsing (concurrent with listening to My Yahoo! radio station). It only has 128MB of RAM but it works fine. I can stream video but I can't play fancy games on it because the 3-D games require a better video card.

The new one is essentially identical was ordered with 512MB Ram, CD-RW/DVD-R as adders but now my daughter will have a slightly faster machine (more memory) and watch movies in her room. It came with traditional monitor, keyboard, mouse, modem, network card and a really crappy printer.

Since I am buying my second one, I would obviously recommend this as a possible replacement. I have had zero problems with this PC.