How to choose

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Choosing a PC for use at University/College can be a confusing process. Here are some of the issues you may wish to consider ...

What will you use your PC for?

For many students a PC is central to both work and recreation: Your PC may be a key facility to support your studies from research through to production of reports but it can also be at the centre of your communication and entertainment. From staying in touch with your friends and family via email, accessing the Internet, down-loading music, playing games and watching DVD's, your PC is also likely to be an essential entertainment centre. Given these factors it is perhaps not surprising that around 90%* of students take their own personal computer to university or college.

What do you need to consider in general?

PC: At the heart of your selection is of course what PC to buy. Today most students select Notebook PCs so that they can easily move and use them in any location ie at home, on campus or anywhere else you want to study. With your PC being so important, ensuring it is going to be reliable is clearly essential. You also need to check it has a high specification processor to be able to cater for all of the different requirements you may have now and in three or four year's time. To support this you need as much memory as possible (more RAM helps processing speed) and large hard disk capacity particularly if you are going to be downloading or recording music or videos. Finally the operating system, normally Windows Vista lays the platform to control all of the different items of hardware and the software you will want to use.

Software: The next key consideration is the software to enable you to quickly and easily create great-looking documents, spreadsheets and presentations, and manage e-mail and schedule your time. Microsoft Office is the most widely used suite of applications software which you will almost certainly have used at School and home. The latest suite of this is Microsoft Office 2007. There are different editions of Microsoft Office which include different software packages, the Student & Home version provides a low cost option covering many student requirements. As well as ensuring you have the right software to do the things you want to, it is important to ensure your software is purchased legitimately. If you are offered “pirated” versions beware - this is illegal and also exposes you to security risks. Of course you also need to ensure you have capable Internet security suite such as McAfee to keep your PC and your personal data safe when you are online. Your university may require you to have a particular security package before you can access university networks.

Support: When you're up against tight deadlines or just if your entire music collection is on your PC, you need to know there is effective support behind you to rapidly resolve any hardware problems you may experience. Although any new PC's should come with a warranty, in the event of a fault this would normally involve returning it to the manufacturer and waiting for a repair or replacement. An onsite support contract in contrast ensures a engineer can come out to you when need as well as normally providing web and telephone support in the first instance.

What about the options available in Dell SCI?

Dell SCI provides the option to choose from the entire Dell consumer products portfolio for maximum choice with tiered savings over and above most generally advertised consumer offers dependent on the total value of your order (see detail FAQs). SCI can provide the lowest cost options of a entry level PC or a high specification gaming machine or any other items from the current web portfolio: With SCI you have complete choice.

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* Ignetica Ltd Analysis of the UK Student Computing Market May 06 and Analysis of Student Computing Preferences May 08

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