Windows 8 Review

Short Story: what do you think of Windows 8 and my computer choice listed below? Are they both good for gaming? I'm fine with adapting to Windows 8, if it's a good OS, but it has gotten such bad reviews online. And touch-screen monitors are more expensive than normal monitors so that would add to my expenses.



Long Story:



My current home computer is a Gateway laptop NV-53. It's on it's last leg and can't handle any gaming whatsoever even my kids' games, so I'm looking for something new. I'm a casual gamer so I want something that can handle high-end graphics, but it doesn't need to be top of the line most expensive. In fact, I want something quite cheap, as close to $500 as I can get. I'm thinking of going with a desktop so that when the time comes I can upgrade the memory and graphics card (that's really important to me).



I've done a lot of searching myself and this is the favorite one that I've found:



Type: Desktop

Brand: Gateway

Name: DX4380-UR308 Dt.GDFAA.004

Processor: AMD 4 Core

Speed: 3.20 GHz

RAM: 8GB (upgradable to 16GB)

HD: 1TB

Graphics Card: AMD Radeon HD7560D Dedicated (can be removed and upgraded)

Price: $499.99

Other: WiFi; Windows 8

Link: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4926007&Sku=



I can't find a similar computer with Windows 7 at about the same price.

My experience: avoid gateway. Like the plague avoid them. Your far better off to look at a Dell or HP and if you can swing it I think you'll find around $600 as a better sweet spot for value.



You also don't need a touch screen monitor to run Win 8. I run it just fine without. Bug I would recommend Stardock Start menu. It's a $5 program that fixes the major annoyances with 8.



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I've been running Windows 8 since thanksgiving. It's OK. Not as bad as everyone makes it out to be. Running it on a run of the mill Toshiba Satellite.

I wouldn't necessarily recommend Dell either unless you're willing to fork over the money for an Alienware. They used to have a reputation for good reason but have squandered it with shoddy quality in the past few years. Of course, I'm pretty fed up with PC manufacturers in general which is why I switched to Mac this last year, so I guess take my opinion with that grain of salt.

Sammich wrote:
I wouldn't necessarily recommend Dell either unless you're willing to fork over the money for an Alienware. They used to have a reputation for good reason but have squandered it with shoddy quality in the past few years. Of course, I'm pretty fed up with PC manufacturers in general which is why I switched to Mac this last year, so I guess take my opinion with that grain of salt.

Dell has made a bit of a comeback on the quality front.

hawkwing wrote:
Dell has made a bit of a comeback on the quality front.

I believe it, but the stuff I do is pretty taxing on machines (I'm usually buying the higher end so computers are a big investment); they'd have to make a sustained comeback for me to risk them again. I got burned pretty bad last time.

Sammich wrote:

Dell has made a bit of a comeback on the quality front.

I believe it, but the stuff I do is pretty taxing on machines (I'm usually buying the higher end so computers are a big investment); they'd have to make a sustained comeback for me to risk them again. I got burned pretty bad last time.

Understandable, and why I build my own PCs, so I can custom tailor it to my apps, but not everyone can do that.

Thanks for all of the advice and recommendations. I am definately going with Windows 7 over 8 and I've also decided against Gateway. Even though I get a discount through work with Dell I've also decided against them. I plan on going with a CyberPowerPC. I've heard great things about them online and you can really customize your computer to exactly how you want it, more so than Dell or the many others I looked at.



Thanks again for your help.