Which computer looks better?

[danzig6767]

My computer is older and slow, i won some cash in a football pool so i decided to get a better computer but don't want to spend a ton because i just mainly use my computer to surf the net. I'm not an online gamer or do anything intensive on my computer. The problem though is that i know very little about computers beyond turning it on. I did a little checking around in my 300-350 price range and saw these two, the Dell i'd upgrade to Windows 7 for 30 dollars because i was told Vista sucks. Which looks better to the computer savvy?

 

http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&oc=DDCWTA1&s=dhs

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883147067&cm_re=recertified_hp-_-83-147-067-_-Product

 

Thanks in advance for any advice

[1992casey]

Definitely go for Windows 7 over Vista. Everything I've heard is that on the same machine, 7 is faster. (Actually, I'm surprised that the manufacturers are still offering Vista.)

 

In the Windows 7 thread, I reported slowness on one computer I messed with. That computer has a 2.4 GHz Sempron processor. Semprons have a single core and only 512 MB of L2 cache. I mention this because the Dell you link to comes with a Sempron. While I don't know for sure if the processor is the cause of the slowness I experienced, if you choose the Dell, I'd upgrade it to an Athlon--probably the "Dell Recommended" one for $90.

[danzig6767]

Definitely go for Windows 7 over Vista. Everything I've heard is that on the same machine, 7 is faster. (Actually, I'm surprised that the manufacturers are still offering Vista.)

 

In the Windows 7 thread, I reported slowness on one computer I messed with. That computer has a 2.4 GHz Sempron processor. Semprons have a single core and only 512 MB of L2 cache. I mention this because the Dell you link to comes with a Sempron. While I don't know for sure if the processor is the cause of the slowness I experienced, if you choose the Dell, I'd upgrade it to an Athlon--probably the "Dell Recommended" one for $90.

Well, i went the refurbish route at Dell and got one with

 

 

4 GB DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz (3 DIMMs)

Processor: AMD Athlon II X2 215 (2.7GHz, 1MB)

500 GB SATA Hard Drive (7200 RPM) w/DataBurst Cache

Genuine Windows 7 Professional

 

For the price of 329 and free shipping which was pretty much the same price than if i bought a new one which had the processor you said stinks and the refurb came with double the RAM and a bigger hard drive.