Looks Can Be Deceiving--Especially With Price

The good news for budget-minded PC buyers this holiday season is that IBM, Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, Packard Bell and other companies are offering PCs for less than $1,000.

The bad news is that the $1,000 PC you pick out could easily cost you $1,500 or more.

To begin with, most of the so-called sub-$1,000 PCs don’t come with a monitor. Unless you want to guess what’s on the screen, you’ll need to spend at least $180 for a basic 14-inch model.

Larger monitors, such as a 17-inch screen that gives you enough room to see more than one document at a time, typically cost between $500 and $700. A 21-inch model can easily cost $1,800 or more.

Large monitors are important for people who lay out full-page magazine spreads or who need to view the display of several programs at the same time. For most users, a 14- or 15-inch screen should do the trick.

Most PC companies offer color-coordinated companion monitors for their systems that, in some cases, have volume controls, speaker mounts or other features that add value over a generic monitor. However, any Super VGA monitor will work with any PC, so you might be able to save $100 or more by shopping around.

Whatever you do, never settle for a monitor that has a dot pitch greater than .28. Dot pitch measures the distance between color pixels; the lower the number the better.

And when you’re looking at monitors, don’t be dazzled by impressive color graphics, video and animation. Insist on seeing how the monitor looks with small text, such as 10-point Times Roman. Just about any monitor can do a pretty good job of displaying large graphics, but on some monitors small type can look fuzzy.

*

Most low-cost PCs come with 16 megabytes of memory. Upgrading to 32 megabytes of memory should cost you less than $100 and is probably the best performance investment you can make. It will make Windows run faster and make it possible to run several programs at once. Most PCs can be upgraded at any time, but it’s easier and sometimes cheaper to have the extra memory installed when buying the machine. When negotiating for a system, ask the dealer what extra memory will cost, and if it can be installed while you wait.

Although you can almost always add memory, some low-cost systems, such as the Compaq Presario 2200 ($799), don’t come with any empty expansion slots. If you want to upgrade the machine or add components such as a Zip drive for backup, you could be out of luck.

Though a bit more expensive, Compaq’s 4505 ($999) is a better bet. It comes with two open expansion slots, one of which can accommodate either an ISA or PCI card. It also has a larger (2.1-gigabyte instead of 1.6-gigabyte) hard drive and comes in a standard mini-tower case. The $999 Hewlett-Packard Pavilion has decent components but only one open ISA expansion slot.

*

IBM’s Aptiva E16 ($999), currently available only at OfficeMax, is worth a look. It has three ISA and two PCI expansion slots, a fast (20X) CD-ROM drive, a 2.1-gigabyte hard drive, a 56K (Flex) modem and a 166-megahertz MMX processor.

Packard Bell’s $999 M415 is the only one in this price category with 24 megabytes of memory. It has five expansion slots and a 3.2-gigabyte hard drive, along with a 166 MHz Intel CPU.

I usually don’t caution buyers to wait for PC prices to fall, but several companies are expected to introduce even less-expensive PCs in January. If you can wait until a few weeks after Christmas, you may be able to save money or get more machine for what you spend.

Reports published in the PC trade press speculate that Packard Bell and Hewlett-Packard will soon introduce 200 MHz Pentium PCs for about $799, with Packard Bell and Compaq weighing in with 233 MHz systems for about $999.

Don’t avoid a low-cost machine just because it doesn’t have “Intel Inside.” Compaq’s Presario 2200, for example, uses a 180 MHz Cyrix MediaGX processor, which ran every off-the-shelf program I tested it with just fine. IBM’s E16 has an equally compatible IBM-brand MMX CPU designed by Advanced Micro Devices.

Even cheap machines come with speakers that are adequate for listening to sounds typically generated by PC games and other software. A salesperson might suggest you spend an additional $100 to $300 for a set of multimedia speakers that will blow the roof off.

It could be worth it if you plan to use your PC to listen to audio CDs, or if there’s a serious gamer in the family who wants to feel the roar of a flight simulator’s jet engines. My advice is to stick with the speakers that come with the machine and, if you feel you need to upgrade, take your time to shop around.

*

If you’re thinking of upgrading, check out the $99.99 PCWorks amplified sub-woofer speaker system from Cambridge SoundWorks. I have them attached to one of my PCs, and they’re pretty impressive.

A printer is a necessity that definitely won’t come with your $999 PC. For most home users, the best choice is a color inkjet model. For $200, you can buy an excellent color printer such as the Hewlett-Packard DeskJet 672C, the Epson Color Stylus 400 or the Canon BJC 4300.

If you pay more, you get faster printing and better resolution, but I’m pretty impressed with the quality you can get for $200.

Beware of low-cost printers that don’t allow you to use a color and black cartridge at the same time. They require you to switch cartridges when you change from a color to a black document, and print in poor quality “composite” black text for documents with both color and text.

Even with a printer and a monitor, it’s possible to walk out of the store for as little as $1,400, but there are still some potential gotchas. A friend of mine bought a PC and a printer and agreed to let the salesperson throw in the necessary printer cable which, as it turned out, cost $42--about four times the going rate.

Software can be a black hole when it comes to money. Before you buy software, find out what comes with the machine. Many low-cost systems come with Microsoft Works, some games, an encyclopedia and other basic software. It’s not uncommon for a dealer to suggest you spend an extra $200 or more for industrial-strength software such as Microsoft Office.

Before you do, check out the word processor, spreadsheet and database features of Works. They’re quite robust, with more than enough features for most home users.

If you need Microsoft Word, an economical solution is to buy Microsoft Home Essentials 98 for about $100. It comes with the same version of Word as Office 97 and also comes with Microsoft Works 4.5, Microsoft Money 98, Microsoft Greetings Workshop 2.0, Microsoft Entertainment Pack and more.

*

Lawrence Magid can be reached at magid@latimes.com. His Web page is at https://www.larrysworld.com or keyword LarryMagid on AOL.