Just How Bad Is a $300 Windows PC?

The Mac Web is filled with authors and bloggers who like to make fun of ultra-cheap Windows PCs. They're easy targets with vendors like Walmart, eMachines, and Dell being great fun for Mac enthusiasts to pick on.

These articles are filled with analysis and opinion, usually ending with the reviewer writing that stores and vendors rarely sell that cheap model anyway, talking customers up to more expensive models or padding prices with options and extras.

In a recent article I showed how a $300 PC really is half the price of a $600 Mac mini. In another, I looked at different options for various users, with the super-cheap PC recommended (by me) for clerical work in an office context.

Now I'd like to take a look at just what $300 or less can actually buy.

...how many Mac reviewers have actually taken a serious look at a $300 PC?

First a little background. Super-cheap PCs have been around for a while. Many vendors sell them, and while people like to laugh at the likes of Dell and eMachines (now joined with Gateway), how many Mac reviewers have actually taken a serious look at a $300 PC? How many have actually borrowed or bought one and put it through its paces?

I have. Twice.

In my law firm, computing demands are rather modest, with our "heavyweight" applications being Microsoft Word, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Outlook (or Entourage on the Mac), and Adobe Acrobat Professional. We also work with digital photos and video on occasion, and we do so exclusively on the 7-year-old Power Mac G4, if for no other reason than that I don't want to repurchase Photoshop for either Windows or Intel OS X when released - and because we just don't mess with photos and videos very often.

Whether it's on a Mac or a PC, our main programs are used all day, every day. These applications are all cross-platform, and while they look a bit different on a Mac than on a PC, they are largely organized the same way, so it takes almost no effort to move between platforms.

As an immigration law firm, we like widgets as well, especially translation and world clocks, which really make our lives easier. Dashboard on OS X (F12) and Yahoo Widgets on Windows (F8) require very little thought to move between platforms.

Upgrade for Dual Monitor Support

Our most demanding user is my associate, who multitasks so much that she needs dual monitors. And for a dual-monitor user, a cheap PC won't cut it out of the box, as the onboard graphics just won't drive two monitors. However, an upgrade is an easy thing, as both of my cheap PCs have open PCI Express (PCIe) slots for just that purpose.

I bought a 5-year-old IBM (yes, an actual made-in-USA IBM) with a 5-year-old 64 MB ATI Radeon 8500 video card for a total of $100 - and probably got ripped off. $50 more doubled the 512 MB of RAM to an even gig, while a $17 wireless card connected it to the office network. The old Radeon is more than up to the task, driving the main monitor through its DVI output and the secondary monitor through its VGA output, with plenty of VRAM to drive both of them simultaneously at 1280 x 1024 and 32-bit color.

The other two users (I use a tablet and a docking station myself) each have super-cheap PCs, and whoever needs it uses the Mac (scanning, Photoshop, and video station).

The amazing thing about those super-cheap PCs is that they are every bit as capable as my very non-cheap tablet in its docking station and really don't ask the user to suffer in any way at all for their low prices.

No, these aren't suitable for the latest and most demanding games, but for everything else they have more than enough power and speed. Even for those games, both of these machines are sufficiently (and economically) upgradable to do an admirable job.

My Cheap PCs

My first cheap PC is a Compaq purchased about a year ago for just under $300. It came with only 256 MB of RAM (and three open memory slots), a CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive, and a 100 GB SATA hard drive. Its 2.0 GHz AMD Sempron processor is not at the top of anyone's spec chart, but it feels very fast and is upgradable to some older (and faster than the Sempron) Athlon 64s. The only really lowbrow item is the ATI X200 graphics, which uses 128 MB of system RAM, but that can be replaced or supplemented by a PCIe video card. Finally, it has two empty PCI slots, one of which was fitted with a wireless card. A pair of 512 MB modules bring it up to a little over 1.0 GB of RAM after the video card siphons its 128 MB.

The second cheap PC, which I just bought last month for only $250, is an eMachines using the same ATI X200 vampire video card, but this PC came with a 512 MB RAM module in one of its two slots. I added a second 512 MB module for $50, bringing the memory total up to 896 MB available to the very fast 3.2 GHz Intel Celeron-D processor. Again there is a CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive and an SATA hard drive, though this one is smaller at 80 GB.

Again it has an open PCIe slot for a video upgrade, two PCI slots (one of which filled by yet another $17 wireless card), and finally its Celeron-D is pin-compatible with the some pretty fast Pentium 4s, though the Celeron is so fast that I doubt an upgrade is worthwhile. The 3.2 GHz Celeron-D in this budget PC is actually considerably faster than 1.66 GHz Core Duo in my tablet PC, as far smoother Doom3 play despite the weaker graphics engine ATI X200 vs. Intel GMA 950 - both weak) proves.

If either of these cheap PCs was poorly made, noisy, or lacked expansion capabilities, I would understand the criticisms, but other than the Compaq coming with only 256 MB of RAM (Mac minis came with the same paltry 256 MB last year), there really is nothing to prevent a user from buying one of these cheap PCs, plugging it in, and getting real work done. I bumped up RAM, but we usually have multiple applications running concurrently.

Cheap Mice and Keyboards

Both of these budget computers came with keyboards and mice, but they were too cheap to actually use and were immediately replaced (see Microsoft's Sturdy, Low-cost Wireless Keyboard Ideal for Typing for one suggestion). 19" LCD monitors rounded out the systems, giving both users a large, high resolution display and more than enough speed and memory to run anything we are likely to need, all at the same time and without any bottlenecks whatsoever.

More importantly, these two budget PCs are well-built. The cases aren't artistic sculptures like Apple's are, but they aren't eyesores either. They are simply what you would expect them to be: plain, ordinary computers.

Their cheap prices don't mean that these are stripped and worthless even in the home use context. Both cheap PCs have multifunction card readers and full audio input/output ports on the front panels, as well as USB 2.0 ports (one on the eMachines, three on the Compaq), with the Compaq even adding a 6-pin powered FireWire port (and two more in the rear).

Both machines have room for a second optical drive and the cabling already in place to connect them, with the Compaq also having room and cables for a second hard drive. Not bad for $300. Both have SATA controllers for their fairly generic 7200 RPM hard drives (Maxtor in the eMachines, Seagate in the Compaq), and both can be opened without tools and provide easy and spacious access to the motherboard slots.

Would a gamer or hobbyist be happy with one of these? Probably not.

Would someone looking for a fast computer on the very cheap? I'd say so.

Even the wimpy vampire video doesn't really hamper these computers in the office. Here, everything is 2D, from Web browsing to email and document production; video cards just don't get taxed.

I tried watching a downloaded TV episode from iTunes on the 3.2 GHz eMachines, and the video card wasn't up to it, but the comparatively sluggish 1.8 GHz IBM was smooth as silk - no doubt on account of its dedicated Radeon 8500 graphics. DVD movies look terrific on the integrated video cards, although iTunes Windows implementation is known to perform rather poorly without accelerated video.

In answer to my opening question of how bad a $300 PC really is, I have to reply that it's not bad at all - which in the context of the price means bloody marvelous.