Choose cheaper desktop computer: DIY versus branded - part 2

In the last article, I have reviewed whether it's worth the hassle to build your own desktop pc. This time, I will take a look at what the famous brand - HP- offer to us with their latest promotion, "Kungfu Panda" desktop series :P. The desktop pc I will use for comparison here is HP Pavilion M9222 with the following specifications :

1. Processor : AMD Quad-Core Phenom™ X4 9500 (2.2 GHz, FSB 2200, Cache 4x 512 KB)
2. Motherboard : Unknown with chipset nForce 430
3. Memory : Standard 2x1 PC 6400 DDR2
   
4. Vga Card : NVidia GeForce 8500GT 256 MB
5. Audio : onboard 7.1 channel
6. Harddisk : 320 GB Serial ATA-II/300, 7200 RPM, Cache 8 MB
7. Keyboard : HP PS/2 Standard Keyboard
8. Mouse : HP Optical Scroll Mouse
   
9. Card Reader : 15 in 1 Media Reader
10. Operating System : Microsoft* Windows Vista Home Premium
11. Monitor : HP 19" LCD
12. Chassis : Mini Tower ATX
    

HP bundled printer HP F2180 with this desktop pc and gives price tag at $1185. Now, we will see if this promo is worth to be called as promo or not :P. Let's summon peripherals for our desktop pc then....

Tadaaa, the specifications is as follows:

1. Processor : AMD Quad-Core Phenom™ X4 9550 - $194
2. Motherboard : Asus M2N (chipset nForce 430) - $66
3. Memory : Corsair Twin 2x2048 - PC6400 - $58
4. Vga Card : Asus 8500 GT 2500 MB silent - $91
5. Audio : onboard - none
6. Harddisk : Seagate 320 GB SATA II - $77
7. Keyboard : Logitech KB Multimedia - $19
8. Mouse : Logitech Optical black (bundled with keyboard)
9. Card Reader : 15 in 1 Media Reader - $15
10. Operating System : Microsoft* Windows Vista Home Premium - $115
11. Monitor : Samsung 19" 940BW - $270
12. Chassis : CoolerMaster Centurion C5 tower - $78
13. Printer : HP F2180 - $74

We will spend total amount of $1057 for all peripheral above. Again it's proven that we can save more money if we put some effort for building our own desktop pc ;). Even with promotion price, branded pc is still more expensive -> the difference in $128 is not a little sum of money for most people in Indonesia, include me :P.

Choose cheaper desktop computer: DIY versus branded

In this article, I will try to compare the cost required for building a DIY desktop pc versus buying the branded pc. The branded pc used for comparison is HP Compaq DX2300MT which does not bundled with monitor. DX2300MT is priced at $559 (price is taken from www.bhinneka.com) and has the following specification :

1. Processor : Pentium Dual Core E2160
2. Motherboard : OEM with P946GZ intel chipset
3. Storage : SATA HDD 80 GB
4. Front panel : card reader, esata
5. Memory : 1 GB DDR2
6. Optical Drive : DVD/CDRW Combo
7. Operating System : Windows XP Pro oem
8. Chassis Form Factor : MicroATX
9. Keyboard and mouse : HP standard

Now lets count the all the components' price. Would it worth it to buy branded desktop pc instead of build your own and save $$$? Let's find out then and let the cheaper win!

After googling and seacrhing a while for all components used in HP Compaq DX2300MT, the result is listed below :

1. Processor : Pentium Dual Core E2160 -> $63
2. Motherboard : OEM with P946GZ intel chipset (use Asus P5B-MX)-> $81
3. Storage : SATA HDD 80 GB -> $42
4. Front panel : card reader, esata -> $15
5. Memory : 1 GB DDR2 -> $25
6. Optical Drive : DVD/CDRW Combo -> $32
7. Operating System : Windows XP Pro oem -> $135
8. Chassis Form Factor : MicroATX (used SimCool ATX 450W) -> $48
9. Keyboard and mouse : HP standard (used logitech multimedia) -> $18

All are totalled $459! The difference is $559 - $459 = $100. With that amount of money, you can buy a decent printer or speaker or both! How about additional Canon ip1880 ($48) and Divoom Titan 767 ($35)? And even after buying those two, you will still have money left ($17) for covering transportation cost :P.

The conclusion is straighforward. Let's spend a few extra hours for making our own desktop pcs instead of buying from branded if price is always be a concern for you :).

Comet series from Divoom, affordable home theater speaker system

Divoom always continue to provide us cheap and affordable speaker with sufficient quality. For the home theather segment, Divoom has their comet series product line. Comet series are really cheap for home theather speaker class. For example the Comet-D2 is bundled with price tag at approximately Rp 1.350.000,- while Comet-A1 is bundled with price tag at approximately Rp 2.300.000,-.

How about the specs? Each Comet-D2 and Comet-A1 come with similar specification. The most obvious thing is the subwoofer design. They are really look alike! And both speaker are featuring 100 Watt RMS output. However Comet-A1 do come with hardware decoder for Dolby/THX which makes its price higher than Comet-D2 ;). And Comet-A1 is bundled with speaker stand as well which will make the satellite allocation is easier than Comet-D2.

The specification for Comet-D2 and A1 series is as follows :

• Total RMS Power : 100 Watts
• Subwoofer : 50 Watts RMS
• Satellites : 50 Watts RMS
• Total Peak Power : 200 Watts @<10%>
• System THD : Better than 0.05% THD before clipping
• Signal to noise ratio : >95 dB
• Frequency Response : 20Hz - 20 KHz
• Driver size : 3"x2 + 1" (tweeter) high excursion satellites, 8" high excursion subwoofer
  

For small home theather system, these speakers may be the right choice for anyone in tight budget. If you have a lot of $$$ to spend for home theather system, you had better go with famous brand like JBL, etc. But considering its price, Divoom always offers us the best from their pocket :).

XForce5, Affordable 2.1 computer speaker from Divoom...

Divoom, a speaker manufacture from Singapore, has their good products too. Although their brand is not as Creative, Altec Lansing or Klipsch (or soon-Edifier) in computer speaker class, their product is not all crap. Some of their product do deserve a buying consideration while taking a look at their design and specification. One of them is XForce5 from their XForce series.

XForce5 is the biggest 2.1 from XForce series offered by Divoom. Its price range is Rp 890.000,- or under $100. It's really cheap if we consider Divoom packs XForce5 with 8" subwoofer, remote controller, 2 full range 3" driver plus 1" tweeter in each satellite, and fm/am radio function as bonus.

Besides rich in feature, XForce5 also features 2 aux in in form of rca input for common audio use. This means that you can hook one input for permanent use such as for tv or game console and the other for your mobile devices such as ipod, etc. Very nice features.

The subwoofer design is really like a computer case. And if it's put side-to-side with a real computer case, maybe it can fool anyone who take a quick glance at it. For the sound quality, since Divoom use 8" subwoofer, we can expect the bass can go low at least until 40 Hz. The spec Divoom use stating frequency response range from 20Hz-20Khz is over optimistic on my opinion.

On its price range, Divoom provide us a very good speaker with affordable price, making it's worth to consider for buying this one. If you like the design and it fit with your budget, just grab this one but expect no miracle! As every cheapo speaker on the market, don't ever turn up the volume level to its max if you don't want to hear noise or distortion coming from your speaker! But anyway, since this is marketed for computer use, you will seldom turn up the volume to its max anyway. 100 watt RMS would be already overkill for long-term listening in small space!

The quest for the most beautiful woman....

Every year we have Miss Universe contest, Miss World contest, etc. While the purpose is to find the most beautiful woman in terms of body, mind and soul, the winner is often not the most good-looking person. I think in terms of beauty, every women has their own charms, but men's eyes have been trained for decades to quickly grab the beauty image from a woman. Don't you agree :P?

I have searched the internet a little bit and found several beautiful women which are really eye-catching. After browsing for hours, then I decided to pick three most beautiful women for being displayed in this blog. It's nice though to have beautiful women in your blogs anyway :P......

The first and the most beautiful woman is Victoria Silvstedt. Her name is really hard to spell since she comes from Sweden. Just take a look at the picture of her above. She is really fascinating, isn't she? She has everything she need to be awarded as the most beautiful woman in the world. Sharp eyes, sexy cheek bone, good-shaped body, what else?

The second title goes to Alessandro Ambrosia. Her name is also hard to spell (Does every beautiful woman have a hard-to-spell name :P?). She is a professional model and chosen by AskMen.com as the second beautiful women in 2008 as well ;).

She has brown hair and very sexy and seducing eye-stare. But she can look cute too if she smile, just like in her picture. For her body, hmm, I think anyone will agree with me that she is hot!

And soon we will come to the third place :)...


The third place goes to Marissa Miller. She is being said as the successor for the phenomenal Cindy Crawford. Her occupation is also a professional model (No wonder why many says she will replace Cindy Crawford position soon or later).

How beautiful is she? Just see at her picture on the left and judge yourself! Hmm, very sexy smile......but in my opinion her eyebrows are the center of attraction.

Note : This three beautiful women are chosen solely for fun and not involve any professional opinion at all. Everyone can have their version of woman's beauty and just let it be :). Peace.......