These days with the world it seems having moved to portables it's becoming more and more difficult to find desktops from standard manufacturers.

The problem is compounded if you want to buy a desktop with a build quality that means it will last more than a year or so as the trend seems to be towards cheaply made units that cram in all the latest fast processor chips; big disks and latest graphic cards into boxes/Power supplies etc. that ca nothing has been spent on.

There's a price point for people who just want a low-level box (ca 500 Euros) and a price point for game players who presumably don't care about long life as they will be replacing the box in a year's time to get an even faster box (ca 1000 Euros).

The problem was that I was looking for a replacement machine for my wife whose main usage is doing all kinds of photo overlays (so she needs a reasonably fast processor and lots of disk space) and she had been warned by her neighbour about the quality these days of one of those 1000 Euros boxes. (From Fujitsu-Siemens as it happens) So that solution was out.

Instead I needed to try to find something that was better built than those even at the cost of less pure performance.

At first I didn't think this would be a problem. Money wasn't particularly the problem as I could add a few hundred Euros (to the 1000) and get a better-built box surely.

A few looks at the "workstation" models of Dell (always crazily expensive in Finland compared to anywhere else in the known world) and H-P disabused me of that idea. If you move to what hopefully are boxes that aren't built down to a price you double the price. So you're talking roughly 2000 Euros which was a bit much to replace an early 64-bit box that didn't cost much more than 1000 almost four years ago.

However at 2000 Euros there was also the Mac alternative. The MacPro.

First I had a look in a Mac magazine at "buying a Mac" and they recommended buying an iMac rather than a MacPro (as being enough performance even if not quite as much)) and I must admit I was tempted by the idea of an iMac with a built-in 24-inch screen. However that idea was shot down in flames when I suggested it because we already have a (professional level) 20-inch HP screen and "that's too big on that desk already". (Why is it we men don't think in such practical terms :) ?)

So the Mac Pro then. Well for me there would have been probably no contest and for a while I was seriously attracted to the idea until I started seeing some of the snags - which turned out in the end to mean serious amounts of money.

The first problem is that the standard MacPro model (and supposedly the cheapest model you can buy in the shops) costs 2500 Euros and although it has dual 4 core processors still only has 2GB memory so you need to add memory to that (and probably a hard disk because it comes with a 320 GB one). Now you can add non-Apple memory and disks so the price isn't the excessive Apple one, but ever little adds on and you're maybe up to at least 2800 anyway.

At that price you need more than 1 year's warranty. I've had a Dell portable at that price level crash and burn after less than 3 years careful (portable within the house only) usage. So an extension to 3 years which Apple kindly (?) provide for ca 330 Euros.

So now we're at more than 3100 Euros. It's getting a bit much. (Especially when you think that one of the attractions was 8 memory slots and four accessible disk drive locations, so 3100 wasn't where it would all end).

The next try is the Apple Shop. There you can configure your machine so for just over 2000 you can get a model with only 1 processor not two and for an extra 40 you can get a 500GB disk not a 320GB one. But you still have to buy more memory (and not from Apple) and at over 2000 there's still a case to be made for that 330 Euros extension to 3 years support. But do you have to ship it back to them yourself to get the support? Certainly there doesn't seem to be any pickup support even at that price point.

So buy a cheap and nasty but fast model anyway ?

For me maybe, but my wife wants things to work hassle-free so it's time for another look around.

What I in the end bought was a HP business model which has a reasonably fast Intel dual core processor; a 500GB disk and 2GB memory and the typical (for business models) really useless graphics (non-)card.

As it's not a commercial model it doesn't have as much of the junk installed on it (that I would need to remove) at birth and it has Vista Business which I might leave on it.

I'm also hoping that the build quality is at least somewhat better than the equivalently priced "gamer" models.

I've of course then also spent money on

- extending the warranty to 3 years (oddly, most business models - with slower processors - did include three years warranty, ought I to wonder about this model?) which cost less than 70 Euros and so was worth having, especially because I have good experience of HP support for hardware when under a next-day pickup warranty.

- adding 2GB to make 4. I think my wife will be happier with a 32-bit OS so there wasn't much point in adding more.

- adding a reasonable graphics card

- adding a second hard disk to double capactity

and as it turned out having to find a Firewire card I have kept somewhere from an earlier PC because as it's a business model it has *eight* USB ports but no Firewire port. What on earth do business users want 8 USB ports for ?

The main question it turned out that I got after announcing that I had ordered one of these things had nothing to do with processor speed; disk space; or the graphics card but "does it have a multi-reader for my digital camera cards?". It did. Why a business model needs one of those I don't know. But there it is and that it seems is the key selling point for this "customer".