Sun Fire 280R - UltraSPARC IIi 900 MHz

Advantages: Cheap entry level Sun SPARC from 1997
Disadvantages: Build quality is PC like, and low cache processors

...The Sun UltraSPARC 5 workstation was brought out in 1997, and was priced so you could have one on your desk for approx 1000 US Dollars. They stopped shipping to customers in May 2002. These days, it is not a fast machine, but still they are perfectly useable for many workstation and server tasks. Processor and Memory - This model has an UltraSPARC IIi processor which is, of course, 64 bit and is clocked at 360 MHz. You can have 1GB of memory in the workstation, installed as up to 4 DIMMS, which must be installed in pairs. "Normal" PC memory will not work in these workstations. The 260MHz model only has 256kB cache (same with the 270MHz processor) For better performance, you need the 2MB cache version on the 333 or 400MHz versions. Storage - There is one HDD bay in the machine, although if you remove the floppy drive, you... Read review

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Advantages: Reliable and robust
Disadvantages: A bit heavy to carry around

...My husband decided to buy himself a laptop because I kept taking over his computer to surf the net and complete on-line surveys. But now I have taken over the laptop and he can keep his computer. We bought a secondhand IBM Thinkpad T22 on Ebay for about £250. It is a Pentium III 900mhz with 256mb RAM and a 20gb hard drive, it also came with a swappable DVD-ROM and a floppy disk drive which share the same slot. It has two PCMCIA slots. I have never used the floppy disk, as I use a USB pen drive for backing up files instead, but it is good to know that we have one should we need it, because we do not have one in our main PC. We bought a PCMCIA network card so that I can connect to the internet wherever I am in the house (or garden). The keyboard is very comfortable to use, I have it on a stand so that it is at an angle, rather than... Read review

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Advantages: Reliable
Disadvantages: Cost? ( see opinion )

...tag given to Intel processors is somewhat unjustified. For example my PIII 600 in May 2000 - cost £240 running at 800mhz. An 800mhz PIII at the time was approx £500, enough to get a top of the range graphics card and change. Admittedly there are some "hidden" costs to the overclocked version e.g. a good quality mainboard, roomy case for good airflow, and a better heatsink, but I think that these are good practice in building any computer, the other minus is there's no guarantee that the processor you get will sucessfuly overclock. I would however still recommend the Pentium III, it's a good, fast and stable processor even when pushed towards it's limits.... Read review

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