What is a barebone PC?

Seriously... don't these people have better things to do with their time?
 
jes said:
What is a barebone PC?

Matrix Warehouse advertising complaint raises the question as to what a barebone PC really is
Click to expand...

I suppose with the raise in HDD costs this is a cheap trick to cut the perceived cost of their barebone computers.

Sadly they can argue that by booting of a USB flash drive you can run that computer as a full PC (boot Ubuntu for example)
 
crackersa said:
I dunno, non technical people can be confused. maybe the add should show what actually comes with it.
Click to expand...

Agree. Its also important to put in disclaimers and never assume your customers know what you are offering. It might sound lame to some but all of us had to ask the question what is a barebone PC.
 
To me a barebone PC should be able to run out of the box. I think it should include a HDD.
 
I don't get the ASA though.

My feeling is that one case they will say "yes, this will confuse the consumer. Stop advertising" The next case(like this one), they go according to the standards, standards say barebone is just motherboard and PSU, so its fine.
 
What standards? Opinion goes....
I don't recall a standard ever being set.
 
WTF is an IT Engineer?
It's definitely not something supported by ECSA.... so call it IT Technician then.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barebone_computer said:
A typical barebone desktop system consists of a computer case (or tower), with a pre-fitted motherboard and power supply, and often cooling accessories, an optical drive, and possibly a media-card reader.
Click to expand...
 
yep, just more marketing hype, but a pc is a pc, barebone or not, and as far as I am concerned a pc consists of a case, PSU, MB, MEM, Processor, and HD. otherwise its just parts
 
Pooky said:
To me a barebone PC should be able to run out of the box. I think it should include a HDD.
Click to expand...

+1

PC = Personal Computer. How would you do any computing without the hard drive. Stating that you can boot off a usb drive is also not acceptable unless the usb drive is supplied.
 
goselito said:
+1

PC = Personal Computer. How would you do any computing without the hard drive. Stating that you can boot off a usb drive is also not acceptable unless the usb drive is supplied.
Click to expand...
Agreed. It has the Label PC in it. It should have a board and Hard Disk. It should not include any OS or fancy add ons. That is bare bone in my opinion.
 
“The general consensus … is that a Barebones PC is to be assembled by the user and consists of a minimum of a computer case, a motherboard and a power supply, with all other components being additional”.
Click to expand...

With UEFI motherboards systems, a case, psu and motherboard could be regarded as a barebone PC,
since it has very basic PC functionality i.e web browsing.

Having said that, UEFI or not, I still think a case, psu, motherboard and CPU should be the minimum requirement to be classified as a barebone PC.
 
Barebone is usually a pc or computer partially assembled or as per unassembled kit. We used to market media pc’s like this to allow customization as in upgrade, so the case, PSU and MB would be standard, depending on the purpose, the case can also be customised. Otherwise barebone can also mean no HDD, thus no OS, this give a legal perspective when partnering with MS to allow the customer to install an open-source OS.
 
Totempole said:
With UEFI motherboards systems, a case, psu and motherboard could be regarded as a barebone PC,
since it has very basic PC functionality i.e web browsing.

Having said that, UEFI or not, I still think a case, psu, motherboard and CPU should be the minimum requirement to be classified as a barebone PC.
Click to expand...
Agree, HDD does not have to be included on a barebone PC. But it could confuse non-PC literate folks :p

The decision should hinge on whether Matrix indicated what would be included in the price, even if they included a "no HDD" comment in the smallest, finest font!
 
goselito said:
+1

PC = Personal Computer. How would you do any computing without the hard drive. Stating that you can boot off a usb drive is also not acceptable unless the usb drive is supplied.
Click to expand...

If I recall the HDD on the IBM PC was optional. It came with 2 floppy drives. HDD's were not introduced until 1983.

You would have a hard time arguing that an IBM PC was not a PC because it did not have a HDD.

I have a NEC Multispeed laptop PC with dual Stiffy drives one for OS one for data,from about 1985.
 
It's strange, most people seem to think a barebones PC needs a HDD, CPU, RAM, ...

As a rule of thumb, cheaper cases tend to include entry level PSUs, more expensive cases tend not to since the buyer may require a specific high-powered PSU.

For as long as I can remember, barebones has meant case, PSU and mobo. Often it's a SFF case, so a specific mobo and PSU are required to fit the design. (The motherboard is not the only option, but usually there are very few that fit.)

Then it's up to the buyer to pick HDD, CPU, RAM, and possibly optical drive or graphics card. But maybe I've been living under a rock for the last few years...
 
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