Dell - Buying in the UK
Written: Oct 18 '05 (Updated Oct 21 '05)
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Pros: User friendly, great support
Cons: Slow performance, unable to upgrade graphics
The Bottom Line: If your budget is tight,you want a family pc and you don't need great graphics you can't lose.
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| redoncrim's Full Review: Dell Dimension™ 3000 (D30PL1) PC Desktop |
I bought this system on Ebay in the UK with quite a saving so I was well happy in the beginning. On its arrival it was very easy to set up. It came with the tower, Windows XP Home installed, keyboard, mouse, 17” TFT monitor (optional on Dell’s site) and a lot of software that was already installed. Note: there is no floppy drive or reset button!
Software included:
Norton Internet Security 2005 with Antivirus -
Sonic Digital MediaLE V7 – copying software
Cyberlink PowerDVD DX – needed a patch update.
Microsoft Works V 7.0
Dell – Recovery cd (installed), reset tool, support, media experience
Dell – Picture Studio 3 – Jasc Paint Shop Pro
Tiscali, Aol and other promotional software.
The first thing I noticed was that the processor was a bit noisy but I have heard worse.
The actual tower, monitor and keyboard are nicely designed and space saving. The tower is small. The multimedia type keyboard is fine and the tft monitor is brilliant.
I noticed that my keyboard had been set up for the USA but that was easy to alter anyway. My friend’s Dell pc was the same and I do wonder why we have both had a US format keyboard installed?
Right now down to the real business. This is a budget end pc and it shows. It has an Intel Celeron processor and I can not vouch for the P4 which is probably better. Mine only came with 256mb ram. It is dual channel memory. There are two slots and each must have identical ram sticks. For example – 2 x 256mb = 512mb ram. These of course can be bought on the Dell website but Crucial memory is also recommended and is cheaper.
I definitely would suggest upgrading to at least 512 mb immediately as it can be quite sluggish on 256mb. I saw an improvement straight away. You will need this memory if you want to play any games at all with ease. I found that with only the minimum ram the pc nearly ground to a halt if I had more than three things open at a time.
The start up seems fine but the shut down seems quite slow even when tweaked. I know some people have had blue screen problems with these machines almost immediately but I can honestly say that I haven’t. I did have some error messages about mysterious unknown hardware not finding drivers in the first week and had to contact Dell who I must say were very supportive. They had the problem resolved in 48 hours. Dell support is easy to access through the icon on the toolbar. You will need at least your service tag number which should be on a sticker on the tower or can be accessed by going into the bios. Dell also provides a security and maintenance computing environment program (installed) which is handy. You can also check your entire pc for problems by repeatedly pressing the F12 key on your keyboard on boot up. This will bring up a problem checking utility.
I’ll leave you to decide for yourself why they felt the need for so much checking and repairing utilities and programs!
Overall, like I said, this is a budget pc but I really think it is fine for single or family use. It is not a gaming pc. It has no AGP or PCI-E slot for graphics upgrade. This is definitely the major downfall though simple games seem to run fine.
It is user friendly, the support is good and if you are just looking for a reasonably cheap family pc (without the gaming), I would recommend it.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 680.00
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Intel Celeron
Processor speed: over 1000
RAM: 256
Internal Storage: CD-RW and DVD
Hard Drive (GB): Over 50
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Epinions.com ID:
redoncrim
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Member: Sue
Location: UK
Reviews written: 21
Trusted by: 1 member
About Me:
Married, mother of four wonderful children. Always desperately seeking more time to write reviews!
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