2400 good for all but gamers
Written: Mar 19 '04 (Updated Mar 20 '04)
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Pros: Pricing (when on sale?). Ideal for non-gamers. Seems solid. Easy to open case.
Cons: Missing every feature required by gamers. Expandability. Last year architecture. Bad Monitor.
The Bottom Line: Good for all non-gamers. Good if you aware of the limitations before buying.
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| davelchen's Full Review: Dell Dimension 2350 (D235RL) PC Desktop |
I got a 2400 in October 2003 on slight impulse seeing a Dell ad on Yahoo. From the small business section of Dell website: After doing some (also impulse) upgrading to 2.54GZ, 80gig HD, 48X-CDRW, 512meg DDR333, 17" monitor, XP Home, optical mouse, 1 year Symantec Anti-virus (saved my a few times!), multi-media keyboard (I like it after getting used to it), XP Home, (no speakers, no floppy drive), for $690 - ($100 rebate) + tax, free S&H. Considering price performance and ease of use it is very good out of the box. For someone who does word processing, email and internet surfing, it is ideal. I even do programming on it.
I do wish I had researched a bit further and gotten the next level Dell series (4XXX). I think for $300 more (adding another $80 for S&H), I would have 20% higher performance computer, the option of getting a high end graphics card if I wanted to game, and felt good about having cutting edge computer architecture features (AGP 8X, dual channel DDR, SATA).
Features missing: no SATA (serial ATA - next gen hard drive interface, said to be up to 50% faster), no dual channel memory (up to 50% slower memory to CPU accessy... though I still see my CPU operate at 100% at times), no AGP slot for video card (no impulse hard-core gaming), no overclocking (not that I care to).
Make sure you know what you are getting, not what you think you are getting by the slick advertising, like I did. You don't get something for nothing.
I just expanded my system, (buying OEM parts from newegg.com.) Plugged everything in with no problem. I swapped the CD-RW to a DVD-RW. I added a 160Gig 100ATA hard drive. And I added Crucial 512meg DDR400 (still running at 333) I got on sale at compusa. Be warned the spare 5 1/4 drive bay doesn't include mounting brackets for a 3 1/2" form factor hard drive, so is too big for 3 1/2" hard drives. I solved it by fixing the hard drive in place with 1 screw and folded pieces of cardboard to surround it.
Biggest complaint: Dell low end 17" Dell monitor is crap. It flickers, and jitters at the edges. The convergence is bad at the top and bottom. I would not recommend Dell's monitor at all.
Even with my complaints, you wouldn't find or build a bare system for much cheaper when you add in the monitor, nice multimedia keyboard, optical mouse, nice case, ultraATA HD, windows XP, bundled and installed productivity software (Wordperfect Office, Microsoft Money, Encarta, Symantec Anti-Vir, Multimedia bundle), CD-RW. And when you consider 2 years ago, my system would have been better than cutting adge, costing $2500+, I'm satisfied.
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added comment: I don't do multimedia work, but this system is probably not appropriate for those doing serious video/audio/graphics work. But if you where serious about that you would know more about this than me.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 590 + tax
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Intel Pentium
Processor speed: over 1000
RAM: More than 256
Internal Storage: CD-RW
Hard Drive (GB): Over 50
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Epinions.com ID:
davelchen
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Reviews written: 7
Trusted by: 1 member
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