By now you’ve probably heard of Dell. Despite its best efforts to alienate consumers with its atrocious “Dell Dude” campaign a few years back the company has slowly been gaining momentum in the home PC marketplace. No matter which end of the wealth spectrum you happen to reside on, the company has something to cater to your needs. Today we take a look at the Dimension 4700, a middle-of-the-line PC that provides an awful lot of bang for the buck.
The standard unit retails for $669 and features a P4 2.8, 256MB SDRAM, 40GB SATA HD, 48x CD-Rom drive, onboard 10/100 Ethernet and competent onboard audio and video. It lacks a modem and speakers so if you’re an old bat who hasn’t yet welcomed the next generation of technology, you’ll have to spring a little extra for those. It’s a newer unit so it utilizes the PCI-Express graphics card configuration that is said to usher in the next generation of video cards. If you were planning on porting your old AGP-based video card into this system you’re out of luck as it lacks an AGP Port.
Everything comes encased in a standard Dell Mini-tower that’s smaller than most 3rd party solutions. It’s about half of the size of my
Rosewill and weighs about 30 pounds, making it really easy to tote around. All of the internal components can be accessible via a simple lever-based mechanism that resides on the side of the case. This is a nice touch because it makes it very easy to access the inside of the computer; there’s no need to reach for the Philips when I want to add some RAM. Those of you who have a lot of little toys and peripherals will be glad to know that the unit features eight USB ports, six on the back and two on the front. This is a godsend for someone like me who has to plug in an MX700, a Saitek Gamers Keyboard, a Griffin Technology PowerMate, a SanDisk card reader, a Linksys Wireless Card and a USB camera.
After you open up the case you’ll discover that the compact design comes at a steep price. Everything is really cramped and it’s difficult to access the drive bays and the hard drives. There are only two available PCI slots (in addition to the PCI-E slot) and this is immediately noticeable if you’re a gamer or a musician. Onboard audio is fine if you’re a casual player but most of us like third-party solutions. Let’s say you add in a
Sound Blaster Audigy 2, that leaves you with one slot. Put in a wireless network card and you’re completely tapped out. If you want to add in a TV-tuner you’re out of luck as you’ve already used up all of the interior space. It should also be noted that it’s impossible to add an internal card-reader to the front of this PC. It’s not a huge turn-off if you’re a gamer, but it puts a huge damper on the whole ordeal if you’re using this as an all-in-one solution.
Although the system can be used by gamers, it’s marketed for use in small businesses and the home. Because of this, the unit comes packaged with a whole host of programs that most gamers will see as filler. This includes Word Perfect Office, McAfee Security Center, MusicMatch JukeBox, Dell Picture Studio, PrintMe Internet Printing, and a couple of user manuals. If you’re like us you’ll want to uninstall these programs as they’ll prove to be useless and will take up precious disk space.
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