New Dell Computers in the Australian Computer Market
July 8th, 2007
Suddenly and out of the blue there are new sleek, thin speeding desktop computers, If you’re looking for a future looking computer filled up to the brim with power, well look no further Dell has the look!
Dell have now dropped the dimension computer desktop range and have now added the desktops to the inspiron range.
Dell Inspiron 530
Dell’s first desktops to carry the Inspiron name look good, inside and out. With a huge range of available components and two equally attractive cases, mainstream consumers ought to be able to find a config that meets their budget, tastes, and computing needs. If you require Bluetooth or Blu-ray, however, you’ll have to put your purchase plans on hold.
Dell has dropped its venerable Dimension dell desktop computer brand. Now, both its mainstream consumer desktops and laptops will carry the Inspiron name. Along with the name change, Dell’s new Inspiron 530 and 530s PCs usher in Intel’s latest G33 chipset (aka Bearlake), which features a speedy 1,333MHz frontside bus. The other two models in the lineup, the Inspiron 531 and 531s, feature AMD processors on Nvidia’s MCP 61 chipset. The 530s and 531s units feature a slim chassis akin to the Dimension C521’s. Each of the four models boasts a wide array of configuration options; prices start at a rock-bottom $349 and can quickly top $1,500 when you start adding upgrades. For a complete details, read our full review of the Dell Dimension 531, which won an Editors’ Choice.
The big range in price is due in large part to the wide array of CPU options. The Intel-based models offer both low-end Celeron and dual-core Core 2 Duo processors, while the AMD-based models offer both low-end Sempron and dual-core Athlon 64 X2 processors. Memory ranges from 512MB to 4GB. All four major flavors of Vista are offered as well; no word on whether XP is an option for those less than enthralled with Microsoft’s latest OS effort.
Both the midtower and the slim chassis offer two hard drive bays (which you can populate with two 500GB drives for a 1TB of storage) and the option for a PCI Express graphics card (the half-height variety for the 530s and 531s units). Also available in all models but particularly useful in the slim models, which are likely candidates to be shoehorned into home theater racks, is an optional 802.11b/g (but sadly, not 802.11n) Wi-Fi card, which will save you from having to run an Ethernet cable through your living room. Integrated Bluetooth is another living-room-friendly technology, and Dell is bringing it to these Inspiron desktops shortly. Likewise, Dell will add Blu-ray drives as on option soon.
Aesthetically, the new Inspiron line extends the silver-and-white color scheme that you can find on late-model Dimensions. The last generation of Dimensions were sleek-looking, but the area around the optical drives was black, which was in stark contrast to the rest of the case. Now, the Inspiron cases feature drive-bay covers, lending a more unified design to the PCs.
The Inspiron line carries Dell’s standard one-year parts-and-labor warranty, but the company’s DataSafe backup has moved online. Dell offers you 3GB of online storage and won’t charge you for the first year.
Dell Inspiron 531
The good: Sleek new case design; overachieving application performance; finally has a Wi-Fi adapter option; integrated Bluetooth (shortly after launch); new, mostly useful support software.
The bad: Some higher-end configuration options are limited to Dell’s XPS line.
The bottom line: The last of the major desktop vendors to update this year’s desktops, Dell used that time to good advantage. On some tests, the Inspiron 531 is even faster than systems that cost $500 more. Keep your gaming and digital media ambitions modest, and this PC should deliver nearly everything you’d want in a mainstream system
The Dell Inspiron 531 (along with a handful of other new desktops) marks the introduction of a more streamlined Dell product family. For both laptops and desktops, the Inspiron line will represent its mainstream consumer PCs, with the XPS looping together the high-end products. In other words, so long Dimension, hello Inspiron, which makes a strong first impression with this new midtower system. Our $979 Inspiron 531 config is as fast or faster than others in its class and it also has a compelling set of features. Throw in its clean new looks, and this suddenly becomes the mainstream desktop we’d recommend first.
Consider the Inspiron 531 the spiritual successor to the Dimension E521. Both represent Dell’s mainstream consumer desktop offering, with configuration options that let you build a system in a price range roughly between $350 and $1,500, not including peripherals and optional software. The new Inspiron also continues the Dimension 531’s aesthetic update from the old Dimension 4000 series. While not quite as clean-lined as an Apple product, Dell’s new desktop design is attractive enough so that you shouldn’t feel embarrassed to keep it in public view.
Like the Dimension E521 we reviewed, our sample Inspiron 531 came with a 2.6GHz AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ dual core processor. This new model has 2GB of faster 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM, though, as well as a more recent 256MB Nvidia GeForce 8600GT 3D card. The hard drive actually got a little smaller, down to roomy-enough 250GB from 320GB on the older Dell, but then the price of this system is actually about $50 less than the older system. We expect you’d be able to upgrade to a larger hard drive for about that price, giving the Inspiron a stronger config on balance.
Compare the Inspiron 531 to PCs from other vendors, though, and you’ll find that this system stands out in both features and performance. Two key updates bring the Inspiron 531 in line with and even beyond its competition. Finally, Dell offers 802.11 a/b/g Wi-Fi via a PCI card. And it won’t be available until “shortly after launch,” according to Dell, but our review unit also came with Bluetooth functionality built into the 13-in-1 media card reader. You can get Bluetooth in a few other systems if you purchase an expensive Bluetooth-connected mouse-and-keyboard set, but no other mainstream midtower PC that we’re aware of has an option for effectively integrated Bluetooth, as Dell has here.
We were also surprised by the Inspiron 531 on our performance tests. Most of the systems we’ve seen in the $1,000 to $1,500 category aim for speed on either basic applications or games. The Inspiron 531 is just as fast as it should be games-wise, giving you solid-enough Quake 4 performance as long as you keep the resolution reasonable. More exciting are its Cinebench and iTunes scores, which tied or outperformed the pricier Gateway DX430X. You can perform most any mainstream task with the Inspiron 531, and in some cases, much faster than we expected.
In addition to the speed and the various means of wireless connectivity, Dell rounds this system out with the standard optical drive combination of a DVD drive and a dual-layer DVD burner. We’re a bit surprised that Dell doesn’t even offer a Blu-ray drive as an option with this PC, but we suspect it’s keeping that feature exclusive to the higher-end XPS line. We’re at least glad to see one feature carry over to this system from more performance-minded systems–a new standard mouse that has two thumb-side buttons. Just know that once you go down the two-thumb-button road, you won’t want to veer off.
Dell’s service and support pulls more-or-less even with HP and Gateway with this new system by including a useful software front-end similar to HP’s Total Care and Gateway’s BigFix applications. Dell’s support center is as easy to use as HP’s software, and both include tools and how-to information to help you maintain your own PC. Dell’s support center links primarily to online resources, which could put you in a bind if your Internet connection becomes a source of trouble. Still, it’s handy to have all of that information presented in an easy-to-find manner.
In addition to its support center, Dell has also gotten a little more enterprising with its software and service offerings. A service called PC Tune-Up will, for “a small fee,” perform automated tasks like defragging your system, setting restore points, and cleaning your registry. To Dell’s credit, it also tells you how to do most of those things yourself via Windows’ built-in tools.
Dell has also moved DataSafe, its name for redundant RAID 1 hard drives, online, giving you 3GB of online storage for one year. After that you can extend the duration of your storage for an amount to be determined, or upgrade to up to 30GB for $40 a year. We wouldn’t exactly call that fee exorbitant, and it’s, of course, optional. Still, it’s hard for us to get too excited about it when you can get even more storage for free with no time limit through the creative use of various online e-mail providers.
In addition to the new software and the optional storage, Dell’s basic support offerings remain largely the same. You get one year of parts and labor warranty coverage, as well as 24-7 toll-free tech support. Online, you’ll find the same resources as outlined on Dell’s new software, and Dell also continues to offer its Dell Connect service, which, with your permission, gives Dell’s techs the option to take over your computer remotely to solve problems.
Dell Inspiron 530s
Dell’s first desktops to carry the Inspiron name look good, inside and out. With a huge range of available components and two equally attractive cases, mainstream consumers ought to be able to find a config that meets their budget, tastes, and computing needs. If you require Bluetooth or Blu-ray, however, you’ll have to put your purchase plans on hold.
Dell has dropped its venerable Dimension desktop brand. Now, both its mainstream consumer desktops and laptops will carry the Inspiron name. Along with the name change, Dell’s new Inspiron 530 and 530s PCs usher in Intel’s latest G33 chipset (aka Bearlake), which features a speedy 1,333MHz frontside bus. The other two models in the lineup, the Inspiron 531 and 531s, feature AMD processors on Nvidia’s MCP 61 chipset. The 530s and 531s units feature a slim chassis akin to the Dimension C521’s. Each of the four models boasts a wide array of configuration options; prices start at a rock-bottom $349 and can quickly top $1,500 when you start adding upgrades. For a complete details, read our full review of the Dell Dimension 531, which won an Editors’ Choice.
The big range in price is due in large part to the wide array of CPU options. The Intel-based models offer both low-end Celeron and dual-core Core 2 Duo processors, while the AMD-based models offer both low-end Sempron and dual-core Athlon 64 X2 processors. Memory ranges from 512MB to 4GB. All four major flavors of Vista are offered as well; no word on whether XP is an option for those less than enthralled with Microsoft’s latest OS effort.
Both the midtower and the slim chassis offer two hard drive bays (which you can populate with two 500GB drives for a 1TB of storage) and the option for a PCI Express graphics card (the half-height variety for the 530s and 531s units). Also available in all models but particularly useful in the slim models, which are likely candidates to be shoehorned into home theater racks, is an optional 802.11b/g (but sadly, not 802.11n) Wi-Fi card, which will save you from having to run an Ethernet cable through your living room. Integrated Bluetooth is another living-room-friendly technology, and Dell is bringing it to these Inspiron desktops shortly. Likewise, Dell will add Blu-ray drives as on option soon.
Aesthetically, the new Inspiron line extends the silver-and-white color scheme that you can find on late-model Dimensions. The last generation of Dimensions were sleek-looking, but the area around the optical drives was black, which was in stark contrast to the rest of the case. Now, the Inspiron cases feature drive-bay covers, lending a more unified design to the PCs.
The Inspiron line carries Dell’s standard one-year parts-and-labor warranty, but the company’s DataSafe backup has moved online. Dell offers you 3GB of online storage and won’t charge you for the first year.
Secondly
Taking advantage of Intel’s new Core 2 Duo E6700 desktop CPU (Conroe) and paving the way for a new range of Vista Ready PC’s, the Dell Dimension 9200 looks stylish and is diverse in its application, but also employs some different design ideas to make this PC efficient and manageable.
Dell Dimension 9200
It’s got the look
From the outside you’ll immediately notice some abnormal design features. First, the mostly white case is starkly different to the usual blacks and greys, or waxy blue seen in previous Dell models. A large space, big enough to put your hand through, behind the mid-section of the front panel exposes a 120mm fan, drawing air into the case. A large lever in the top-rear releases the side panel revealing a BTX motherboard and a complex display of shrouding, fans and cables.
To BTX or not BTX
Dell was among the first to adopt the BTX (Balanced Technology eXtended) form factor and using it here gives this unit several advantages. Taking into account the 13-in-1 media card reader, the TV tuner and Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE), it’s safe to assume that Dell hopes that people will use this PC as a media centre among other things. As a media centre, both power and silence are essential. Naturally, power generates heat and heat means fans, which in turn means noise. The BTX design places all the hottest components of the computer in the direct path of a front-to-rear air flow. In the case of the 9200, a 120mm fan draws air from the front of the case, which immediately passes over the long fins of a large passive heatsink on the CPU. Before exiting the case via a large vent at the rear, air also passes the system memory, chipset and most importantly the graphics card, providing them with some extra cooling as well.
Combine this quieter cooling system with the powerful, low wattage Core 2 Duo 2.66GHz CPU and you can expect plenty of power with minimal system noise. It’s actually the small fan on the graphics card that’s the main source of noise in the 9200 when everything is running at peak performance. The extra cooling from the BTX design should help keep the fan rotation down to a minimum, but there’s little that can be done during a hefty session of gaming. If you’re savvy when it comes to hardware, you might want to consider changing this over to a larger, quieter fan and heatsink combination — there’s plenty of space to do so.
Results
To see if this system, with its 1GB of DDR2 667MHz RAM and Core 2 Duo CPU was up to the job, we put it through WorldBench 5 (WB5) and a number of other tests. In WB5 it scored an impressive 123. This score seems close to normal based on our tests of similarly built systems and will be more than sufficient for any application, including Windows Vista. The 64-bit capabilities of the Core 2 Duo CPU will also allow you to run the inevitable 64-bit applications that will emerge when Vista is finally released.
The GeForce 7900GS is still considered one of the top performing graphics cards on the market. We ran 3DMark 2006, in which it scored 4341 — an expected result for the specifications and plenty of power for almost all of the latest games. We also ran the FEAR in-game benchmark, which averaged 55fps (frames per second) over the demo sequence on maximum quality settings, a comfortable playable rate.
Leave no cable behind
To maintain an uninterrupted airflow, the Dell 9200 has been meticulously wired to ensure that no cable gets in the way of the main thoroughfare. This involves an ornate series of cable ties, brackets and clips to run cables up against the edges of the case and hardware. This can often make hardware changes difficult, but Dell’s implementation leaves the most commonly interchanged components fairly accessible — though changing your power supply will involve some serious untangling. A variety of quick-release features in the case make upgrades and maintenance easy. A bracket holding all the PCI cards in place unclips and swings open on a hinge, while a sliding release gives you instant access to all forward removable drive bays by detaching part of the front panel.
Storage space
Storage is one thing that this PC is lacking — a serious oversight for a system with media centre aspirations. The $2527 price tag on our sample machine comes with only an 80GB (7200rpm) hard drive. A 160GB hard drive is the minimum you can select using Dell’s online shop, though it may affect the final price. That said, you may wish to make your initial purchase of a 9200 with a large hard drive, as this case only comes with two 3.5in internal drive bays, leaving only one spot left to add more storage on top of your standard drive. A maximum of one terabyte (2x 500GB) is available through Dell. The drive bays face sideways, giving you quick and easy access and are cooled by one small fan drawing air from a grill in the front panel and blowing over the top of the drives.
Connect away
Following the grand-plan design of BTX style systems, the Dimension 9200 provides no PS2 or serial ports, but instead supplies an abundance of USB 2.0 connections, starting with six USB 2.0 ports at the rear of the case. Take away two of these for the mouse and keyboard and you still have four to play with. For quick connections, like USB keys or MP3 players you can use one of two USB ports on the front panel. A headphone jack and microphone port have also been placed on the front panel for easy access. The motherboard uses integrated Sound Blaster Audigy 7.1 HD audio software, with the associated analog ports found at the rear of the case. The Dell TV tuner has S-Video and composite ports available, while the media card reader, located in the front panel of the case, supports a wide range of memory cards including CF I&II/SD/mini-SD/MMC/RS-MMC/MS/MS-Pro/Duo/SM/xD/MicroDrive. A Gigabit Ethernet adapter is available onboard and there’s also a 56Kbps modem installed.
Dell Inspiron 1420
The good: Newly redesigned Inspiron line adds Centrino Duo CPUs and color choices; highly configurable with plenty of networking options; discrete graphics option; excellent battery life.
The bad: Not as radically reengineered as Dell’s new XPS laptop; low starting price, but everything from the Webcam to Bluetooth costs extra.
The bottom line: Dell’s retooled Inspiron line introduces the new 14-inch Inspiron 1420 laptop, which benefits from an internal and external makeover. The wide-ranging configuration options mean that virtually any mainstream user can find a system to fit their budget.
With its latest Inspiron update, Dell adds some major improvements, both inside and outside, to its workhorse line of laptops. And in the case of the Inspiron 1420, Dell has introduced a new screen size–a spacious yet portable 14-inch widescreen. The 1420’s baseline price is a reasonable $819 and offers a host of upgrade options–everything from Blu-ray drives to Intel’s latest Centrino Duo processors–that make the Inspiron line one of the most flexible systems out there. Our review unit packed in a discrete graphics chip, a Centrino Duo CPU, and mobile broadband from Sprint, driving the price up to nearly $1,700. You can configure a well-equipped system for much closer to the baseline price, however, that would prove more than adequate for most mainstream users. The Inspiron 1420 isn’t nearly as attractive as Dell’s other new laptop, the higher-end XPS m1330, but it still improves on the last-generation Inspiron’s biggest flaw–its bulky, boxy chassis.
While Dell is offering similarly revamped version of its 15- and 17-inch Inspiron laptops, the 14-inch 1420 model is a new addition. We continue to see vendors–Lenovo with its ThinkPad T61, Gateway with its E-265M, and Sony with its VGN-CR190–redefining their mainstream laptops as 14 inches instead of 15 inches. We welcome this trend; after working with 14-inch laptops for a time, we find that they offer the optimal balance between portability and usability.
The new look for Inspiron is an evolution rather than a revolution, offering softer, rounded edges and a thinner lid while scrapping the two-tone, white-on-silver design that never looked particularly inspiring. Instead, you get your choice of eight different colors for the back of the lid. Our Ruby Red model, which looked an awful lot like the Crimson Red on the 13-inch XPS m1330, had an appealing satin finish that seemed to be virtually fingerprint-proof. If you fear colorful laptops, black and white are also options for the lid.
The basic Dell laptop keyboard remains unchanged and is comfy to type on, but we were pleased to see the old Inspiron’s excessively chunky mouse buttons reduced to a more manageable size, along with small square media control buttons replacing the older round ones, which were notoriously hard to hit. A 2.0-megapixel Webcam sits above the screen, or you could forgo it and save $30. Like the XPS m1330m, a small, credit-card-size remote control that pops into card slot on the side.
The 14.1-inch widescreen LCD display offers a 1,440×900 native resolution, which is a $50 upgrade Dell offers over the standard 1,280×800 screen (standard on both 14- and 15-inch laptops). For a screen this size, the difference is honestly negligible, but people working with digital photos, for example, may want the slightly higher resolution. Neither screen would be able to play back Blu-ray movies in full 1080p resolution.
Our review unit was tricked out with every networking option under the sun. While you can order the Inspiron 1420 with just a basic 802.11g Wi-Fi card, we had Draft N Wi-Fi , Bluetooth, and mobile broadband from Sprint (AT&T and Verizon are also available). The EV-DO cards are an extra $150, but all the major carriers offer some kind of rebate with a service plan.
While older, non-Santa Rosa CPUs are also available, they knock only $100 off the cheapest Centrino Duo option. We suggest choosing one of the three Core 2 Duo 7000-series chips that feature Centrino Duo’s faster 800MHz frontside bus. Trading the integrated graphics up to an Nvidia GeForce 8400 is likewise $100. Add in options such as Bluetooth ($20) and a second GB of RAM ($150), and the $819 starting price can easily climb.
Our Inspiron 1420 featured a 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300 CPU, and compared to other similarly configured systems, such as the Lenovo ThinkPad T61 and the Gateway E-265M, the performance differences were negligible, especially in CNET Labs’ Photoshop CS2 and iTunes encoding tests, where less than 20 seconds separated these three 14-inch laptops. It’s a point we harp on, but any current Centrino Duo laptop will be able to easily handle the multiple simultaneous tasks (Web surfing, media playback, document editing, and so forth) that average users engage in on a regular basis, and the Dell Inspiron 1420 was no exception.
The only discrete graphics option available, the 128MB Nvidia GeForce 8400, isn’t going to turn this laptop into a gaming powerhouse, but we got a very playable 29.8 frames per second in Quake 4 at 1,024×768, even with high-end options such as antialiasing turned on.
The 1420 ran for three hours and 29 minutes on our DVD battery-drain test, using the included nine-cell battery (a $50 upgrade), making it the longest-lasting 14-inch laptop we’ve seen. A smaller six-cell battery is also available if you absolutely hate batteries that stick out from the back of the system. Our DVD battery-drain test is especially grueling, so you can expect longer life from casual Web surfing and office use. Going for integrated graphics instead of the aforementioned GeForce 8400 will likely result in better battery life as well.
Dell Computer includes an industry-standard one-year parts-and-labor warranty with the system. Upgrading to a three-year plan will cost an extra $250, which includes on-site service. Support is accessible through a 24-7 toll-free phone line, an online knowledge base, and driver downloads; Dell also included 3GB of online backup space free for the first year.
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