Excellent PC - is it worth the price?
Written: May 19 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Quality product, excellent parts, sound design, worth the money
Cons: Read below for details
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| Gr8ful's Full Review: Dell Dimension XPS T600 w/DVD |
Dell is another of my favorite computer manufacturers. They make high quality computers and they don't leave you hanging to buy a monitor or speakers. Their computers are all sold with everything you need to get up and running in no time. The question is; is it worth what you spend for the convenience of not having to wait for someone to build one or having to build it yourself? With this in mind I researched the prices of parts and labor and came to the conclusion that I am about to share with you.
The Dell XPS T600r minitower with DVD is the subject of my research. It comes in a minitower and does have limited expandability as far as internal drives. Dell allows you to choose what you want from a list of options to have put in the computer so this is what you get for $2,455.00 (taken from an order form on Dell's web site).
*Pentium III 600MHz processor
*128MB of PC100 memory
*10GB Ultra ATA66 hard drive
*17" E770 monitor (16" viewable)
*64MB DDR NVidia GeForce Plus AGP 4X Video accelerator card
*12X DVD with decoder card with TV out for use with the NVidia GeForce
*8X4X32 CDRW drive
*Sound Blaster Live! Enhanced version
*Altec Lansing THX certified ADA885 Dolby Digital speakers with subwoofer
*Conexant 56k V.90 PCI Winmodem
*Iomega Zip 250 internal drive with one 250MB disk
*LS120 Floppy drive (capable of 1.44 floppy as well)
*Microsoft Intellimouse
*Microsoft Internet Keyboard (Dell edition)
*Norton Anti-Virus
*Windows 98 SE
*Microsoft Works Suite 2000 with Money 2000 and Word 2000
*3 year warranty with next business day on-site service
This seems like a good value at first glance, and it is an excellent line up for components. The question is should you pay $2,455.00 for this computer? My answer after looking up the prices online for all these parts and adding labor charges (average from several different computer shops) is an astounding "Yes".
When given the prices and labor charges you would pay more for a computer with the exact same parts and software. But you wouldn't have the warranty. Dell computers are quality machines and rarely need service but when they do, it's nice to have that extra feature.
One drawback is, they don't let you choose your motherboard and Dell computers do use a proprietary motherboard. Another is they don't list how many PCI slots are available but I do know it has an AGP slot. The last is, they don't tell you which BIOS they use and this leads me to believe they are probably Dell proprietary BIOS. But for the average consumer these are trivial matters and really of no concern in the quality of this product.
Even if you built it yourself and cut out the labor charges you would still be paying slightly more for this system and again with no warranty except manufacturers warranty on the individual parts. If you don't want a computer that costs so much you can cut back on the peripherals and get lower grade components. As I stated earlier, Dell allows you to choose from a list of components and the more features you get the more you will pay in the end.
This is a worthy buy and I recommend Dell for anyone looking for a new PC. They have an excellent service and technical support record combined with a quality product to make buying a PC as painless as possible and simple.
Recommended:
Yes
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