After years of going without a computer, my family finally broke down and gave into the temptation in '96 when we bought our Pentium 133 from Gateway Computers. Man, Gateway had some great tech support. Everytime I had a problem they were able to talk me through things, even hardware problems, so that I could fix the machine myself for free. So one day at work (where we use nothing but Dells), I brought up how good Gateway's tech support is in a conversation with my boss. He laughed and said, "Well, I can't tell you how Dell's tech support is because I've never had to use it!"

Dell, Dell, Dell. I kept hearing more and more about these Dell computers. So when the time came for me to get my own computer, I knew who I wanted to buy from. I had to see what all the hype was about. Buying on a budget, I opted to get a desktop system with a Celeron chip rather than one of the more expensive Pentium III systems. A 433 compared to the 133 I was used to working on seemed more than enough of a jump for me. Customizing my order on Dell's website, I upgraded my RAM to 128, my hardrive to 13 gigs, my cd-rom to a dvd, my monitor to 17", and added a subwoofer to my sound system. Even with the upgrades my order came to under 1200 dollars.

The wait for my computer was long due to my building anticipation of having my own powerful pc system. After about 2-3 weeks the system showed up, however, and it took me no time at all to setup. Though I've setup computers before, I believe even if I had no experience setting up would have been easy because everything on the back of the Dell tower is color-coded. One thing that amazed me is how tiny and light the tower is. This was really nice considering I lived in a small dorm room and would be moving several times in the next year.

After filling out a bunch of info and what seemed a million screens worth of junk, I finally got my computer up and running. I spent a little time clearing out things Dell preloads onto their systems, then went at the computer to try and break it and prove all those pro-Dellians wrong. But as it turns out, they're not wrong. Dell is great. For a year now my computer has run smoothly, consistently, and without major hardware or software problems. My fears of choosing Celeron over PIII were subsided by the excellent performance I get from my machine. I can watch DVDs, play high resolution 3-d games, listen to digital audio, all without any proccessor speed problems. Basically, I can do everything I need and want to do with my computer with no problems.

Don't get me wrong, my Dell machine is not perfect. I had a bit of a time trying to get into the BIOS when I needed to update some hardware drivers. My guess is they don't want the average user messing around with their BIOS so they shield it by not making it clear how to access it. Once I got in, though, there were no problems.

Before, I praised the size of the Dell. While the size is nice, it came with absolutely no slots to fit another cd-rom drive into. I had an internal cd-rw from our old computer I wanted to use with my new Dell. An extra long IDE cable and the willingness to leave the case open at all times solved my problem (in a most "ghetto" fashion) and turned my internal cd-rw into a quasi-external cd-rw. It would have been nice to be able to close the case, but I suppose one nice thing about the case, is that it's incredibly easy to open and close. So to some extent, Dell encourages upgrading and tweaking on the inside of your tower.

Basically, Dell is great. If you have the money and desire, just go with Dell, you won't regret. I hope I never have to call their tech support.





Recommended: No

Amount Paid (US$): under 1200
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Intel Celeron
Processor speed: 401-500
RAM: 128
Internal Storage: DVD
Hard Drive (GB): 13-20