Dell Dimension 4400 Series so I am buying all the hype
Written: Apr 29 '02
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Extremely quick and filled with power
Cons: none so far
The Bottom Line: So far I would recommend this machine to businesses that need a reliable PC.
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| opinionated3's Full Review: Dell Dimension 4400 (A-D0314) PC Desktop |
I have been working for a computer service company for a little over eight years and we have always had PC's in the office. In the beginning all of our business programs were all handled by our IBM Minicomputer system. This was a large machine that was about six feet long and about 4 feet tall. It sounded like a jet when it started up and it hummed right along all day long. Then along came the dreaded Y2K and the owner was forced to leave the Iron horse behind and move into the new age of PC networking.
She didn't want to see her old reliable computer system go away, but she had to move on to the new technology. Our first server and PC workstations were nothing more than a collection of whatever PC's we could dig up and put network cards in and make work. That all changed after the first of the year, our network administrator has been after her to replace the old hodge -podge of PC workstations with new PC. He wanted to get all new and identical machines so he could better administrate the network. For those of you reading this that are system administrators would understand what I am talking about.
So after a few weeks of research on what brand of PC's to purchase, he settled on the Dell Dimension 4400 Series Desktop. Dell makes it very easy for you to select the desired PC for you. You start with the base model and then you get to customize it to fit your unique needs or wants. He started by going out to Dell's web site WWW.Dell.com and selected the Dimension 4400 and then he clicked on the customize button and away he went. I have highlighted the options that our Network Administrator chose for our PC's.
The PC is starting to take shape
The Dell Dimension 4400 Series comes with two processor options the Pentium 4 1.6 GHz or the Pentium 4 1.7 GHz. These are two lightening fast processors made by Intel and are both capable of running most programs with out much problems. He selected the 1.7 GHz processor for our workstations and after running them for a couple of months we have all been extremely happy with his choice.
Next came choosing which CD-rom drive to put in all the machines. There are so many options available. Do you go with the plain Jane 48x cd-rom or do you pick the CD-R drive. Then again you might pick the CD-WR so you can rewrite over a mistake you made while burning a CD of your favorite music. Then of course you have the DVD player for your PC, this will allow you to watch movies on your PC. Now add to that mix the CD-WR/DVD combo drives, which puts the best of both worlds all in the same drive. Now last but not least there is the new kid on the block, the DVD-WR/CD-WR rom combo drive. This machine will allow you to burn DVD's yourself. Be prepared to plunk down a big chunk of change for the latter option it will set you back nearly $500.00. For our business machines he chose the CD-WR this will allow our technicians to download drivers for printers and put them on cd's for repair jobs they are working on. I use the CD-WR drive to save large presentation files instead of cluttering up my drive with rather large files.
The next thing that you come to is the memory option, in this option you get to chose one of three choices 128 MB DDR SDRAM, 256MB DDR SDRAM or 512MB DDR SDRAM. The 128MB ram probably would have been enough memory for our amount of usage, but he opted for the 256MB just to be safe. The main reason he chose the 256MB of ram was because of we have always had major problems in the past with most of our PC locking up due to low memory. He was bound and determined that this wasn't going to happen this time. Plus the fact that running WindowsXP requires and ton of memory to run properly and efficiently.
Next in line was choosing the hard drive. This was not quite as important to him as the processor or the memory. We really haven't had much issue with the amount of drive space we have on our machines. I think that is mainly because of of company operating program resides on our server and only certain machines have MS Office 2000 loaded on them. Most of the other machines have Netscape Communicator for browsing the web and a few other programs. So when it came time for choosing the hard drive he just took the Dell recommended drive which was a 40 GB Ultra ATA/100 drive. Which is plenty fast enough and large enough so we shouldn't run out of space.
The Dimension 4400 comes with a 3 1/2" floppy drive standard as well other optional storage devices. You could decide not to get the CD-WR and get the plain CD-rom drive and order a Iomega 250MB Zip drive instead. I have been using an Iomega 100MB Zip drive at home and work for a couple of years and I love them. I can store large files and carry them back and forth from work to home. But since our network administrator opted for the CD-WR for all of our PC's, I have no use for a Zip drive.
The next thing to discuss is the video card. I personally feel this is an important feature to address. I never realized how much the new graphic intense programs can look when you use the right video card. Up until now I had a 8 MB video card in my old PC and it seemed to work fine. But after I started using my new workstation I found out what I was missing. With it's 64MB Nvidia Geforce2 Mx video card, all my graphics seem to come alive. The web pages I visit now look much better and graphics run smoother. Since I don't play games on my PC at work I can say much about it. But I do have the same card in my home PC and I can say that games run great on it.
Next comes the sound card, this is probably the least important feature in a business PC. For the first couple years I never even had a sound card in my PC in my office. So now that I have a decent sound card I have no complaints. Since it wasn't necessary for a state-of-the-art sound system we selected the SoundBlaster Live digital sound card. Which works just fine for me, I very rarely listen to music cd's on my PC. To go along with the sound card he selected the Harmon Kardon HK 206 speakers. Which sound pretty good to me.
If your office doesn't have a LAN connected internet service or shared DSL or Cable modem connection, you can choose to order the 56K modem. But if your office does have the LAN (local area network) connection to the internet then you will need a NIC (network interface card). We selected the 10/100 NIC and it allows us fast connection to our server and internet service. We have since switch to a cable modem internet connection and it has sped up our access to the web.
Now lets talk about OS and software. We have been using mainly Windows95/98 on our machines since we switched over to a PC network and we have had a lot of memory issues. We needed an OS that gave us a more stable platform to operate our business software on. So the switch to WindowsXP Professional was decided on and we haven't looked back. It seems to be a very stable platform and everything seems to be working well. Except a few printer issues that had to be resolved. But after downloading updated drivers and replacing a few older printers we were back in business. I will be reviewing some of our new printers at a later date. Then came the software issue, we all have been using MS Office for many years and have grown attached to all the features of it. So we made the only logical choice and included the MS OfficeXP Professional on our new PC's this way we didn't have to go out and purchase MS OfficeXP separately.
The keyboard and mouse are not much of a factor for me, give me a plain old keyboard and mouse that works I would be happy. That is not what was decided on as far as the mouse was concerned. It was decided that we were going to switch over to the optical mouse. The Logitech Optical USB Mouse to be more exact. I have been used to using an optical mouse since I have an Microsoft optical mouse at home. I love the optical mouse and I wouldn't change for anything now. We did get the plain old keyboard and it works just fine for me.
The last feature of the Dell Dimension 4400 Series is the monitor, we opted away from the standard 15" and for good reason. Most of our PC workstations had older 15" monitors and it was getting to be a pain reading the small screens. So they decided that all the new Dell workstations would have 17" monitors and he chose the Dell M782 Flat screen monitor. I am not going into a long and detailed description of the monitor. I will save that for a later review. I will mention that they screen was crisp and clear and flat. The controls were easy to operate and it was easy to setup.
The warranty is an important feature to consider and there are several options to consider. All of the warranty options involve onsite repair service and phone support. The options you have are the length of time you want the service and support. Service length ranges from 1-4 years and as I said earlier it is onsite service. The phone support ranges from 1-2 years to lifetime support. We chose the 3year onsite service and the lifetime phone support. Judging by all the reviews that I read regarding Dell PC, I hope we never have to call for technically support. I hear once they have your money for the PC, they don't seem as interested in making sure it runs properly for you. I have never dealt with their tech support myself so I can't offer an opinion on it. But again judging by other peoples experience I don't want to.
Overall Likes and Dislikes
I am rather pleased with the Dell Dimension 4400 series PC, I haven't experienced any major lock ups on dreaded Windows Blue Screens of Death. The machine handles all of our software perfect and no memory tie ups. The processor screams and the drive is very responsive. The video is awesome, with our high speed cable modem I can actually see streaming video that isn't jerky. The colors are great and the sound is pleasant coming from the speakers. I have been pleasantly surprised by my experience with this machine and I would recommend it as a business PC. So as you probably have noticed I don't have any dislikes about this PC as of yet. If I do in future I will be sure to update this review.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 1200.00
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Other
Processor speed: over 1000
RAM: 256
Internal Storage: CD-RW
Hard Drive (GB): 31-40
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