My partner runs a small accountancy and book-keeping business, whose name I will not mention, and as her partner and the company secretary I advised her to replace the 2 year old computer, besides which I needed something more powerful to play Age of Mythology on!!
So she said do it and ... Read review
Supercharge your Dell Dimension 4550 Desktop with a Dell Memory upgrade engineered, tested ... more
and customized for your system. Dell Memory is another great innovation from Dell - superior quality at an extraordinary price. Adding more memory revs your
Postage & Packaging:Free Delivery Availability:3-7 days
Supercharge your Dell Dimension 4550 Desktop with a Dell Memory upgrade engineered, tested ... more
and customized for your system. Dell Memory is another great innovation from Dell - superior quality at an extraordinary price. Adding more memory revs your
Postage & Packaging:see site for shipping costs Availability:3-7 days
Advantages: Fast, quick delivery and a high quality PC. Disadvantages: See the CD ROM comment towards the end of the OP.
...off I went to the Dell web site and started to put together a spec. This is something I have done many times before and will probably do many times again in the future, as I work in IT, this task often falls on me during my day job.
If you have never used the Dell web site, it is very easy to use and you pick the model which you would like to buy and you a presented with a list of the basic specification that Dell start that model ... ...the options available I called Dell and spoke to a salesman. He took a note of the spec I had generated and even honoured the offer of free delivery and £50 off if you order online, so that was a good start. Next I said to him, what more can you offer me and how much money can you knock off the bottom line? He went away and came back to me with a further £90 off the price and upgraded support. So I was very happy with this, he then sent me through ... more
My partner runs a small accountancy and book-keeping business, whose name I will not mention, and as her partner and the company secretary I advised her to replace the 2 year old computer, besides which I needed something more powerful to play Age of Mythology on!!
So she said do it and get a good deal, so off I went to the Dell web site and started to put together a spec. This is something I have done many times before and will probably do many times again in the future, as I work in IT, this task often falls on me during my day job.
If you have never used the Dell web site, it is very easy to use and you pick the model which you would like to buy and you a presented with a list of the basic specification that Dell start that model off with. From here you can made a wide range of changes so that you buy the exact PC you want.
Now I was spending company money and had a bit of a license to spend it. I also wanted a PC which was still going to be doing the job in 3 years time, so I deliberately over spec’ed the whole thing. So in a nutshell below is the specification which I chose.
Pentium 4 processor 2.66GHz 512MB RAM 60GB hard drive DVD Drive CD-R 64MB Video Card 250MB Zip Drive 17-inch Flat screen monitor 56K modem On board network card Cordless keyboard and mouse And a small pile of software I had no choice over.
Once I decided on the options available I called Dell and spoke to a salesman. He took a note of the spec I had generated and even honoured the offer of free delivery and £50 off if you order online, so that was a good start. Next I said to him, what more can you offer me and how much money can you knock off the bottom line? He went away and came back to me with a further £90 off the price and upgraded support. So I was very happy with this, he then sent me through a quote, which the following day I confirmed was OK and made payment by my flexible friend. Confirmation of the order was sent through with in the hour and from that point onwards I tracked the order through Dell’s web site and then when the order was passed to the courier I tracked the order through their web site. As soon as the order was passed to the courier I e-mailed the courier and arranged a delivery date.
The whole lot was delivered on the date that was booked and I was impressed with this. The PC came with Windows XP and I am not really interested in using this at the moment so I transfer my windows 2000 license across from my old PC. I had to spend a bit of time down loading the correct drivers and it all took about 3 hours to install and get setup.
The PC now works like a dream and is quick and there is no long boring wait while the PC restarts. The TFT monitor is brilliant and I am so impressed with this, not only from the point of view that it takes up less desk space but from the quality of picture that you get from the monitor. Also my girlfriend likes the resolution of the screen to be quite big so she can see what she is working on and I like the resolution to be small, so you can image in the battles we have had over that, with myself losing of course. But with the TFT monitor I have set the resolution to what I want and she is happy with this, as the picture is very good.
The cordless keyboard and mouse are superb and save a little bit more desk space with the cords missing. The whole PC, monitor, speakers, keyboard and mouse look is very stylish and has a very sleek look. The whole lot comes in a colour called midnight grey which is a nice shade of black and looks better than the traditional dirty white PC’s have always been.
The only disappointment of the PC is that I dropped a music CD into the drive and when it started playing no music came out of the speakers, last night I looked inside the case and there was no lead connecting the sound card and the CD-ROM. This is an issue which I will take up with Dell’s technical support tomorrow.
On the whole I am very happy and satisfied with the whole Dell experience and will defiantly use them again in the future.
You can generate your own PC specification online at http://www.dell.co.uk or phone buy direct on 0870 907 4155
Advantages: Eats Alienwares for breakfast, boots in 15 seconds Disadvantages: Flimsy case, some fan noise (Radeon?)
...what I could get from Dell for the same money - the joke turned out to be on me.
I checked out Gateway and Compaq but for a gaming PC nothing even came close to the Dell.
I had pictured myself trouncing foes with my fully powered Alienware - but for my budget of around £3,200 Alienware gave me a Pentium 4 - 2.53 Ghz, a CD-RW drive and the pre-requisite ATI Radeon 9700 Pro graphics card. The same budget at Dell got me a Dimension 4550 where I could ... ...for the same budget the Dell didn't just let me get a CD-RW but a combination DVD/CD-RW drive. It was a no brainer. Either I could spend my hard earned dollars on an Alienware that looked the part or I could get Dell's wolf in sheeps clothing - a mighty 3.06Ghz Pentium 4 with a Radeon 9700 Pro and DVD burner to boot.
I ordered my Dell online and it arrived within 10 days. You can track the whole thing from their website. THe process was fairly painless.
...
rihallix 13.08.2004
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Dell Dimension 4550
Advantages: Great Speed, Nice Flat Panel Moniter, okay Speakers, Good CD/DVD Burner Disadvantages: Technical Support is Awful, Modem Gives up Often
...Overall the speed of this dell is very good.
Reliability = 10/10
=============
The reliability like any dell is very good and should be commended, we have had no problems apart from when that darn ‘Blaster’ virus was out. But we sorted that out quickly and swiftly with the computers built in firewall service. Overall the reliability is very good.
Memory & Capacity = 10/10
=====================
The memory on this computer is very good, very ... ...1/10
================
The only dell support we got was the delivery, otherwise they have been totally un-helpful, and we don’t ever get any contact from them via e-mail or otherwise. Not much to say except they really are just pants.
Manual = N/A
==========
I am not sure if we actually got an instruction manual, but luckily we have known windows before this computer so it wasn’t to hard to get round. But I’m sure that if we found or manual it ...
Chazzer3 29.02.2004
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Dell Dimension 4550
Advantages: Very nice and fast Disadvantages: Technical support is non existent
...ATI Radeon 9700 graphics card
Dell 19.1inch digital flat panel monitor
DVD drive
DVD-RW drive
Those are the main specs that i think you would want to know. Anyway, now to my story. When my pc finally arrived after numerous delays with the postage company (Lynx) claiming that they had come when they hadn’t, I ripped open the boxes and set the pc up. I was amazed at the speed and the monitor on this pc is amazing! It’s huge and flat, what more ... ...Anyway, I phoned Dell up a few days later to inquire about the graphics card. I had to read them the number from the case, and apparently I was Mr someone I never heard of living in London! So I said no, I’m Mr Woods and I live in Cambridge. Of course I was apparently wrong, and their records were right. After much debate this was changed, and it hit me. They had sent me the wrong pc! Upon further inspection I noticed that the hdd was 120 GB, but ...
stef.w 18.06.2003
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Dell Dimension 4550
...of waiting in house for Dell to deliver, blatant lies from Dell salesmen and their delivery partners, failed promise after failed promise, never being able to contact the same person from call to call, never mind day to day, I cancelled the order.
Against my better judgement I ordered another a few weeks later with the upgrade from a 15" TFT to a 17" TFT. The salesman gave me free delivery and the computer was delivered within days with, however, ... ...I sourced the name of Dell Europe's MD (available if you would like) and emailed him and my salesman friend with 4 pages of A4 with the details and notice of my intentions to tell the world about Dell. A response arrived the next day and the screen a few days later. They had tried to collect the old screen two weeks previous. Given my experiences my wife suggested that they come with the new one first.
I have never had any more correspondence from ...
MalcolmCoutie 02.08.2003
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Dell Dimension 4550
Advantages: Very fast, excellent specifications Disadvantages: Havent found any yet!
...got my computer from the Dell website, and i certainly wasnt disappointed. It has great specifications including:
2.55GHz processor
256Mb RAM
55Gb hard drive
I also managed to get a really good deal from the website, which gave me a nifty little flat screen monitor, re-writable CD drive instead of a normal one, and a set of speakers. (Note though that this was a few months back so you might not get exactly the same, but shop around on the website, ... ...much music and video, and have got loads of games, and ive still only used about 10Gb of disk space out of 60Gb. The people at Dell were very helpful too, even phoning me a month later to check everything was ok, so id definately recommend buying this computer. ...
jimmyk83 21.05.2003
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Dell Dimension 4550
