Dell Dimension 5150

I got my dell computer 2 christmas's ago and i still have it today and have no great urge to uprage it. It's a pretty good computer well worth what i payed for it and as it's dell i could trust that it would work and i wouldn't have problems with it (but it does have issues with some usb devices).

PERFORMANCE

It has a 3 Ghz processor in it and 512mb of ram which is pretty good and a 128mb graphics card. These are both ...
...that it may be all dell desktop computers as my sister has had the same sort of problem.

OTHER THINGS

Its a pretty good looking computer in my mind. It looks quite modern and has a gap in the front which has a major problem which is it fills up with dust and does need to get cleaned after a while.
It comes with your basic keyboard and optical mouse nothing fancy just the usuals there, doesnt come with speakers ... more

I got my dell computer 2 christmas's ago and i still have it today and have no great urge to uprage it. It's a pretty good computer well worth what i payed for it and as it's dell i could trust that it would work and i wouldn't have problems with it (but it does have issues with some usb devices).

It has a 3 Ghz processor in it and 512mb of ram which is pretty good and a 128mb graphics card. These are both ugradable on the wesite but for the ram dell charge very large amounts when you can just buy some new ram off a website on the internet for alot less. The processor is pretty good but i think it is held back a bit by onlly 512mb of ram and a 128mb graphics card. If you are going to be using it for lots of games and demanding programs i would say you should definitely think about upgrading it to 1 Gb ram and a 256mb graphics card. I mainly use it for internet usage, msn & listening to music but i do also play some games on it and it runs them quite smoothly. I can turn it on and within a few minutes i can be stting at my computer listening to music on I-tunes, talking to people on msn and surfing the internet which i think is quite impressive

It comes with an 80 Gb hard drive which is ok if you dont keep loads of games on your computer or have alot of movies on it. If you do it is well worth upgrading to a 160 Gb or bigger hard drive which doesn't cost that much. Its a pretty good hard drive never have problems with it does its job well but like every hard drive it needs to be defragmented so it will run better.

It comes with a 15" TFT monitor which is pretty good. Its not huge but its big enough to see what you are doing. If you watch alot of films or use alot of big spreadsheets or other things that may need more space onscreen it is worth getting a 17" or bigget monitor. The one it comes with is bright colourful and has a pretty fast response time and doesnt suffer from ghosting (this is when say your mouse seems to be in more than one place because the monitor cannot keep up). So its a pretty good monitor all round.

It comes with a CD rom writer with a DVD player in the same drive which is all you really need unless you really want to burn DVDs. Its a fast drive and i've never had problems with it. It can burn a full disk full of music in under 10 minutes which is pretty good. Its fast so it can install games quite quickly onto your computer and can run games off of the disk.

I have never had any real problems with it, it has gone to a blue screen a couple of times but the problem has never continued. It turns on day after day and I can rely on it being able to do what i want it to do. I have had the not responding messages many a time but this is just as much down to the operating system as well as anythin.

It comes with windows XP home as standard which is what you need unless you want to use it as a home entertainment sytem or just get proffesional because you can spend that little extra. I dont really see the point in getting anything better because Windows XP Home does its job pretty well. Now that Vista is out it might be more worth upgrading just to keep up with things. It comes with 15 months free McAfee Security Centre which is good because nowadays as soon as you've got your computer onto the internet theres someone somewhere trying to put a virus or a worm onto your computer and McAfee does its job protecting you well. It also comes with the odd program like Jasc Paint shop but these have only got like a 30 day trial on them. It comes with Aol installed on it and various other programs which you may need. It also comes with Microsoft Works which is pretty rubbish but its a simple word processor, a simple version of exel and so on. It is deffinetely worth getting Microsoft Office.

The most annoying thing about this computer is that it seems to have something against some of my USB devices. I have tried many things finding new drivers, re-intalling, replacing the devices but i just think its not quite compatible. The main one which wont work is my bluetooth dongle sometimes they get along sometimes they dont it just gets bugging and i think i have installed the driver about 10 times. I know thats its the computer because i have had them working on other computers around my house. I think that it may be all dell desktop computers as my sister has had the same sort of problem.

Its a pretty good looking computer in my mind. It looks quite modern and has a gap in the front which has a major problem which is it fills up with dust and does need to get cleaned after a while.
It comes with your basic keyboard and optical mouse nothing fancy just the usuals there, doesnt come with speakers as stardard so i got myself a set of 5.1 speakers which work well.

It comes with a couple of sheets of paper with basic intructions on them but on the desktop is a pdf file containing a full manual for the computer in full detail. Its an easy to use manual and does have the basic information, it doesnt go too deep with intructions but you can find all that on the wesite.

Dell have a pretty good website full of what you need it has all the manuals and drivers on there. It does take time to figure out how to navigate it though but in the end they are hidden in there somewhere. It comes with a basic warrenty just the usual sort of one and you can upgrade it but i dont think its really worth it for the amount you pay for it.

I paid just under £500 for what i got and i know that now you can get alot more for that but for the time i got it it was really really good value i tried looking all over the place for a better deal but i just couldnt find anything so its really very good value for money.

All round its a pretty good computer. It does what is says on the box and more. It does have its problems but i got around them and i still use it today. It's good value for money pretty powerful, a good bit of space and its got everything you need for your basic home computer. Its well worth getting one if you need a simple computer that will do your day to day jobs and have that little bit more power when you need it.  

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