Dell Dimension 8400 - P4 550 3.4 GHz - 17" TFT

Advantages: Sppedy, good monitor and sound system, nice design
Disadvantages: poor graphics card

The Dell Dimension 8400 is a great machine let down by the poor graphics card that comes as standard. The 250gb hard drive is fast and this is noticeable as early as in booting up the machine. 1 gigabyte of memory is provided, which is more than generous for most tasks. The system also includes the soundblaster audigy 2 card, together with a 5.1 surround sound speaker system which works well for both games and movies. One minor point out here is ...
...paying a premium for the Dell brand. It does however include 3 year on site warranty and the machine is delivered and professionally installed. Be aware that delivery and installation are two seperate processes and there may be a delay of a few days between you receiving your machine and the installation taking place. Overall a good machine, but one or two points prevent it from being a great one. ... Read review

Advantages: Ease of ordering,good value ,pick your own configuration.
Disadvantages: Build quality of case can be patchy.

I bought my Dell 8400 approx 12 months ago.This model is no longer sold by dell themselves and has been replaced by the 9150 model. If you are therefore buying second hand you should be able to get a good deal. Try to go for a higher spec model,mine has a 3.4Ghz intel processor which i find is quick enough for just about every need, especially if you can get 1 Gigbyte of Ram though there are generally empty slots to upgrade yourself. The case is ...
...of space inside if you wish to change graphics cards ,drives etc. Mine was supplied with an nvidia 6800 Gpu and is pretty good at playing all the games on the market at this time. As an example ,when i play Doom 3 i play on high settings and still get 40+ frames per second though you must shut down all open windows etc. The Hard drive is a 250 GB maxtor and the DVD Rom and DVD CD Rewriter drives are easy to use and will probably have sonic record ... Read review

Advantages: Fast, quality feel, good support.
Disadvantages: Awkward front USB ports.

I bought a Dell Dimension 8400 about a year ago and, in general, I have been very pleased with it. My computer is my business so I went for a fairly high options specification as follows: - 2GB RAM, - Upgraded graphics card - 256 ATI Radeon, - 2 x 74GB RAID-0 hard disks, - 19 inch flat screen If you care about how a PC looks then I think the Dimension 8400 is fairly attractive, with a grey fascia and black body. Sitting next to the main unit ...
...you are going to get Dell cover, make sure that all the components are Dell. The computer comes set up ready to go with the Windows OS of your choice and at least something like Microsoft Works (you can upgrade that to Office if you wish). Personally, I like to partition everything to my liking and tweak it a bit, but that is not really necessary. I like the fact that Dell provide all the original disks for products, and they also have various driver ... Read review