It finally happened. The time had finally arrived when our trusty seven year old Compaq died and required resurrecting via yet another reformat. Though it worked well, it was woefully our of date, and money allowed it, so we decided to splurge on a shiny new PC for me and pass the dinosaur on to my son. We decided to go with Dell, as the prices looked good, financing was easy and on extremely reasonable terms, and we had heard good things about them for years from friends and family who owned them (including hubby, who snagged a free Dell lappy during the AOL promo). We looked over the various models the Dell web site had to offer, and decided to customise this particular one.

Now, my old PC was not the most memory heavy and I had not managed to fill it up despite filling it full of my writings, downloads, and game files. We decided though that since the family was growing up, and all in it would be using it, that it would be wise to upgrade the memory that was offered as well, preventing unnecessary opening of the case later to add it in ourselves. We added the maximum amount of memory that was offered, and I have to say that what was there quite stunned me. It is, to put it non technically, GI-NORMOUS. Likewise the size of the new hard drive, 640 GB to our previous 80 GB made me stare. I have no idea what we shall do to use up all that space, but hey, previous experience tells me that if it is out there, programmers write to take advantage of it, so we took the bite to save us hassle later.

One of the things that I am not entirely complacent with though is the DVD drive. It works great, but I find it a bit niggly installing a DVD or cd rom in sideways, as we bought the slimline case version. The disc sits looking slightly proud of the indentation it is supposed to sit in, put seems to go in alright without any problems. The sideways installation of the drive is necessary because of the slim line case, which is so overall sleek and petite that I can overlook this foible and no doubt will become quite used to it. It runs quietly though, and the optical drive has had no issues reading older DVDs that are lightly scratched. The other drive is the 19 in 1 media card reader, with no other open bays, so you cannot easily place a second DVD drive in. This is no big deal though as the old PC has two DVD drives, so one can easily be pulled out and placed in an external case for those rare occasions when we have need of it. It is not that big a deal, and quite honestly, looking back I can count on three fingers the last time I required two drives at once.

Now, this PC does not have a TV tuner card and not wishing to put one in, and only using this for the occasional DVD viewing, it was decided to go with the basic Dell A225 speakers. I have to give them kudos here as I was a trifle worried about making that choice. In the past, basic speakers have either been tinny or just fine. Luckily, Dell went for quality and these little speakers produce quality sound.It's not surround sound, or HD sound but it has utter clarity and doesn't squeal, squelch, hiss, crackle, or pop. The lack of buzzing is much appreciated, I can tell you! The speakers did not let down the 7.1 channel high def sound card as far as my untrained ear could tell, so I can only imagine what the upgraded entertainment centre speakers would provide.

The PC runs quietly and shows a quick response to requested commands thanks to the Intel dual processor inside (Intel core 2 Duo E8400 to be precise). It's slim profile and the lack of bulk with the flat panel monitor means my desk not only looks less crowded, but I have more actual space. That's really nice, as my desk is a vintage 1950's oak desk, so having more of it to look at adds to the pleasure. Adding to the unobtrusiveness of the tech is the two drive doors, which conceal the DVD drive and the 19 in 1 media thingmabob. Stylishly silver faced with glossy white sides, black mouse, keyboard, and black with silver monitor, stand, and speakers means it matches the rest of my desktop gear, those being the current "in" colours seemingly for office ware. My stapler, Skype phone and Canon all in one printer therefore match, giving a harmonious overall effect that pleases without dominating the room it is placed in.