After having stumbled blindly through college and university undecided on how to pursue my future, I settled on a website design course from home. Having worked with computers throughout my educational life I was not illiterate, but lacking funds I decided on rental of a home PC as opposed to purchase. The machine I was provided with was a Gateway machine. Slow, unreliable and somewhat archaic barely do it justice, and in the end it gave up the ghost completely.

I decided purchase was the way forward and looked at several different manufacturers (Gateway not included), before happening across Dell. They offered their renowned build to spec service, within certain range parameters, and the amount per month came to little more than I had been paying for the rented machine, but with superior specification. My finance application was accepted and I received my Dimension desktop in the following few days. And that is the big plus. From my own experience, Dell customer service is second to none.

Performance wise, this was the best performer to price ratio I could find, and it didn't disappoint. Four or five years ago, my desktop was mid range, 2.8ghz P4, 512mb Ram and Nvidia 128mb graphics card, coupled with outstanding Dell speakers which proved to be more than enough for the basic website design I was dabbling in at the time. So far, so good. It did everything I asked for without drawing breath and I was more than happy with the money I had spent. Aesthetically it was more functional than striking, a somewhat drab mix of grey and black.

But, as I became more competent and a love for games pushed me to begin upgrading the machine, I required more power for more intensive applications. First, the graphics card update, then memory, and power supply. P4 2.8 is still chugging away on an old 478 socket motherboard, so limited scope for improvement there. And here is the only teething problem. Pound for pound, Dell are a great brand, and customer service top class, but come to upgrade, and teething problems occur. Power supply was in fine, memory slightly more temperamental, upped to 2 then 4 gig, more than once had to reinstall due to occasional conflicts. Bearing in mind this is a Dell recommended upgrade part, it seems a little strange. Checked all required compatibility info before purchase just to make sure too. Graphics card was fine apart from a few niggles with drivers, but easily solved with updated BIOS. Unfortunately I heard from other Dell owners of their systems being unwilling or temperamental when it came to upgrade parts, so I wasn't alone.

The main problem is with the Dell BIOS unfortunately. On my Dimension, I am unable to change clock and memory speeds on anything, even with the update. Now in an environment where technology is fast evolving, that is a major downside. I cannot comment on the current range having not experienced those, but certainly a problem on older machines.

So all in all, if you are looking for a reliable, functional home PC for general use, pound for pound Dell are hard to beat. They are a very good brand, but to be honest, if you feel the need to upgrade to the newest technology every so often, short of paying thousands for a top end machine, my best advice would be to custom build. The money and trouble saved is worth it.

Learn more about this author, Stuart Mckellar.
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