DELLighted (Dell Dimension 8100)

Member Name: merv

Product:	Dell Dimension 8100
Date:	03/11/01 (1271 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Quality system, Comprehensive, Looks good and operates well

Disadvantages: Slightly more expensive than some similar specs, Other reviewers have experienced problems

I’ve been a computer enthusiast for about twenty five years. I say enthusiast because I’m technically inept, understand very little about how they work, yet still get a tremendous amount of pleasure, enjoyment and usefulness out of them.

I originally had access (I couldn’t afford my own) to an early Spectrum ZX, great fun, but it took about half an hour to load a really simple game. In the mid eighties I purchased an Acorn Electron, they were on sale for a knock down price of £150. This was absolutely brilliant at the time, with fantastic games, which loaded relatively quickly as long as you got the volume control right on the portable cassette recorder which needed to be used to download them. I still have fond memories of me and my son (who was then six) spending hours upon hours during the winter months playng ‘Chuckie Egg’. We were as hooked on that then as we now are on dooyoo).

The Electron was replaced by an Amiga, which I thought was fantastic because it had 3D arcade type games as well as spreadsheet, database and word processing applications.

An IBM 465 was purchased whilst I had the Amiga. This was incredibly reliable and was my first real ‘business’ computer with a hard drive. I purchased it from an advert in the paper complete with dot matrix printer for £599.

Following the development of the web, faster processors and software which needed a lot more memory, a friend of mine built me a modern computer with a Pentium processor to which I later added internet access. This lasted six years with absolutely no problems until the hard drive went about eight months ago.

Its demise sent me in search of a new computer and I finally decided about six months ago on the Dell Dimension 8100 Pentium 4. I bought it purely on the strength of comparing all the different specifications in the computer magazine adverts and associated prices and the fact that I had read somewhere th
at it was the computer the US government used. It arrived in about ten days at a cost of approximately £1,000 after I had upgraded it to include a separate CD writer.

I found it incredibly easy to put together, with a comprehensive solutions guide and really useful software, including the ME edition of windows. One of the first things I did was to look at a specialist computer review site – something I would and should have done before I made the purchase and was amazed by the poor customer reviews it was getting. I quote from some of them:

"a complete disappointment"

‘had four service calls to fix a "known issue"

‘replaced mother board twice, then network card, then video card’

‘still have glitches and cannot print on my new epson printer’

‘they finally send me a new system---same problems’

‘customer service has been appalling’

‘have been trying to solve these problems for 2 months, no response from dell to emails I have sent to customer service’

As you can imagine, this caused me few sleepless nights, wondering whether or not I’d bought a ‘pig in a poke’and each time I switched it on I anticipated one of the ‘known faults’ – particularly the dreaded blue screen which most people referred to.

However I’ve now had the computer over six months and I can say I’m absolutely delighted with it. It fits the bill perfectly for me, fast processing (1.4ghz, 17” colour monitor, 56k V90 Data Fax modem, 128mb Ram, 40GB Hard Drive, CD writer and a built in DVD Rom drive.

When I originally ordered the system over telephone the rep came across as very friendly, not in hurry and gave me good advice over what options to take. He advised me against most of the advertised options such as the digital camera, saying I could buy them cheaper else
where, but did recommend I purchased a separate CD rom drive rather than the dual use one they were offering a good deal for an extra £40.

The actual time unpacking the unit from its container took longer than the setup of the computer. If you have never setup a system in the past, Dell includes a large graphical description of each component and how to connect each. Within ten minutes the system was hooked up and powered up.

Furthermore, it came with a one year on-site warranty and two years collect and return, as well as having pre loaded software which includes Microsoft works, Word 2000, Microsoft Money, Publisher, Clipart, Autoroute and Encarta. For the first time I’ve actually had the disks provided with preloaded software

The computer looks great, you’ve probably seen the adverts depicting a black monitor and a black and silver computer. The main DVD-CD ROM Drive performs perfectly and with the added internal CD-RW making copies or backups is simply a dream. The whole system looks and feels quality, its fast, its quiet and unlike other reviewers I have no faults at all to report

On the one occasion when I did have to contact the helpline (because of something I’d done wrong) they were extremely helpful, sorted it out straight away and e-mailed me as a follow up to confirm their response.

Dell also provide a really useful ‘solutions guide’ which comes as preloaded software and in booklet form, which is in effect an idiot’s guide. Very easy to access and easy to understand. Just the ticket for someone like me.

All in all, I’m really pleased with my purchase, and though I would recommend it to a friend, I would suggest that they looked at the more specialist computer hardware review sites to get some of the alternative opinions before deciding. Personally I feel a lot of the problems are caused by the users experimenting or changing configurations without reading o
r understanding the manuals – me, I tend to let sleeping dogs lie, perhaps that’s why I haven’t had any problems.

Summary: