Re: How are Dell Media PCs?

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From: Joe Cilinceon (jfc_at_direcway.com)
Date: 03/14/05 

Date: Sun, 13 Mar 2005 19:58:30 -0500

me@privacy.net wrote:
>> The 8400 is in my opinion a better deal for a few more bucks. I just
>> purchased an 8400 MCE system from them and love it. I didn't buy
>> thier Tuner and saved a few bucks there and got a better tuner
>> (Hauppauge). I did get the 17" Ultra Sharp monitor and its one of
>> the best monitors I've seen for the price.
>
> OK Joe.... thanks for quick reply
>
> I was thinking of doing what you did as well.....
> buying my own Hauupauge TV card.
>
> But Im curious why you did NOT buy the TV card Dell
> offers?
>
> Also.... since I like clean looking systems.... Im
> thinking of going with the sound bar speakers for the
> monitor vs stand alone speakers. Do you see any
> problems with using sound bar speakers for "TV
> watching" vs stand alone speakers?
>
> And..... Im curious why you went 17" lcd vs say the
> wide screen lcd?
>
> Thanks so much fir the help. Im wanting to order very
> soon. Need to make my mind up.

I never considered the sound bar because I got mine with the Audigy 2 ZS
card and already had a set of Creative Inspire T7000 7.1 speakers (great
speakers for about a $100). I also didn't get thier tuner because I read
started reading this group before I bought my system and saw a lot of
complaints about the Dell tuner. I was looking at the Hauppauge 500 MCE and
was told (which made sense at the time) to get 2 150MCE instead. Well I got
one and realized that with the Audigy card, modem I had no more PCI slots
available so if I want a second tuner I will need a USB setup which will
work just fine though I now back to the price with both cards to the 500mce
card. I also didn't get the remote which I should have as I figured they
came with the tv cards but they don't at least not for MCE. I did buy a
Logitech 850 Universal remote which was very expensive but I also wanted
something that would work with more than MCE. I have about 6 different
remotes around my TV until I got this one that does it all.

The monitor was and easy upgrade since the system came with a 17 lcd to
start with (promotion thing). It was only a $20 upgrade to the UltraSharp
which is really a samsung monitor built for Dell. I also have a Dim. 3000 I
bought about a month or so ago for my office which came with the 15" lcd. It
isn't a bad machine for what it does, Office programs and a Storage facility
software only. I also just replaced a 6 year old Gateway with the 8400 that
still runs great (gave it to a grandson).

Some more of my setup Single drive NEC 3450A 16x DVDR/RW dual layer drive.
It does the CDRW at 48x. In addition I got the PCI Express x16 6800 NVIDIA
256M video card and the 160GB (2 x 160GB SATA HDDs ). I paid with tax about
$1450 for the system delivered with no rebates given.

I also suggest you shop the Dell web site as well as go thru the business
and home by phone. I found all 3 locations for the same system will have
different specials going and one can be a couple of hundred dollars cheaper.
I got the 3000 for the price of their advertised 2400 due to rebates and
free add ons by the business phone number. As for my 8400 I ordered it from
the web site with a 30% off the top discount, free dual dvd drive offer
(which was a price decrease for a single drive I actually ordered), it also
included a 17" LCD monitor in the base prices so what I saved on the DVD
paid for the upgrade to UltraSharp monitor, it also came with a double
memory upgrade to 1Gig so I ate about $20 and got the 533MHz chips instead
of the 400MHz chips which are standard and last but not least free shipping.
Total I feel I got a pretty good system for my money but only time will
tell. 

-- 
Joe Cilinceon

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