What I have now is a Dell Dimension 2400 Celeron 2.2, 1G RAM, 40G HD and XP. It is a nice computer for most of what I do, but it is slow on video playback and editing, and I think the HD is about to go on me.
I am thinking about a Dell Inspiron 530s, Pentium 2.2 Dual-Core 3G RAM, 320GB HD and XP or Vista. For $350 delivered, it sounds like a great deal. It comes with more memory than I can put in my current computer, a bigger hard drive (which I need), and it is a dual-core processor. It also helps that it comes with a better, more modern video card and a faster DVD burner.
The Inspiron should perform significantly better and faster, correct? It comes with Vista, and it seems to have the speed and memory to handle it as well as my old unit handles XP. Is this correct?
I have almost the same Dell Dimensions, and upgraded for pretty much the same reasons, although I took a bigger leap up. For the price, looks like that would be a good workhorse machine and a good deal. It should be able to run Vista just fine and you should notice a significant improvement in video editing, although some people are still anti-Vista and might suggest sticking with XP. The video card is likely to be the weak link at that level but probably won’t be an issue for you if you’re not a heavy gamer.
If you do video editing I would recommend a bigger hard drive, move up to 500G. I don’t know how much extra Dell would charge for that but alternatively you could just buy a second drive from Newegg and drop it in as a data drive.
I bought the configuration (except I opted for the regular size tower case) that you are considering and it’s worked out fine for me. Added a second hard drive on my own and it’s been rock solid for almost a year now. Before you buy, search around for Dell coupons for further discounts.