Dell XPS - To Buy or Not To Buy

[mazzy1026]

Morning chaps/chappette's ;)

http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?b=&c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&oc=D10XP5&rbc=D10XP5&s=dhs&sbc=ukdhsftdhpdesktop1

Been thinking of buying one of the new Dell XPS systems and wondered what you thought of them - do you have any experience of them, or know of a system that is just as good for less money?

I started off at the base price of around £1,200 and built it up to just under £2,000 on the Dell website (more memory, better graphics, big monitor - that sort of thing).

Thanks all,

Maz :ok:

[airborne_artist]

That's one mother of a system! What exactly do you plan to use it for? FWIW I'd spec XP Pro over XP home.

[mazzy1026]

It is a beast eh :cool:

Well, I just thought "If I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it properly" !

I find that playing modern games requires a modern spec, and there's nothing better than a game running at top end performance ;)

[spannersatcx]

Insufficient memory, nowadays you need at least 2GB of RAM to run the most demanding of games.

[mazzy1026]

RAM was one of the first things to be upgraded - it's difficult watching that little red number in the corner (aKa Price) going up!

[spannersatcx]

I play some online games, and the biggest difference made was ugrading from 1GB to 2GB of RAM instead of being last to join in I'm now one of the first, also the swap file was getting some hammering which caused slow loading of maps and things.
Making the move to 2GB, about £70 for 1GB, made a huge difference. It also helps with video rendering etc as well. So having the best CPU/Graphics etc will be let down by not having sufficient RAM.

[Daysleeper]

Build your own!

For £2k you'd get a great system and the fun of putting it all together.

I built a games PC for just under £600 2 years ago, still a great system and I can upgrade it easy as I know where all the bits came from!

[mazzy1026]

Thought about building it myself, but I doub't I'd get anywhere near it for 6-700 quid. Main problem is the peripherals - mostly the monitor - a 19 inch high quality monitor can come into several hundred. I suppose the ease of buying the 'package' is what makes it attractive :rolleyes:

[Daysleeper]

Its true you wont beat a £2K dell for £700. In reality you would struggle to even match the spec they can provide on the same budget. They have economies of scale like we can't comprehend.
I mainly did it for fun and curiosity, I'm normally an Apple man and you can't self build them and the games aren't as good and I wanted to play Battlefield 2.

[anotherthing]

Mazzy

you need more than 1GB RAM - I have that on a laptop that I bought over 2 years ago!!

I don't play games but do a lot of photo and video editing (adobe CS2 and Premire Pro 2). Big meaty programs and big meaty files (high definition video, 12 Mega pixel photos)

1 Gig of Ram is just about the minimum for my needs. You need to future proof your machine when you buy it (or as much as you can do... it will be 'obselete' in 6 months).

As computers get faster, programmers get lazier. Yes there are some awesome games out there, but the memory they require is way out of proportion to the memory required on the old computers (ZX Spectrum etc).

With the old computers, memory and performance were in short supply so programmers had to keep programmes tight, with a very competitive market (probably as, if not more competitive than todays market).

Save money on the monitor. Buy the cheapest monitor Dell will allow you, then get a 19" monitor elsewhere for about £179 (check Kelkoo.co.uk or pricerunner.co.uk). You will not be losing out on the quality, just paying less.

Although Dell and all the other online computer sellers do it in bulk and therefore tend to be cheaper, they do charge a healthy amount for adding to the basic spec. You could easily find extra RAM etc elsewhere at a lower cost.

[frostbite]

Only thing you have to watch out for with Dell is to make sure the system contains everything you are likely to need when you order it.

You may well get a couple of spare PCI slots, but you will probably find that there are no spare plugs on any power or data leads.

[Saab Dastard]

I agree with frostbite on this - upgrading Dell PCs can be a bit of a problem. You can usually replace Dell components with other brands, but adding additional can be a pain. I've had similar issues with power cables, drive mounting brackets and other bits - even IDE cables with a plug for only one device :rolleyes:

The cheapest way to buy a Dell is via their "factory outlet" website - not necessarily old or refurbished stock, as they very often have cancelled orders (both home and corporate) available.

I haven't needed to look at it for a couple of years, but I'm sure it's still there. There were some amazing deals. :ok:

SD

[Gertrude the Wombat]

As computers get faster, programmers get lazier.
No we don't! We get more efficient, instead.

For example, I'm currently working on something that is going to leave several megabytes of data hanging around in memory. No big deal, and if the memory is wanted for something else the operating system will make much better decisions about swapping it out than I can (because it knows stuff I can't know, like what the other applications are up to at the time).

However a couple of decades ago there's no way I'd have designed it like that! I'd have spent extra time - which would probably have been weeks - on careful encoding and caching and avoiding duplication and copying and hand-crafting disk swapping and all sorts of guff, as well as counting CPU cycles.

So, by me being "lazy" my client gets his system a few weeks sooner; he gets to pay me a few grand less; and all for the cost of about 37p worth of memory. This isn't "lazy", is providing a cost effective service to my client.

[Taffer]

Had my Dell Inspiron 9400 (one step below the XPS in performance terms, but still great) for 8 months now - no problems to speak of yet. Mate of mine with an XPS has had no problems either. Built quality is generally good, though they're not the most portable of systems (big 17 inch screen, weigh a ton). Definitely a desktop replacement rather than a true laptop.

On the buying side of things - always haggle them on the sales line. Try to get upgrades or accessories free of charge. My system spec'ed at £1400 cost me £1200 after a bit of haggling, with a laptop bag and internal bluetooth module thrown in.

As for alternatives, I'd recommend Rock Direct - they specialise in performance laptops, and have a very good reputation.

[mazzy1026]

No we don't! We get more efficient, instead.

Yes, and we let the garbage collector do the work! :p (Those using .NET will know that one)

Thanks for all the replies - I will certainly look out for the factory outlet deals, and try and use some haggling also..

Thanks again,

Maz :ok:

[Daysleeper]

always haggle them on the sales line.

Heck that reminds me, mate of mine was going to buy a Dell laptop. We (the Apple mafia in the company) persuaded him to buy a PowerBook. He phoned Dell to cancel and they started offering huge discounts and freebies.

Good lad bought the Mac anyhow but it might be worth a punt if you go for the XPS.

[mazzy1026]

He phoned Dell to cancel and they started offering huge discounts and freebies.

I like it - and I have another excuse - I am after all a scouser :ouch:

[MyData]

Go for the Dell stuff, it would be hard to get things cheaper. They are masters of upselling though - I went on their site a few months ago to buy a new PC, mainly used for surfing and some development work. The PC that would suit my needs suddenly became the ultimate behemoth of PCs because I wanted all the latest sexy stuff...


However, what I really wanted to comment on was that big systems do make programmers lazy. Gertrude and others being the exception. Its because the machines are so powerful and fast with GB of RAM that even a 'slow' application runs at an acceptable pace. Now that might sound acceptable, but last year I had to diagnose some bad code... Developers bear with me - it was in VB.NET, with MS Access, with code using pass thru T-SQL to a SQL Server. A right dogs dinner of code and loops and jumps. I almost cried in desparation then got to work on fixing literally dozens of lines of codes in three languages in three apps into a SINGLE line of code embedded in MS Access (with some funky relationships added to the DB table). The point here is that if the 'professional' developers don't have a clue what they are doing - because it all runs fast enough - they are storing up huge trouble in future for maintenance, modifications, bug fixing etc. - Which is why I was asked to look in the first place - the system had broken down. If the developers had to write stuff on a slower box they would have immediately realised their code was too cumbersome and done something about it (i.e. read the manuals!) and learned to be a bit more efficient.

[anotherthing]

Data Dad

I did not understand half of it, but well put. I do not think that programmers are lazy per se, but as I stated in my post, I do not think that a lot of them run as tight as ship as they did when CPU performance was an issue!

[Woolsack]

Replying to the original post..... I bought a XPS-200 a couple of months ago and it has been really great. At one point a Windows file became corrupted so I called Dell Support who have a dedicated XPS service which was accessed very quickly. The BAD news is that I was told that I would have to re-install Windows, usually a nightmare on other PCs, but I was told that the XPS has a couple of special keystrokes that will re-install Windows and all the Dell supplied software without having to re-install any Drivers etc. Lo and Behold it did just that in about 3 minutes. I would recommend a XPS for this feature alone.

The XPS 200 is way smaller physically than the other models and was ideal for a rather restricted area where it was needed. All in all a great PC.

[mazzy1026]

Sorry for the late reply guys - thanks again for all the help & advice.

Data - I didn't know you were a programming monkey like me (that's our nickname in work as opposed to a spanner weilding tecchie) :E I am trying to learn C# at the moment - it's a lot to take in!

Cheers
Maz :ok:

[toothpic]

Try looking on e-bay, type "Dell scratched" into the search... got my last PC this way, had to look really close to find the damage. You may have to wait if you atre after a specific model, but it is always worth keeping an eye, as there are the odd bargains. Remember these prices are without a monitor.

Kev

[mazzy1026]

Toothpic - I missed the 'ebay' bit in your above post and wondered why I wasn't getting anywhere! Fool! ;)

[MyData]

Mazzy, I haven't been *paid* to programme, oooh, for about 10 years now. But I still keep my hands dirty to 'roll-my-own' stuff when there isn't something out there to do what I need to do. And people know about my background so I get called in just to have a look at a 'little problemette' which turns out to require a full system rewrite...

So I tend to stay quiet these days and pretend I know nothing about computers :E

[mazzy1026]

Data - I don't blame you matey - the thing is, as soon as you tell anybody that you know the smallest little thing about computers - you are automatically an expert and EXPECTED to fix anything!

:p