Dell Inspiron 531 Video
Dell Inspiron 531 Video Transcript
[ music ] ^M00:00:12
>> Hi I'm Rich Brown, senior editor for CNET.com. Today we're gonna take a look at the Dell Inspiron 531. So Dell has done away with the Dimension line in its home desktops. Instead it's divided it between the Inspiron and the XPS. Now like all Dell systems, this is very configurable. You can go pretty low and relatively high end on this. This is a mid-range configuration though, pretty much hits the sweet spot. If you're familiar with Dell's older Dimension desktops, you'll see that this new Inspiron has an updated design on their front panel. It's a little bit sleeker, a little bit more unified. You can pretty much put it wherever you want in your house. Now in addition to the desktop design, Dell's also updated its mouse. Two thumbside buttons on this one. We don't think there are very many vendors that have that on their standard default mouse. So on the front panels, relatively straight forward. On the top there's a standard DVD drive, right here there's a DVD burner drive, and right here there's actually a thirteen in one media card reader with built-in Bluetooth. That's a pretty nice option to have with this system. That means you can use it with your cell phone, any other mobile device that has Bluetooth connectivity. Now inside this system you'll see pretty mainstream config in here. Right here's an AMD Athalon 5000 plus dual core chip, pretty fast mainstream processor. There's an 8600GT graphics card, that's a nice updated card. It'll get you basic gaming performance. Then there's a fairly room 250 gig hard drive, and there's room for another one right here. And finally, back under these wires you see two gigs of memory, there's room for two more sticks as well. So it's a fairly expandable system, but generally solid for mainstream Windows Vista performance. And although it's not included in this config, Dell has finally added an internal Wi-Fi option via PCI card. It's 802.11 A, B, or G. Now for performance we actually found that this PC outperformed a system that cost about five hundred dollars more. Between that, the new design, and the advanced connectivity, this is an Editor's Choice winner. So I'm Rich Brown, and this is the Dell Inspiron 531. ^M00:02:01 [ music ]
Related Videos
PC vendors have very few tricks remaining to differentiate their systems from the competition, which makes the built-in Bluetooth in the Dell Inspiron 530 unique. There's little else that makes this system stand out, but if you need Bluetooth in your budget desktop, we can recommend no other.
A decent entry-level system, Dell's Inspiron 1150 offers good battery life and Wi-Fi, but it lacks features that advanced users will not want to live without.
The competitively priced Dell Inspiron 6000 delivers a very solid combination of performance, features, and design for basic home or small-office use.
The Dell Inspiron 530 has very little that makes this system stand out, but if you need Bluetooth in your budget desktop, we can recommend no other.
On certain tests, Dell's off-the-shelf Inspiron 530s comes out ahead of its slim-tower competition, but its situational performance edge isn't dramatic enough to overcome its underwhelming features. You can find cheaper systems that might be a tick slower on certain tasks, but on balance they'll let you do more.
In its present configuration, the Dell Inspiron I530S-119B won't feel at home in a home theater or digital media environment, but it succeeds in providing high performance at minimal cost thanks to a faster processor than the competition.
The Dell Inspiron E1705 packs a solid set of multimedia features, and when configured with Intel's Core Duo processor, it has enough power to speed through virtually any task, from editing video to playing games.
The Windows Vista-based Dell Inspiron E1505 remains a good laptop for basic home use, with a solid set of multimedia features and high-end components.
We recommend the Dell Inspiron 9200 to home users who want an awesome, relatively portable, desktop-replacement laptop with cutting-edge features and solid performance.
Dell introduces the new 14-inch Inspiron 1420 laptop, which benefits from a wide range of configuration options, meaning that virtually any mainstream user can find a system to fit their budget.
