Sean Captain

Dell Dimension 4300

Dell got several things right when it designed the case for its new Dimension 4300, including the USB ports and the headphone port on the front, as well as the attractive black-and-gray color scheme (which extends to the monitor and keyboard). The system's understated good looks are nicely complemented by its nearly silent operation. And its moderate $1179 price won't cause you to make too much noise, either.
Tinkerers may have some trouble getting inside the PC. We struggled to open the case, which lies open like a book after you place it on its side. Closing it was also tricky, as cables got hung up on internal components.
This machine is middle-of-the-pack by most performance measures. Equipped with a 1.5-GHz Pentium 4 processor and 256MB of SDRAM, it posted a score of 94 on our PC WorldBench 4 tests, about what we've seen from other 1.5-GHz machines running Windows XP Home. The 17-inch Dell M781S monitor displayed excellent 12-point text at 1024 by 768 resolution. Our color photo of a group of children looked sharply focused, although its colors could have been more saturated. The Harman/Kardon HK695 audio system's two slender, champagne-glass-shaped satellite speakers were surprisingly powerful for their size, but the black subwoofer sounded somewhat weak. And disappointingly, game play broke down at a resolution of 1280 by 1024 with 32-bit color in our Quake III and Unreal Tournament game tests. Our judges awarded only middling scores for image quality in both games at 1024-by-768 resolution.
While not a powerhouse or a high-end multimedia center, the Dimension 4300 remains a reasonably priced all-around family system.

Buying Information

Dell Dimension 4300 PC WorldBench 4 score of 94, Pentium 4-1500 CPU, 256MB of PC-133 SDRAM, Windows XP Home, 40GB hard drive, 16X/10X/40X CD-RW drive, Dell NVidia GeForce2 MX graphics board with 32MB of SDRAM, 17-inch Dell M781s monitor, SoundMax Integrated Digital Audio sound card, Harmon/Kardon HK 695 speakers, network adapter, midsize tower case; Microsoft Works Suite 2001. One-year parts and labor warranty; free, unlimited, 24-hour, toll-free tech support. $ 1179 PC WorldBench 4 score of 94, Pentium 4-1500 CPU, 256MB of PC-133 SDRAM, Windows XP Home, 40GB hard drive, 16X/10X/40X CD-RW drive, Dell NVidia GeForce2 MX graphics board with 32MB of SDRAM, 17-inch Dell M781s monitor, SoundMax Integrated Digital Audio sound card, Harmon/Kardon HK 695 speakers, network adapter, midsize tower case; Microsoft Works Suite 2001. One-year parts and labor warranty; free, unlimited, 24-hour, toll-free tech support. http://www.dell.com 800/388-8542