Dell for Home: Desktops

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Why Buy a Dell Desktop?

Dell have a reputation for the quality of their products and their direct-sales model, meaning as you purchase direct from the company from their website, and not through a separate retailer; this means that any questions or problems you have concerning any Dell product can be directed straight to Dell and dealt with faster.

You have the freedom to browse Dell products on their website at your leisure and assess all the information with ease. There is no sales talk or pressure to buy, and if you can't find exactly what you want in the specific Dell packages on offer, you have the ability to customise your order by adding and removing any additional features or hardware, allowing you to create a Dell package that suits your requirements.

Every Dell desktop and laptop order is built to your specification, so if you want a high-powered games machine, a fast word processor, or a video editing suite, with Dell you get what you ask for.

Each computer order processed at Dell's UK site will be expertly assembled and every order goes through a meticulous testing process to ensure that all the programs components work together correctly and your machine functions as it should before it is marked for delivery.

Even after you have made your purchase and your computer has arrived at home, Dell customers also have access to technical support for their machine online or over the phone, available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

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Basic Desktops

Dell's range of Home Essentials desktops are all models from their Dimension series of desktop PCs. Dimension series computers are affordable, customisable desktops, designed specifically for home and office users who need an inexpensive option, without a compromising quality or performance.

Dimension desktops enable you to perform everyday PC tasks, such as word and data processing, compiling presentations, sending emails, surfing the net, but with the option to upgrade to high-end graphics, performance and storage capabilities, should you need to.

Dell's Dimension range offers you the flexibility to fully customise a desktop PC to suit your needs, so if you see a model that you like the look of, but does not quite meet your specifications, you can easily make the necessary adjustments Dell's website without drastically increasing the initial price.

Easy to use, reliable desktops

Dell Home Essentials desktops are basic home systems, used for everyday computing tasks. Therefore they are both easy to set up and get running, and less likely to crash, as they have been designed specifically with performing relatively simple tasks such as word processing, data management, sending and receiving emails, etc. They are also useful for text-based tasks such as writing code for websites, and can adequately run most web design packages.

Easy to upgrade and customise

The main strength of desktops from Dell from the Dimension range is that customising and upgrading a model is simple and uncomplicated. So, if you want a straightforward office desktop which will be used almost exclusively for word processing, sending emails etc, you can set up your order so that your PC is optimised for this; if you want to use your computer as a home entertainment system capable of playing music and movies and watching TV, you can add speakers for extra volume and add more memory for storing a large number of files.

Good value for money

As Dell Home Essentials desktops are primarily used for relatively straightforward computing tasks, they are priced lower than higher-spec machines. However a lower price doesn't mean a compromise on quality, it simply reflects the manufacturing costs of the parts. Machines designed for high-end gaming and detailed digital video editing also require specific components, which in turn require extra power to run; Home Essentials desktops are by comparison a lot less noisy, and much more energy efficient because of this.

Listen to music and create your own mix CDs

Since the arrival of the mp3 format, more and more computers are being used as home entertainment systems. Computer speakers can now rival conventional hi-fi systems in terms of volume and sound quality, and the ability to skip between tracks quickly without having to change discs, as well as compile playlists that can be synced to a portable playing device or mobile phone, or burned to a blank CD for playing in the car or on a separate stereo system means that the home computer has become a domestic entertainment appliance to rival the TV in terms of importance.

Dell Home Essentials desktops come with ample space for music fans to upload their favourite tracks and all come with the necessary optical drives required to rip and burn tracks to and from CDs. Serious music fans with a large CD collection may want to get a bigger hard drive, expand their memory, and add peripherals such as sound cards, additional speakers and subwoofers so that audiophiles can achieve that sound.

Watch DVD's and other movies

As well as being able to listen to, rip and burn music to and from CDs to your Dell Home Essentials' hard drive, you can also watch DVD movies on your computer screen, further enhancing your desktop's capabilities as a home entertainment machine.

The majority of optical drives installed in most modern desktop computers are DVD-ROM drives, meaning that they will play both conventional CDs and DVDs. The advantages of being able to play DVDs on your computer is that your monitor may well have a higher resolution than that of your TV screen, and also most optical drives will be able to play DVDs regardless of their region or encoding.

If you intend on having a computer on which to watch DVDs, you may want to invest in a graphics card which will improve your viewing experience, or choose a Dell machine from their range of Entertainment desktops, which will be more suitable for this.

Standard Performance Desktops

The computers which are part of Dell's range of Entertainment Desktops are all taken from Dell's Dimension series; a series of affordable, reliable desktop computers that can be easily customised to suit your preferences.

The Dimension desktops that are part of the Entertainment range are generally of a higher specification that those in the Home Essentials range. This is because these desktops are more geared towards playing music, movies and games than office multitasking, even though machines in this range are can be used for both work and entertainment purposes.

Entertainment desktops are primarily used for editing images and audio, and playing music and films, effectively making them all-in-one home entertainment systems. Desktops in this range come with ample memory, plenty of space to store your CD and DVD collection on your computer, and flat panel monitor screens with ranging from 17" to 19" in size, so that you can watch movies in a higher resolution than you would be able to on a conventional TV screen.

As with all of Dell's products, you have the option of being able to customise your order, in case you want more memory, bigger speakers or a bigger screen size. All alterations to the existing packages can be made at the order form section of Dell's homepage.

Mid-range performance machines

Desktops in Entertainment Desktops are used for multitude of purposes including photo editing, editing digital video and audio, playing games, watching movies and playing music files. As these kinds of tasks require more memory and processing speed to run properly, prices of Entertainment Desktops are somewhat higher than computers in the Home Essentials range.

Fast processing speeds enable music and sound editing

The larger amounts of memory, bigger hard drive spaces and faster processing speeds of the desktops in the Entertainment range mean that more sophisticated, power-hungry tasks such as video and sound editing can be achieved – ideal for recording and editing home demos or digital video footage.

The advanced graphics of the Entertainment series machines coupled with the larger standard screen sizes also mean that you can get a clearer picture of the footage that you're editing. A larger screen size is also useful for editing recorded audio, a task which typically requires plenty of screen space for an array of programs and windows.

Edit photos and images

Having enhanced graphics capabilities and bigger, more powerful monitors also means that you can edit pictures, scans and images on your desktop to a greater degree of precision. The faster processing speeds and expanded memory mean that Dell Entertainment Desktops have no problem running complex imaging programs, and the powerful graphics cards mean that more colours and tones are available.

Ideal for use as a home entertainment system

Increased memory and screen size makes this ideal for playing music and movies in the home. Music aficionados with an extensive collection can easily expand the memory of a basic Entertainment Desktop package, and bigger monitors and additional speakers can be added to create a full home cinema/sound system.

Play music, movies and games

The enhanced graphics capabilities of Dell's Entertainment Desktops means that you can also run more sophisticated games easily and watch movies in increased detail. The majority of desktops in this range also come with RW drives, so that you can burn DVD-quality footage to a rewritable blank DVD disc, useful if you want to create backup copies of your music library, make copies of your films, and essential for copying any digital video you have created.

High Performance Desktops

Dell's range of High Performance Desktops are composed of the higher-end models from the Dimension range of desktops as well as Dell's XPS machines. XPS is a contraction of 'Experience', certainly something you get with one of these PCs. XPS desktops and laptops are Dell's high-end machines that deliver the best sonic and visual experience available on a home computer system. XPS machines are also distinguished by the smooth, stylised angles of their cases, so they look a bit nicer than your standard grey oblong as well.

Dell's High Performance desktops boast large amounts of memory and fast processors, ostensibly to deal with the high-end tasks for which they are designed, but this also means that they handle other, more straightforward computer functions such as word processing and web browsing much faster as well.

High-end machines; Ultimate Desktop Experience

The top-end Dimension computers and models from the XPS series products are machines designed to handle the more power-consuming computing tasks such as cutting-edge gaming, video recording and editing, and audio recording and production. As such, they feature the latest and most cutting edge components available on the market

Powerful graphics and sound technology for the best gaming experience

The amount of graphical processing power afforded by Dell's High Performance platforms allows gamers to achieve greater levels of realism, higher frame rates, and generally an overall better visual performance. This, alongside the advanced on-board audio hardware makes for the most immersive and involving gaming experience currently available – adding additional speakers to create a surround sound effect, making the experience even better.

Great for watching movies on your computer

Having enhanced graphics and sound isn't just a boon for gamers – it also means that watching DVDs on your computer is a more enjoyable experience. The High Performance machines could just as easily be used as super-powered entertainment hubs, as users can benefit from the obvious advantages of increased visual performance, screen size, and sound quality as well as enjoy and overall high-quality performance.

Ideal for digital video editing and gaming

The advanced display and sound technology available on the High Performance Desktops
also make these computers an ideal choice for those interested in creating and editing digital films and/or recording audio for music production purposes. The ability to expand and accelerate the already impressive memory sizes and processor speeds will also appeal to those working in a studio environment where they will be working on a multitude of creative projects.

Specially trained XPS service & support teams

As the XPS series of Notebooks use some of the most sophisticated technology available, Dell have set up a team of technical advisors who are on hand 24/7 to deal with any questions or issues specifically related to XPS machines.

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