Dell Inspiron 531

Hey,
After my brother's computer died, my dad decided to buy both my brother and me a new computer. I frowned after he said he got us a REFURBISHED Dell Inspiron 531. But hey, free computer? Who can argue.

As soon as I got the included Vista ready to go, I went straight to deleting the "crap ware" Dell installs onto everyone's computer.
After installing all the necessary programs (AIM, MSN, Ventrilo, Thunderbird, Firefox), I went on and installed Battlefield 2. I wasn't expecting much from the integrated Nvidia Geforce 6150 graphics card, but it ran BF2 smoothly with all settings at "Low". It ran Half-Life 2 smoothly as well at "Low" settings.
I play my games at "Low" because I don't think shadows and antialiasing are necessary. As long as if I can see the enemy and I can move my crosshair over his head with out choppyness or lag, it's fine.

The processor speed isn't bad at all; AMD Athlon X2 2.04 GHz. It's my first DC machine, but I don't see a HUGE difference. I do notice some things that load faster. HL2 loads and saves games at a much faster speed than my old machine. I think it's Vista thats really sucking up the resources though. I'm sure I would be able to notice a bigger difference if XP was installed instead.

Vista takes some time to get used to. I don't like all the features it has and how it always takes up 512 MB of RAM when it's just sitting there. I'm thinking of downgrading the OS to XP Professional soon. Then it'll be even better. =)

I've never touched a "high-end" computer in my life so I couldn't really rate how the Dell Inspiron 531 is compared to the quad-core monsters out there.

Ah well, as long as you can do the essentials (BF2 + Half-Life) seems fine
I should be receiving my new laptop that I shelled out a bit for on Wednesday. 1.66 GHz core 2 duo, 2GB RAM Can't wait.

I personally hate AMD processors, although that's just my view on things. I wouldn't get vista for a low/mid end computer - it's not wise at all, stick with XP until they sort Vista out. If you have a high end computer though, stick Vista on it, should be fine.

I don't mind AMD or Intel. Personally I would've gone with Intel, but it wasn't my choice. =)

Did you buy a MacBook?

Originally Posted by majorglory I don't mind AMD or Intel. Personally I would've gone with Intel, but it wasn't my choice. =) Did you buy a MacBook?

I was looking for a MacBook, but here in the UK they're quite a lot more expensive, so it was out of my budget. I bought a Dell Inspiron instead, but a different model. I'll let you know how it runs with Vista Premium.