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Since Dell has stopped selling its AMD-based Inspirons, that leaves the Intel-powered Inspiron 530 and 530s leading its budget desktop charge. The Inspiron 530 is a modest $539 configuration that offers some surprising features for the price. Hewlett-Packard competes very well in this price range too, but Dell's one differentiator is that it has Bluetooth built into its media card reader. The Bluetooth module makes this Inspiron 530 an excellent anchor for your other devices, as well as a reasonable affordable budget desktop. If you need such a system, we recommend it.
The $500 desktop is becoming a bit of a luxury these days, with plenty of $300 and $400 PCs out there providing perfectly serviceable computing. The starting point for the configurable Inspiron 530 is about $379, which includes a Celeron processor, Windows Vista Basic, and a configuration that, in general, looks a lot like the recently reviewed HP Pavilion a6400z. Bumped up to this $539 configuration, the Inspiron 530 provides a little bit more performance, as well as a few more features. The lesson is that if all you need is a spare Windows PC, a lower-end configuration will get the job done, but if you spend a little bit more, you can turn on Vista's snappy visual effects, get some wireless connectivity, and enjoy better performance overall.
| Dell Inspiron 530 | HP Pavilion a6400z | |
| Price | $539 | $340 |
| CPU | 1.8GHz Intel Pentium E2160 | 1.8GHz AMD Sempron 2100 |
| Memory | 2GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM | 2GB 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM |
| Graphics | 128MB Nvidia GeForce 8300 GS | 128MB (shared) Nvidia GeForce 6150SE |
| Hard drive | 320GB, 7,200 rpm | 250GB, 7,200 rpm |
| Optical drives | 16x dual-layer DVD burner | 16x dual-layer DVD burner |
| Operating system | Windows Vista Home Premium | Windows Vista Basic |
Compare the Inspiron 530 with the Pavilion a6400z and we can see the basic differences between budget and budget. The extra money spent on this Dell configuration gets you a more capable dual-core CPU, a larger hard drive, as well as a full-fledged graphics card. Make no mistake, as configured this Inspiron 530 is no gaming PC. The chief benefit of its low-end GeForce 8300 GS card is that it has its own memory, unlike a built-in graphics chip such as the one in the HP. With its own memory, the GeForce card won't siphon off the main system RAM for video purposes. Between the better CPU and the discrete graphics card, the Dell most definitely will get you faster performance than the less-expensive HP configuration.
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
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Rendering multiple CPU | |
Rendering single CPU |
You can see the performance disparity between the $539 Dell and the $340 HP on every benchmark test. We can't say we're surprised that the more expensive computer won, but Dell didn't exactly bury the HP system. Our results show that the Dell will probably save you a few seconds here and there as you go about your day-to-day computing tasks such as photo editing and converting audio files. For pure bang for the buck, that $429 eMachines T5246 looks like a better deal, at least as far as raw performance since it actually beats the Dell on two of our four tests. While the T5246 is no longer on sale, we suspect eMachines' $400 replacement, the T5254, will fare similarly well (we're reviewing that system next). That means that although the Inspiron 530 does offer some performance benefit for its added cost, it still has more persuading to do. Whether it will sway you depends on what other gadgets you own.
We've mentioned the Inspiron 530's graphics card, and that it likely helps overall performance, even though it's not suited for 3D gaming. HP offers a similar low-end 3D card upgrade on its Intel-powered Pavilion a6410t series systems (the Intel-based counterpart to the AMD-powered Pavilion a6400z mentioned above), so that's no great differentiator for the Dell. The two also compete on hard-drive size and other basic features, right down to the wireless mouse and keyboard set.
The Dell's biggest standout feature is the Bluetooth module built into the Inspiron 530's media card reader. HP doesn't have a similar upgrade. By adding Bluetooth, Dell invites you to use the Inspiron 530 as a ready-to-go nerve center for any Bluetooth-capable devices you might own, including cell phones and printers. Alternatives include adding a USB Bluetooth receiver to the HP or any other system, but at the expense of a USB port. We search for, but could not find a third-party media card reader with Bluetooth built-in that you could add yourself. However, even if you could find one, we suspect most of you shopping for a budget PC are happy to let Dell do that work instead.
