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2 out of 2 people found this review helpful
4.5 stars
"Its my home theater / video phone / PVR"
Pros: hase enough horses for PVR duties, video editing and DVD burning, all in a quiet small form factor
Cons: the small form factor version has no expansion and no firewire capability
Summary: I have the 3.2ghz dual core cpu. My 56 inch TV has a vga port and they are very happy with each other at 1280 x 768 res. I get great pictures, video and movies from the on board graphics chip. The small size fits on the audio shelf (horizontally and looks great. The Dell logo can be rotated, so it doesn't look like its on its side.
I bought a USB ATSC/NTSC/QAM capable tuner and I can watch or record over the air STD TV, HDTV, Cable, Digital cable and HDTV cable. The USB tuner came with great PVR and video editing software. The DVD drive is a flimsy (laptop style) with the click the disk on the hub, but I'm careful and its worked fine for over a year now.
I also bought an Orbit webcam to another usb port and make regular video phone calls to my grandkids thousands of miles away (using MSN network). Seeing them on a big 56" screen is just great.
And adding a wireless keyboard and mouse to usb ports still leaves me with all the front ports open for camera unloads, and usb drives. I only need a vga port.
Web browsing on a big screen is an interesting experience. Since the TV is only 1080i, text is not so crisp as I would like, certainly easy to read, just not pop off the screen dazzling. Some websites however are just spectacular. Its great for E-mail, or office apps as well, although on the big screen its not exactly private.
I have no idea what cpu or memory some of these other posters have, but for the price, performance, functionality and most of all the size, it has been just a great machine for me.
