Twin Dell Vostro mini-towers arrive and are unboxed and installed in this gallery.
New boxes! Two new Dell Vostro mini-towers have arrived, and my cat Luna was very curious to see what all the fuss was about.
Caption by: Ed Burnette
Let's find out by opening the first box. The CPU is on top, and the keyboard below.
Caption by: Ed Burnette
Opening the keyboard box reveals the usual instructions nobody reads and the CDs no one uses (hopefully).
Caption by: Ed Burnette
Next let's unpack the computer itself. Note that the word Dell is right side up, but the computer is upside down. No biggie.
Caption by: Ed Burnette
Here we've removed the packaging material. To the left you can barely see a Canon Prixma photo printer that will be shared by the two machines.
Caption by: Ed Burnette
One thing I noticed was lots of film protecting the box's finish. It took a while to peel it all off.
Caption by: Ed Burnette
Notice that Dell cut a slit in the film above the air vents. I guess they had a problem with people turning on the machines without taking the wrapping off first.
Caption by: Ed Burnette
The front of the Vostro mini-tower has two fold-down covers. Opening the top one exposes the included CD/DVD drive. Underneath that is room for an expansion drive.Note also the four USB sockets and a place to plug in your headphones and microphone. The re's a place for a Firewire port but I didn't order that option.
Caption by: Ed Burnette
The back of the box reveals the Vostro's no-frills design.
Caption by: Ed Burnette
Here's a close-up of the power supply.
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Four more USB sockets, VGA video output, an Ethernet socket, and audio jacks round out the back.
Caption by: Ed Burnette
A couple of cooling vents decorate the side of the case. You can't see it in this picture but when the machine is on a faint blue glow emanates from within.
Caption by: Ed Burnette
The standard Dell keyboard and optical mouse are shown here. The trim keyboard is reminiscent of Apple designs.
Caption by: Ed Burnette
It's time to move the cat out of the way and take out the monitor. The bundle I purchased came with Dell's low-end 20 inch wide-screen monitor, the E207WFP.
Caption by: Ed Burnette
I don't really understand why a monitor needs a CD, but there it is. And what's this, two video cables? Hmm...
Caption by: Ed Burnette
Hey, what's a DVI cable doing in there? I thought this was an analog monitor? Let's take a closer look.
Caption by: Ed Burnette
Yep, that's DVI all right. I expected the monitor to be VGA-only (like, for example, the E176FP), so this was a nice surprise.While the computer does not have DVI output now, if I decide to purchase a new graphics card this will come in handy.
Caption by: Ed Burnette
I know there's a monitor in here somewhere...
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Ah, here it is. Note the kind of odd 1680 x 1050 resolution. Luckily none of the software I've tried so far has had a problem with it.
Caption by: Ed Burnette
On the underside of the monitor you can see the VGA and DVI inputs. According to the web site, the DVI connector supports HDCP., even though Dell's web page lists only VGA.
Caption by: Ed Burnette
The monitor stand before attaching the panel to it.
Caption by: Ed Burnette
And here's everything together. Next step... turning on the power.
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All systems ready...
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Dell offers both XP and Vista as equal options. I decided to go with Vista in the hopes that the machine and it's OS will be supported for several years to come.Before you ask, Linux wasn't an option. I mean, literally it wasn't an option on the web site. Besides, the kids want to run Windows games and their schools use Windows so what the hey. At least I didn't buy MS Office, opting for Open Office instead.
Caption by: Ed Burnette
After reading every word of the license terms thoroughly (don't you?) I clicked accept and went to the next screen.
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On this screen you get to pick out your user name and a cute picture.
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Don't forget the wallpaper.
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Let's let Microsoft put whatever new software it wants on the machine. They know what's good for us anyway.
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One machine already knew what time it was but the other didn't; I'm not sure why.
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At this point Windows was done asking questions so I just let it do its thing for a while.
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When I came back, everything was set up. Note the amazing lack of "crapware". No ISPs, no Real Networks, etc., with one notable exception on the right hand side.
Caption by: Ed Burnette
For some reason the computers came up in 1024x768 mode, so everything looked stretched. A quick trip to the control panel fixed that.This picture doesn't really do justice to it, but the quality of the monitors is awesome especially when you consider the price. Not a dead pixel in sight.
Caption by: Ed Burnette
Google, Google, Google, Google. Three Google search fields in the browser, and one on the desktop make it hard to miss the search giant. I wonder how much they paid Dell for this. Unlike most bloatware though, the Google additions are actually going to be useful.
Caption by: Ed Burnette
Now comes the part I've been dreading - downloading all the patches and updates for Windows. This was actually the most time consuming part of the install. It took over an hour to get everything, counting reboots.
Caption by: Ed Burnette
16 updates were waiting. It would have been nice for Dell to do this part for me before shipping the machine, but there were actually many fewer than I expected.
Caption by: Ed Burnette
The Netgear XE104 went under the table. It supports 4 Ethernet ports but I only needed two. You can have up to 16 ports active at various places around the house (assuming you buy more endpoints of course).
Caption by: Ed Burnette
Ta da! The final product - identical twin Vostro mini-towers with wide screen monitors. A phenomenal setup for a dirt-cheap price.
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