HardwareCentral - Dell Dimension 4400 Review.

Dell Dimension 4400 Review

Inside the Suitcase

December 24, 2001
By Eric Grevstad

Inside the Suitcase

The Dimension 4400 starts at $999 with a 1.7GHz Pentium 4, skimpy 128MB of DDR and 20GB hard disk, CD-ROM drive, and 17-inch monitor. Our test unit, as mentioned, was decked out with 1.8GHz power, 256MB of DDR, and a 40GB, 7,200-rpm IBM Deskstar hard disk (80GB and 120GB drives are optional), as well as Samsung 16X DVD-ROM and NEC NR-7900A 24/10/40X CD-RW drives.

The latter take the top two bays in the Dell's stately black-and-gray case, above the 1.44MB floppy drive; we grumbled that a protruding ledge or lip below each optical drive makes pressing its eject/retract button a tight squeeze, especially when its tray is open. A panel on the front of the case lifts up to reveal one USB port and a headphone jack. Two more USB ports are at the back, along with serial, parallel, and PS/2 mouse and keyboard ports, but no FireWire (IEEE 1394) port is included.

Dell's take on tool-free case and chassis design is clean and clever: By laying the system on its side and pressing buttons on the top and bottom, you can open it like the hood of a car, with the drive cages hanging from the top and the power supply and motherboard -- with relatively wide-open access to the two memory sockets and one AGP and four PCI slots -- below.

Cords and cables are tied and tucked out of the way, with different drive cables fitted with different-color end tags to reduce confusion. And in a nod to office-copier technology, user-serviceable components are outfitted with green plastic handles or levers -- like the screwless mounting rails for drives (one front-accessible 5.25-inch and one internal 3.5-inch bay are empty) or the lever that locks down expansion cards with no need for individual bracket screws.

The AGP slot belongs to the 64MB DDR Nvidia GeForce3 Ti 200 card, while a Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live card, GVC fax modem, and C-Net 10/100Mbps Ethernet card fill three of the four PCI slots. A green plastic hood like a clothes-dryer vent directs air from the NMB fan onto the CPU, which as mentioned joins the 250-watt power supply's fan (the graphics card has a heat sink but no fan) in being admirably quiet.

The DVD and CD-RW drives are more noisy, but work efficiently; movies looked great and burning discs was quick. Our 4400 came with Dell's second-cheapest speaker choice, Harmon Kardon HK395s with two 6-watt, 2-inch satellites and an 18-watt, 5-inch subwoofer; the speakers don't offer Dolby Surround, but sounded clean and crisp with music CDs and games.

Speaking of games, the GeForce3 Ti 200 card, equipped with both VGA analog and digital outputs for future monitors, is more than fast enough for multimedia and 3D games -- the Dell whipped through the classic Quake III Arena benchmark at 172 frames per second in high-quality 800 by 600 mode and 154 frames per second in high-quality 1,024 by 768. Strictly-business types can save $120 by opting for a GeForce2 MX, while rabid gamers can spend an extra $210 to get a GeForce3 Ti 500.

Dell's monitor choices range from 15- and 17-inch LCD flat panels ($388 and $699 respectively with system purchase) to three 17-inch ($160 to $300) and two 19-inch ($300 shadow-mask, $450 Trinitron) CRTs. A slightly mushy black keyboard (with three programmable hot keys set to e-mail, home page, and Web search functions and a sleep key) and Microsoft scroll-wheel mouse take care of input.

Our Dimension 4400 came with Microsoft Word 2002 and Works Suite (including Picture It Photo and Streets & Trips) preinstalled, along with Sierra Imaging's Image Expert for organizing and editing digital snapshots, CyberLink PowerDVD, Roxio Easy Creator Basic 5.1, and MusicMatch Jukebox. Upgrading to Microsoft Office XP Small Business Edition would add $150; upgrading from one to three years' on-site service with lifetime phone support would add $119.

Again, there are faster PCs among Dell's and other vendors' lineups, and more expandable ones as well -- upgrade junkies will be leery of the Dimension's 250- rather than 300-watt power supply and single empty PCI slot. But when it comes to giving consumers ample power and future-proofing for little more than the SDRAM-based, TNT2-video-carded, poor-relation PCs awaiting suckers at retail stores, Intel's i845D and Dell's implementation of it look like winners, even landmarks.

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