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Dell Review 1
Dell Review 2
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 | First Run
 | Once everything was connected, I turned on the power supply, and switched on the whole
system. |
| What surprised me initially, was the harddisk - it's so quiet. In fact, is was so quiet,
I thought there was something wrong! If not for the LED indicator, I wouldn't really know
that the disk was being accessed. |
| Well, needless to say, the system booted up fine, with the Dell logo showing up (hiding
the BIOS startup display messages, like RAM testing, etc), and then Win98 startup. And
boy, is this system fast! |
| Another thing that surprised me was the sound system, especially the subwoofers. Whoa!
The 'Windows Startup' sound had a most wicked effect. I then mucked around with the
pre-installed Turtle Beach Montego II A3D demos, which further glorified the precise
positional sound effect of this remarkable speaker system. You could easily tell that the
sound was above, beside, and even below you! |
| The monitor's display is very sharp and glare-free. I didn't realised it was that sharp
until I worked on my older P166 PC which had a 14" monitor. Yucks! That was so blurr
in comparison. |
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| Games Test
| Well, enough mucking around. Now for the real test! I installed practically all of my
computer games, which includes Tomb Raider 3, Populous 3, Comanche
Gold, Longbow 2, Fifa 99 and Commandos. |
| What can I say? It was mind-blowing! Some of the newer games utilised the nVidia TNT
graphics card (in DirectX mode, at least) while the older ones worked fine. Tomb Raider 3
was fantastic, with the lighting effects when Lara ignites her flare, and so was Longbow
2, with its fogging effects (depending on the weather). (But somehow, Longbow 2 gave some
poor results when you fired missiles, as it produced streaks of lines all over the screen;
this persisted even after installing a patch from LB2's website). Fifa99 was magnificent,
and the soccer field actually has uneven textures, which makes it look more realistic. On
my older PC, the field was just a flat, monotone texture. On the new PC, the shadows of
the players showed the effect of multiple light sources when playing in the night. |
| But it was the sound system that took the main prize. The opening sequences of Longbow
2, Fifa 99, and Populous 3 had such a cinematic effect when heard through the ADA-880. It
really reminded me of seeing movies at the cinema! I never realised that the existence of
a subwoofer would make such a dramatic experience. I definetely recommend anyone buying a
speaker system to include a subwoofer in the list. |
| The silly joystick, though, gave a bit of a problem (and still does!). Remember, the
joystick came from my older PC, and I don't think it is a plug-and-play version. The
problem is that the joystick doesn't activate everytime I switch on the PC. Only
sometimes, but not all the time. Most of the time, it doesn't seem to get connected, and
this can be verified by 'Control Panel->Game Controllers'. The rare occasion that it
decides to connect, it works pretty well. |
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| Internet Test
| Once Telekom installed the new phone line, I dialled in to TMNet, and got through the
first time. Connection speed is normally at 33.6 Kbps, and until the PJ node is upgraded
to handle 56K, I'll be surfing at that speed. Logging in between 10pm and midnight is the
worst time, but once I get through, it's fairly fast. So far, I'm quite happy with the
response I'm getting on the Internet. |
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