Dell Inspiron 530s review

This desktop from Europc really doesn't look like it belongs in the bargain basement.

Its slim and stylish case is decked out in a tasteful matt silver and glossy white, set off by the blue LED power light. It's clean and uncluttered, with the DVD burner hidden under a flap in the front panel, as is the useful memory card reader. A second black panel conceals a few handy connections, including USB ports and sockets for headphones and a mic.

The inside of the case is similarly well laid out, with easy, tool-free access to components. At the heart of the system is a 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor - a powerful chip that matches those in our group test of brand new desktops last month. It's remarkable to find it in a PC this cheap, especially accompanied by a generous 3GB of RAM. That's the most you can normally use in Vista, and enough to run several applications at once.

With a specification like this, it's little wonder that the Inspiron managed to score 181% in our 2D benchmarks, again rivalling PCs costing far more. The ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT graphics card isn't the most capable, but well worth having. Unfortunately we couldn't persuade it to run our 3D test, but given the results of the almost identical card in the other Dell desktop, it should cope pretty well with all but the very latest and most demanding games. It can also handle two monitors (albeit with a rather clumsy cable splitter), which more and more users are finding to be the ideal setup.

The Inspiron 530s is ready for almost any task, including games and multimedia, and will stay viable at least for office work for years to come. It comes in a new Dell box with a new accessory pack containing all the cables you need to get up and running, and there's a reassuring 12 month collect and return warranty direct from Dell.

The price doesn't include a monitor - the only peripherals are a standard Dell keyboard and mouse - but you could add a modest flat panel such as the HannsG New York 19 inch (£99.95 from www.amazon.co.uk) and have a no-compromise all-round system with plenty of change from £500.