Review: Dell Dimension 5150C

Dell’s Dimension 5150C is probably the most conventional-looking computer in this group.

Having said that, its silvery, slimline mini-tower design is quite compact and tidy, and it wouldn’t look terribly out of place on the floor of your living room alongside a TV or hi-fi system.

However, it’s not the most versatile entertainment system we’ve seen. The Dimension does have DVI and S-video outputs, so you can connect it to either a computer monitor or TV set, along with 7.1 surround sound and digital audio input and output.

But it also lacks some other features that would seem to be fairly basic for an entertainment PC.

The most obvious omission is the lack of a TV tuner card, so you can forget about using the PC to record TV programmes. This is a rather strange omission for any system that is claimed to be a true Media Center PC.

Thankfully, the Dell Dimension does have a Firewire interface that will allow you to grab your home movies from a DV camcorder, but we would like to see analogue video input as well, enabling you to transfer old video tapes to the machine’s hard disk.

Wireless networking would have been good too, especially if you want to put the Dimension in your living room.

The 5150C’s performance results are something of a mixed bag. The 2.8GHz Pentium D processor performs very well and should have no trouble dealing even with complex audio and video projects.

However, the PC’s overall performance is slightly let down by the use of a low-cost Radeon X600 graphics card, which produces unremarkable performance for 3D games.

The overall impression is of a fairly conventional PC system that has some useful multimedia features, but which fails to match the more comprehensive capabilities of many of its rivals.

This is part of a group test on remote access software. Other articles are:
Media Center PCs introduction and Editor's Choice
Ambros Shuttle SD36G5M
Cube 247 Omega ST2
Dell Dimension 5150C
Elonex Artisan VX
Evesham Ebox V
Fujitsu-Siemens Scaleo E
Hi-Grade DMS II 3200
Mesh Cubex Media TV PCW
Panrix Mantis
Sony Vaio VGX-XL 100
Entertainment systems and Viiv