For the past few weeks I’ve been lugging the beast to work and back over the weekend to use there, since it’s all set up to do Apache, MySQL and so on and so forth and I’m far more comfortable working within Windows than on a Mac. Sadly, a fault developed with one of the drives, and we decided it was a perfect time (ie, before it went bang) to replace it with a proper, dedicated machine. After a bit of mooching aroundf the Internets, we settled on the Dell Vostro 200ST.

Struggling with Dell’s online order system isn’t an hour I’d wish on anyone, especially when it decides to delete any reference to a machine specification you’ve just put together and insist that you haven’t actually done it. Just grin and bear it, it’s worth the hassle to save a few quid, right? As it turns out, yes it is.

We were forced into choosing the Vostro because it appears to be the cheapest, slickest unit available with a DVI connector. We plumped for 2GB of memory and an Intel Core Duo and the whole lot came out at £329 including VAT and Delivery. The order was placed on Thursday afternoon and, despite Walsh Western’s insistance they had no record of the order, the unit was delivered at lunchtime the following Monday. Great service so far!

Extracting the machine from it’s box reveals a low-profile cast that weighs an absolute ton. No Mac Mini, this – it’s some serious weight due to the ample metal grills and facias used in the machine’s contruction. A carrying handle would have been nice, but the slimline tower fits under an arm with ease. You do need to hold on tight, however, because the case is seriously glossy, giving an air of quality lacking from a lot of pre-build machines.

The whoosh of a handful of fans when the power was first applied was a bit disconcerting, but they soon decided there was nothing in danger of overheating and turned themselves off again. For a terrible instant I thought we’d got a duff one, but all was well and the machine is – to my admittedly badly-damaged hearing – silent.

Booting up, the initial Dell EULA screen forgoes any mouse input and insists you’ve accepted the terms and conditions by pressing any key on the keyboard. Although I didn’t try it (I tapped Cursor Down to see if there was any further info and they got me that way – naughty!), this presumably includes the Escape key, so quite what would happen there I don’t know.

Getting through the Agreement and the initial Windows language options was pretty much as easy as it could be,. but the first time I got to the Windows desktop I ran into a VBScript error – with some bundled crapware from Roxio was blame. Not a great first impression.

Neither was the sheer amount of crud that infested the desktop and boot settings. Internet accounts from Tiscali and Orange, software popping up from Roxio and McAfee and even teh Google Desktop Search and Toolbar installed by default. No thanks, you guys – my first port of call was to install HijackThis and disable half the options in my startup config. A quick reboot later – and it was quick this time – and we’re up and running with a much quicker machine.

Ther aforementioned DVI connectivity is handled with aplomb by the half-height ATI Radeon XT1300 Pro which was more than enough to fill both of my Dell 2007FPs in all of their 1600×1200 glory. There was a small amount of pixel jumping going on when I first put the machine on a 2001FP, but this settled down after some software stripping and hasn’t occurred since. To attach your monitors a pair ot Y-Shaped cables are supplied – one sporting a pair of DB9s and the other a pair of DVIs, but no mixing of the two.

The dual-monitor configuration is easy enough to use, though a little less professional than the nVidia equivalent. I set the system up as two seperate monitors – each of which can have their own, independent resolution – and all was just, it just worked. With the cruft removed, and Windows XP back in ‘Windows Classic’ mode, the machine simply flies along thanks to it’s ample memory and dual-core CPU. Even the mouse and keyboard – the absolute cheapest we could get from Dell – are not bad.

I feel I’m in danger of falling for a Dell machine and I need to stop, wake up and find something seriously wrong with it, but I just can’t. The amount of software that starts at boot time is annoying, and that could do with some serious attention, but the machine itself outweighs all of that.

Overall: 9/10 – Great machine let down a little by installed crap.

Mini-Update: After a few days I’ve noticed that – in the vertical position at least – the CD drive tray sticks on the hinged drive bay cover on it’s way back into the case. It doesn’t stick when it’s being opened, just when it’s being closed. A minor niggle.