Dell Inspiron i3647-2309BK 3000 Series Desktop Review

Dell Inspiron 3000s i3647-2309BK
via Amazon

Dell Inspiron i3647-2309BK is a ‘small form factor’ solid build Intel i3 processor budget desktop computer as part of the 3000 series that won’t take up much space on your desk- with small foot print and that comes with great specs and features. Being a low-cost PC, what you can’t get out of it is an advanced gaming and multimedia editing performance but is a great quiet performer in daily tasks with its 4th generation CPU, 4GB memory, large 1TB hard drive and with all the important ports one needs- all in a compact case, making it one of best value for money systems for home office, school or entertainment use.

For the equivalent performance of a regular size modern desktop in a small case, Dell Inspiron includes the Haswell dual core Intel i3-4150 processor (3M L3 cache) at 3.5GHz speed without turbo boost as it is already at high speed but hyperthreading for dual cores to handle four threads in parallel, 4GB Single Channel DDR3 SDRAM (4GBx1) at 1600MHz which you can upgrade to a max of 16GB but would be adequate for most customers’ daily multitasking needs with less lag, high capacity spacious and fast 1 TB Serial ATA hard drive at 7200rpm rotational speed (6Gb/s) and and 64-bit Windows 8.1 operating system. The i3-4150 is a rather fast and powerful processor with a Passmark benchmark score of 4953 on the day of this review- have several browsers open at once, watch videos, play songs and work on your Word document and you won’t really encounter any problems, especially if you do upgrade the RAM to 8GB or so.

Monitor is not included and the graphics card is the integrated Intel HD graphics 4400 with shared graphics memory which should allow you play older games like Minecraft fluently with good frames per second and some of the latest games at lower settings at low FPS while you can comfortably watch Youtube videos, run Photoshop Elements 8 and browse the internet. There are no speakers and sound is provided by the integrated 5.1 Audio and sound performance will depend on the monitor or screen you connect it to. Considering this PC comes with pretty solid technical specs, money is saved by not including a discrete graphics card and fair enough for such a low cost computer. To help with multimedia, you have a tray load DVD drive, an 8-in-1 media card reader to upload multimedia files from any devices such as your digital camera, an HDMI port to connect it to your large screen HDTV and get great sound and picture at FHD quality.

Sleek and space saving, compact and attractive, smooth black surface Dell Inspiron i3647-2309BK weighs 15.9 pounds with measurements of 17.32 x 14.45 x 6.89 inches- has a small footprint and will leave enough desk space for your other things but there aren’t any expansion slots to put another internal hard drive or optical drive like you do on larger desktops and you can simply swap the 4GB memory with an 8GB (up to 16GB is supported). There is no monitor but a Dell KB113 wired keyboard (with 2.4mm keyboard travel) and MS111 USB 3-button optical mouse are included. Connectivity options include Dell Wireless-N 1705 802.11b/g/n (Miracast enabled), Gigabit Ethernet LAN (10/100/1000), Bluetooth 4.0 tied to wireless card, 4 x USB 2.0 ports (2 of them at the front), 2 x USB 3.0 ports at the rear, Optical Tray load DVD Drive that reads and writes to DVD/CD, 8-in-1 Media Card Reader, HDMI port, a VGA video out, Headphone output and 2 Microphone inputs (front and back).

Conclusion: Dell Inspiron i3647-2309BK offers a fast and powerful desktop performance in a sleek and compact design at a very affordable price: 4th generation Intel i3 processor at 3.5 GHz speed with a Passmark score of 4953 (ranks very high and comparable to some i5 and i7 processors in terms of overall performance), 4GB memory that can be expanded up to 16GB and a very spacious 1TB storage. You get Cyberlink Media Suite and 30 day trial versions of Microsoft Office and McAfee Live Safe pre-installed which you should replace with the free Avast or AVG anti-virus programs that you can get off the internet. Windows 8 is still not much liked by computer users in general but this is what you get with the great majority of modern day PCs and the newer 8.1 comes with more user-friendly features than the previous Windows 8. And you may want to get rid of some pre-installed junkware or apps you won’t need but this shouldn’t be a major drama. Optical drive is a little hidden out of sight with a door with a button and one of the customers thought it was hard to get to but you will be surprised with the number of connectivity options including Bluetooth and USB 3.0 ports on such a slim and compact machine. It is very easy to set-up and works rather quietly so you can have it on your desk and you won’t hear anything when it is on. You’re getting a fantastic deal here for your money, as long as you’re not after a super powerful gaming or AutoCad type PC.

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