The Dell Inspiron 518 ($764 direct) is the newest member of Dell's value-oriented line. Although it's positioned as a "value" PC, it's got a quad-core processor for chewing through those videos you want to upload to your Web site. The system is well equipped for the money and represents a decent upgrade over sub-$500 systems. That extra money buys you mid-level discrete graphics, a quad-core processor, good design, a 15-month subscription to McAfee Security Center, and no crapware.

The 518 comes in a new case, though in a form factor similar to the Inspiron 530 series. The front panel is all glossy black with silvery trim, tying it aesthetically to Dell's newer XPS and Studio units. A rubberized tray built into the top of the box has two conveniently placed USB ports for your electronic devices (cameras, Zunes, iPods, and others). Internally, there's a bunch of space for expansion: two PCIe x1 slots, a PCI slot, two free RAM DIMM slots, and space for another 3.5-inch hard drive. There's a midrange 300W power supply, so don't think about installing stuff that will drain too much power, such as a pair of FireWire 800 cards, a 1.5-terabyte hard drive, and an upgrade to an nVidia GeForce 9800 GX2 card. The system won't be able to power all of that (especially the dual GPU graphics card), though it might be able to handle the 1.5TB drive by itself. That said, you'll be able to pop in another more modest hard drive, up the memory to 4GB, and install an 802.11n wireless networking card without too much trouble.

The Inspiron 518 is notable for what it doesn't have—namely, crapware (aka bloatware). I've been tracking the crapware explosion in many entry-level PCs, and although Dell hasn't been the worst offender, it still has put trialware and other nonessential software onto its PCs. The current-generation Dells are some of the first I've seen that lack the expected crapware, such as AOL, Microsoft Office Trial, and WildTangent games. This is all to the good; only useful items are installed: an interface to Dell's tech support, McAfee Security Center with a 15-month subscription to updates, and the Dell Dock. Okay, so the Dell Dock (a StarDock interface that kind of acts like Mac OS X's launching dock) is basically an interface upgrade that some users won't use, but the fact that I don't have to uninstall a whole bunch of crapware when I unbox this system is great news indeed.

The hardware includes 2GB of memory (the sweet spot for Windows Vista 32-bit), a 320GB hard drive, a mid-level ATI Radeon HD 3450 graphics card, and a quad-core Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 processor. The Q6600 is one of the older 65nm processors, but (as you'll see below) it's still pretty darn fast. The Q6600 is a good choice for users who want to take their digicam, phonecam, or camcorder footage and transcode it for uploading to media-sharing sites like YouTube and Flickr. It's also more than enough for day-to-day tasks like Web surfing, word processing, balancing your checkbook, and e-mail.

The 518 is faster at multimedia tasks than many dual-core competitors. The 518 completed the Windows Media Encoder test in a quick 53 seconds and the Photoshop CS3 test in 29 seconds. This is faster than the dual-core boxes that take 1:20 to 1:30 for the Encoder test and 30 seconds to just under a minute for the Photoshop test. The 518 does fall a little short playing 3D games like Crysis (7 frames per second) and World in Conflict (9 fps) at medium-quality (1,280-by-1,024) resolution. The system's single-digit scores mean that playing each of these high-end games will result in a slideshow-like experience. Gaming users should stick to less taxing games like MMORPGs or the Sims 2.

Compared with the competition, the 518 is a competent system. It has a more powerful quad-core processor than the class-leading Velocity Micro Campus Edition, but the Campus Edition has much stronger 3D performance and expansion possibilities. The 518 trumps systems like the eMachines T5254 in power and capabilities, but it's a bit more expensive.

The Dell Inspiron 518 is a good middle-of-the-road PC with the benefit of no crapware. It's a solid choice for those addicted to YouTube/MySpace/Flickr, and should provide several years of computing for a young person near you. It can also fill in as a mainstream PC for the family member who has just outgrown that hand-me-down PC that you set up for her two years ago. The 518 won't inspire a true-blue geek or a bare-bones bargain hunter, but it is a decent PC for the majority of users out there.

Check out the Dell Inspiron 518's test scores.

More Desktop Reviews: