- Includes 19-inch LCD Monitor
- Digital/Analog TV Tuner And Vista PVR Functions
- Anemic Graphics Card
- No FireWire Ports
- Speakers Extra
- AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Dual Core Processor
- 1GB PC2-5300 DDR2 Memory
- 250GB 7200rpm SATA Hard Drive
- 16x DVD+/-RW Dual Layer Burner
- NVIDIA GeForce 7300LE Turbocache Graphics and Dell E197FP 19" LCD Monitor
- ATI Theater 650 Pro Analog/Digital TV Tuner and Remote
- Integrated 7.1 Audio
- v.92 56Kbps Modem and Gigabit Ethernet
- Six USB 2.0 Ports
- Vista Home Premium, Works 8, McAfee Security Center
3/20/07 – Dell offers a variety of different configurations with the Dimension E521, but most of them would be considered budget systems. Their “Powerful Entertainment” version packs in a number of features to make it more competitive in the mainstream market and closer to that of the XPS 410 model. The key to it is the inclusion of multimedia functions.
The biggest addition to the system is the ATI Theater 650 Pro based analog and digital TV tuner card with remote. This combined with the Vista Home Premium operating system give the Dimension E521 the capability of a home theater PC and digital video recording. This isn't even a standard feature with similarly priced XPS systems.
This is a great feature for an entertainment system, but the Dimension E521 lacks a few features that truly make it a great multimedia PC. The system lacks both a FireWire port and speakers with the default configuration. This makes users have to purchase extra features to truly get the multimedia experience with the system.
In terms of performance, the Dimension E521 comes in about average with what one would expect from this category of PC. It has a dual core processor for strong multitasking, a full gigabyte of RAM, 250GB of hard drive space and a DVD burner. In addition to this, Dell also includes a GeForce 7300LE graphics card and LCD monitor. The monitor is a nice addition, but the graphics card is mixed. It will let the system handle the Aero interface better but don't expect to be playing many 3D games with it.
On the whole, the Powerful Entertainment version of the Dimension E521 is a decent system, but it doesn't really set itself apart from other PCs in the same price range.
