Dell has seen considerable success in the consumer PC market, and has drawn on the expertise gained in that market to drive into the business market over the past several years.
One of the main differentiators between the Optiplex and consumer machines is the manageability software provided. The Optiplex comes with a package that lets you monitor hardware and software installed and can also perform a full automated system recovery to raw state.
Although one of the more expensive machines in our roundup, it still weighs in under $3,000 and has the option of being purchased without monitor for the lower cost of $2,129 - the 15in LCD monitor is available at an additional $669.
The Optiplex is designed with accessibility in mind, and opens in a similar fashion to the IBM ThinkCentre S50. The tool-less case is secured by two rear press clips, which unlock and pull the hinged lid back 90 degrees. This easy access allows for extremely fast system dismantle and repair or upgrade time.
Alternatively, this is a security risk as hardware can so easily go missing with nobody watching. Dell has countered this by including a rear mounted two piece metal loop, one on the chassis and one on the lid, allowing for physical lockdown of the machine with a padlock.
The Optiplex sports the highest specification of all the systems in this roundup, with a whopping Pentium 4 3.2GHz processor, overkill perhaps for standard office productivity software usage, but it does give additional future-proofing, and will stave off upgrades for another several months at least.
Even without monitor, it comes in a tad more expensive than everything bar the Apple iMac and is a little hard to justify the cost given the meagre clock speed difference between 2.8 and 3.2GHz, especially in a workstation machine. IBM is able to supply a full system with a similar specification for under the cost of the Dell GX270 without monitor.
Although not the cheapest system available, it does offer plenty of grunt and room for future upgrades, as well as providing a pair of free PCI ports and an additional two free DDR DIMM sockets. It's just a little hard to recommend over the cheaper similar quality IBM ThinkCentre S50 system.