Yesterday, I got a new Dell Optiplex 745 powered by a 1.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, Windows Vista Basic, and 2 GB RAM. It’s pretty sweet. I also got a 22″ E228WFP flat planel LCD display to go with it. Here’s a brief review. If you’re interested, leave a comment, and I’ll add more.

My initial impression is that the computer itself is very small but functional. One thing that’s weird, though, is that it has a tray-loading DVD burner. It’s not slot loading. Yet the computer stands on its side because it’s a desktop form factor. It could go under the monitor, but then it would be too high with my desk setup because we have a keyboard drawer.

I haven’t tried putting a disc in it sideways yet, but I suspect it might just fall out.

One cool thing is that it has a “5-in-1″ memory card reader, so I’ll be able to pop out memory cards from my digital cameras and put them right in. The weird part about this is that it now shows 5 devices with removable storage:

The flat panel is nice, but doesn’t feel as big as I thought it would. Maybe I’m used to the iMac now, which, at 20″, has the same resolution as this 22″ monitor. That means things should “look” bigger (well, even “be” bigger) on this one. It has a lower DPI, but more I’s.

The Dell computer came with Google Toolbar and Google Desktop Search pre-installed. How interesting, especially considering that Vista also has its own search function built in. But what I really love is that it just plain feels snappy. This is very important for a computer, because my laptop is getting incredibly sluggish. I hope I don’t install something on here that messes it up. That’s why I want to back up - so I can go back to this nice, clean Vista state.