I received a coupon from Dell this week for 20% off any refurbished desktop at their outlet. While poking around, I came across the now-discontinued Studio One 19 inch all-in-one PC. This was Dell's answer to the iMac and the feature list is pretty impressive - nVidia 9200, Up to a Core 2 quad, 7200RPM drive, and a 19 inch multi-touch touchscreen with 1366 x 768 native res. <br>
<br>I did some googling and it appears that the touchscreen is supported in Ubuntu 10.04. I'm not expecting much from the multitouch but if I can tap my way through Myth and Boxee with little-to-no need for a keyboard, I'm all for it. Plus, with these specs the machine could be a nice compact combo frontend and backend, although the default hard drive is a little on the small side.<br>
<br>There are some caveats: The box is only available at Dell's Outlet store, which is either scratch and dent or refurb. Because of this you're not going to be able to customize the hardware, and you're at the whim of whatever config is available at that exact moment - configurations come and go with every refresh. That being said, here's what I bought: 2.6GHZ Pentium dual core E5300, 3GB RAM, 320GB 7200RPM, DL DVD burner, Windows VIsta (can upgrade to 7) and a 2 year warranty for $556 shipped after 20% coupon and sales tax. Mine did not come with a wifi card; it looks easy enough to drop one in and I have an extra mini PCIe card that was supplanted by a CrystalHD in my iMac. I hope it fits. Speaking of that, since the boxes can handle a core 2 quad I'm optimistically hoping that I can upgrade the CPU at a later date.<br>
<br>Sorry that this is a bit off topic but I thought it was a good enough deal to share. The coupon code for 20% off is<span class="para"> <b>00ZTCHCWW1$1VG</b></span> and can be found at <a href="http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/fall_savings?c=us&cs=22&l=en&s=dfh&dgc=EM&cid=59662&lid=1509280">http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/fall_savings?c=us&cs=22&l=en&s=dfh&dgc=EM&cid=59662&lid=1509280</a> <br>
<br>The Studio One refurb store is at <a href="http://outlet.us.dell.com/ARBOnlineSales/Online/InventorySearch.aspx?brandId=2202&c=us&cs=22&fid=1001&l=en&s=dfh">http://outlet.us.dell.com/ARBOnlineSales/Online/InventorySearch.aspx?brandId=2202&c=us&cs=22&fid=1001&l=en&s=dfh</a> - Like I said, the inventory changes constantly so you'll have to refresh often if you're looking for a specific configuration, and they don't all have wifi. Mine has shipped and I should have it next Wednesday, I'll report back in if anybody's interested.<br>
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