Dont buy a Dell.

[Guest]

I always felt Dells were a good buy depending on your needs. I have owned 2. They dont have the best components, but if you know what you want it wasnt hard to get a good deal.

If you did have a bad component it was always pretty simple to have it replaced.



But now they have moved their suppport to India to help cut costs. The help they give is nearly wortless and it takes forever. Both you and the tech end up spelling out half your conversation military style, and the 'techs" have to stop and look up basic advice like "verify that your cord is secure in the phone jack".

In my case my modem failed. We spend about 2 hours running the simplest test on my comp and when the tech couldnt find any thing she announced the the problem was in my phoneline or IP - of course she completely ignored that I told her my machine worked fine when I instaled my own modem from another machine.

Eventually she sent me a new one.

It connects connects, but is slower than the one it replaced. So I go through all the same crap again today. After 2 more hours and essentially testing nothing but my patience they are sending me another modem.


It seems support works this way now - if you are willing to be on the phone for 2 hours and then become politely upset - they will send you a new part.

[bschultz]

yeah nothing against indians (people from india) but what kind of service can they really give if 1. you cant understand what they are saying because of accents and whatnot. 2. they cant understand what you are saying.

I mean gimmie a break. its companies like these that are making the economy bad in america by sending out all the work that should be american jobs to other countries. granted this is nothing new...

[--Pete]

Hi,

What does Dell have to offer? Top of the line components? No. Well made and tuned systems? No.

ALL they offer is cheap. And you get cheap by keeping costs down. That means cheap parts and cheap people, and the American worker is not cheap.

So, if you're searching for the reason why American jobs are going away to India, China, etc., look in the mirror. If that shirt is made in China, if that tie is made in India, if that jacket is from the Philippines, then you are the cause.

--Pete

[Selby]

Dells aren't even really that cheap. You can build a system very close to the specs of one of their $2000 systems for usually under $1000.

I haven't used Dell for home use ever and only used them at work when I had to maintain a computer lab. It was great when they had good support, but we stopped buying their products because their support started to go down the drain.

[Kevin]

We use them at work all the time (a university). Of course all our Tier II people are going to be Dell certified technicians by the summer so we can just go online say, yep, this is broke and they ship a new part or a warranty service box. It costs like $150 a person (maybe less) to do the online certification test. Even though I don't get to get the cert until the end of May, I haven't been on the phone more than 15 minutes with them for support in the last month or so. I don't even always say that I am with the IT department.

Gateway on the other hand takes _forever_ to get anything accomplished with, and it has been that way for the last 8 years for me. I detest their support and always have.

I still think Dell's are better than any of the other prepackaged systems out there and I have dealt with lots of them.

[DeeBye]

Don't feel so bad. My previous computer was a Compaq :(

My hard drive went bad, so I bought a new one (out of warrantee). The new drive worked fine, but I wasn't able to re-install Windows because my Compaq came with a "recovery CD" instead of a full OEM Windows installation CD. It needed to be able to access a few files on my dead drive, which was just stupid.

I would have had to buy a full retail Windows OS. I spent $100 on the new drive, and wasn't about to fork over another $200 for an OS. I seriously considered "obtaining" a pirated copy of Windows 98SE at that point, seeing as though I owned a license for one to be installed on my machine.

I ended up buying a new computer from a local mom 'n pop shop for a song (which featured an ACTUAL Windows XP Home CD), and the specs kicked my old Compaq six ways from sunday.

Local private computer places are a nice place to do business. As long as they are well-established, it's not likely that they are out to screw you. You'll usually also get excellent technical support (bad word-of-mouth kills a business like that very quickly), and it's never hard to just drop your malfunctioning computer off for them to troubleshoot it.

And if you're a return customer, they'll go out of their way to make you happy. That's how they stay in business. Plus, it's nice to talk to a real live person face-to-face once in a while. When my car isn't running right, I don't want to have to explain what's wrong to a guy living halfway around the world from me, and hope he sends me the correct replacement part. I also don't want to be asked stupid questions like "Have you put gas in it?" or "Is the correct key in the ignition?".

This isn't to say that every local computer dealer is honest; there are always a few shady dealers. You just have to find someone you like and trust. It's a lot like shopping around for a car mechanic.

Of course, the really smart shoppers learn how to build their own computers - just like the really smart shoppers learn how to fix their own cars (I'm a bit surprised Pete didn't suggest that already :) )

[Quark]

At my Help Desk the only person certified for anything, A+, is one of the worst workers we have ;) Since about November, the core of us that actually do the work call Dell as little as possible now. We all signed up for Dell's Premier Support (free) and sumbit our orders online. Anything that we can pinpoint the cause of goes through the net instead of a call. The only times I'll call Dell are when it's a complicated problem or some idiot spilled liquid on their laptop - "Was anything spilled on this before the keyboard stopped working? No. Then why does it smell like beer? Uhhh..."

The only complaint I've ever had about the online service is when I got a particular idiot from Dell responding to 3 of my 9 orders in a day - all three of them batteries. Now, there's a diagnostic button on batteries and if you hit it and it shows the 1st, 3rd, and 5th LEDs flashing, the battery is dead. Gone forever. I specifically said all three batteries had this, and yet this guy responded with the "list" of things to do on batteries. Given that I was already irritated at having 6 other orders to document, this guy got a nasty letter from me telling him how to do his job. Haven't had a problem since - though I also haven't gotten a response from that particular tech. I wonder if he still works there, given the turnover :lol:

Anytime a part needs replacing, Dell just ships it to us. If it needs service, they respond and note that a tech's coming. We're working on getting Dell certified now so that we don't have 2 or 3 techs coming in everyday to fix all the laptops we have. Then we can also convince the school to pay us more ;)


Oh yeah, as for the general topic: is there really anyone better, though? If you're not willing to pay for Alienware/Falcon level equipment, and don't know how (or don't want) to build your own, who's left? Gateway? Ugh. Compaq? I'd shoot myself. IBM? My school had IBM laptops for the first class of our laptop program - and we wanted to shoot every one of them.

[Nightwind]

last time I had dell trouble,
i called up, poked randomy at keys until i got a human, (not quite random, but fastest path to human)
told them I was relitivly educated, just needed certain elements of information,
so they turned me over to the webpage they (intrallly use) complete with the trainie nname and password.

I'm not posting it, out of trust and the fact i lost it ages ago. But I think that's atleast reasonably cool.

[whereagles]

I've had bad experience with Dell puters too. Power supply of girlfriend's laptop burned out and voltage peak casued motherboard damage. Motherboard replacement cost: 900$. LOL. It would be a simple matter to put a fuse protecting the motherboard. Then I would just buy a new power supply and have the fuse replaced. Cost: 50$. I went out and bought a new puter from another brand.

[Guest]

Well at the terrible level of support I they have now you may be better off building your own system.

If you wanted a smaking fast system homebuilds have always been good. With Dell I had always been able to basically buy a moderatly slower system because the simple/easy support was worth it.

The amount of effort I am putting into just getting a replacment modem though changes the dynamic.

[Mephista]

Someone at AB recommended to me PC Torque when I was looking to buy a laptop and was considering Alienware. They're cheaper, and as a pre-purchase test (still haven't bought the thing) I called tech support. The phone rang once and I got a real person. A person who could speak english and undoubtedly lived in America and knew about the hardware he was supporting. I spent about half an hour on the phone with him asking about the specs of the hardware that wasn't quite listed on the site, and he was able to find that out for me. He even suggested not buying the priciest laptop in their line, as it is very heavy, and talking about which one of the machines he would like to own.

That sounds like tech support the way it should be.

[--Pete]

Hi,

Normally, for game/personal use I do indeed recommend building the rig. The experience is worth it, you might save some bucks, and you are well on the way to being your own technician.

However, this sounded like a business use to me (I might have gotten that wrong). The cost of building a computer goes up if salary and benefits are added for the time it takes. Then there's the fact the company becomes hostage to the guy who built the machines. If he leaves, there usually is no one who can fix problems when they come up. Thus, for most companies, I recommend a supplier with a good rep. Local is good if the company buying is small, but most mom and pop stores couldn't supply a Boeing.

--Pete

[Tal]

I've built my own machines in the past and frankly I bought a Dell for myself and the wife because I was tired of futzing with my machines. I simply don't have the time, energy nor inclination to run down all the niggling little problems that inevitably spring up on computers. Of course I made the purchase decision when Tech support was still located in the United states and *knocks on wood* I have yet to have a problem with any of the three Dells I own. I am sorry for the problem you've had Ghostiger and can empathize with your frustation.

[kandrathe]

I subcontract to a small company that builds them for me. They charge $200 + parts for the build. The same machine from Dell would cost me double.

For instance, I'm getting 4 x 1U rack mounted servers (with dual Xeons, +2GB ram -- 2x160GB Raid HD's) for ~$1800 each.

[Tommi]

One of my responsibilities at work is to buy notebooks. This is in Finland, though. I have many times checked Dell prices here, but they have been some 50% higher than those of other common brands, such as HP, Fujitsu-Siemens, and Acer. Thus I find it rather hard to justify their price, considering also that they are shipped here from Ireland, which takes ages. :blink: But I guess if money doesn't matter, people can buy anything they want.

I've bought 7 HPs and they have been excellent for their price. They've got 3 year guarantees, and service has worked well. I buy only laptops, which have excellent, prompt service, since I really don't have too much time on my hands. At the moment, HP NC8000 (DJ241A) seems like a pretty nice laptop. With 128 MB video memory and a couple of more USB ports it would be perfect (on the paper). :D And it isn't even too expensive. (Got none yet, though.)

Cheers,

Tommi

[Archon_Wing]

Don't buy an HP :)

[Griselda]

I have a friend whose small company specilaizes in rackmounts. My husband and I have put our (desktop) computers together here with their help and their hardware recommendations, and they know their stuff. We had also ordered the parts through them, and had no trouble getting a new motherboard when my husband's died last year.

So, I figured I'd recommend them while we're on the subject. :)

Axis Integrated

-Griselda

[Roland]

News story.
Link.