Computer People V. Comment nightshade made
Better Than Canada!
Joined: Dec 2002
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From: Baltimore, MD
If I had to buy a factory built machine it would be a dell. I've had 2 of them and they both lasted about 4 years without a problem. I still have my old one as a backup. If you know how to do regular maintenance on a PC and keep the inside clean and everything then it should last you for 3-4 years just fine. Dell has good quality PC's at a good price but their customer service isn't what it used to be.
With that said I don’t think I would ever buy a factory built machine ever again. You get a lot more for your money by building one and it’s just plain fun.
With that said I don’t think I would ever buy a factory built machine ever again. You get a lot more for your money by building one and it’s just plain fun.
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Joined: Dec 2000
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From: the southwest
Originally Posted by meredithf
well I bought a Dell in 1999 or 2000 I think (?), whenever the first 1g p4 processors were coming out. now that I know more about PCs I can look back and say it was A B S U R D L Y overpriced. I actually financed it through Dell because I couldn't pay for it at once.
I will say while it worked, it worked great. but it "crashed" one day (the WEEK before I was sending them my final payment, lol) and I couldnt figure out if it was the mb or the power supply. either way I couldnt fix it without ordering new parts from dell because the parts they use are (or were, I dont know if they still are) so proprietary. so I just built a new pc at that point. the only part I was really able to use in the new pc I built was the floppy drive, lol, and I even had to rip the face off it to get it to fit in any new case.
so I wouldnt really call that "user error"... it crapped out and I couldnt fix it without ordering the parts from dell at about 50% more cost.
with that said I wouldnt buy a dell if I had to by from a manufacturer unless I got a rediculousy good deal and it was only going to be temporary. I also bought a gateway back in 1995 which honestly worked just fine. of course I knew even less about PCs then but I don't recall ever having problems with it. in fact I still have the 4gb hd that was in it, lol. but I can't speak for them now because since the dell issue I have only built PCs if I need them.
I will say while it worked, it worked great. but it "crashed" one day (the WEEK before I was sending them my final payment, lol) and I couldnt figure out if it was the mb or the power supply. either way I couldnt fix it without ordering new parts from dell because the parts they use are (or were, I dont know if they still are) so proprietary. so I just built a new pc at that point. the only part I was really able to use in the new pc I built was the floppy drive, lol, and I even had to rip the face off it to get it to fit in any new case.
so I wouldnt really call that "user error"... it crapped out and I couldnt fix it without ordering the parts from dell at about 50% more cost.
with that said I wouldnt buy a dell if I had to by from a manufacturer unless I got a rediculousy good deal and it was only going to be temporary. I also bought a gateway back in 1995 which honestly worked just fine. of course I knew even less about PCs then but I don't recall ever having problems with it. in fact I still have the 4gb hd that was in it, lol. but I can't speak for them now because since the dell issue I have only built PCs if I need them.
my p3 1ghz laptop cost 2k
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if you buy parts individually from dell, yes, they will be overpriced in many instances. i looked up a memory upgrade for my laptop, ridiculous. to ebay i went.
also, yes, customer service has gone to shit. they are aware of this, and last i heard they're trying to pull it back to the states.
also, yes, customer service has gone to shit. they are aware of this, and last i heard they're trying to pull it back to the states.
un-Touch'd krew
Joined: May 2001
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From: My own level of hell
Originally Posted by reno96teg
if you buy parts individually from dell, yes, they will be overpriced in many instances. i looked up a memory upgrade for my laptop, ridiculous. to ebay i went.
also, yes, customer service has gone to shit. they are aware of this, and last i heard they're trying to pull it back to the states.
also, yes, customer service has gone to shit. they are aware of this, and last i heard they're trying to pull it back to the states.
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Joined: Aug 2002
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From: CA
i think dell desktop systems should be okay. but their notebooks suck. i've dealt with two dell lattitude notebooks (the "business" models, which should presumably be better) in the last year, and they both sucked pretty bad. one of them couldn't figure out it had built in ethernet. you could install drivers fine, and you could get a network connection. but once you rebooted, all of that would be lost. also, sometimes it wouldn't turn on. the other notebook just had some strange performance problems. even on a completely fresh install of windows 2000, it ran at a crawl. the processor was 1.1 or 1.2 GHz, 512 MB RAM, but it felt half as fast...
compaq makes crappy notebooks as well. i've seen one where the motherboard just randomly fried itself. it was only about six months old, and was being used for coding.
my cousin's sony vaio notebook freezes all the time. he's tried low level formats, new hard drives, new memory, everything short of a new motherboard and CPU.
compaq makes crappy notebooks as well. i've seen one where the motherboard just randomly fried itself. it was only about six months old, and was being used for coding.
my cousin's sony vaio notebook freezes all the time. he's tried low level formats, new hard drives, new memory, everything short of a new motherboard and CPU.
Joined: Oct 2000
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From: Location Location
i would buy dell. i have a sc420 which i purchased for $325 with P4 2.8 and 256mb of ram. I upgraded the CPU to 3.4Ghz and put in 2GB of ram and a PCI video card wtih 128mb of ram. Had it for about a year and so far it runs great with no problems.
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Originally Posted by Nightshade
They were told the CS issue was going to be a mistake before they did it...trying to repair in hindsight is not going to win them back any support for a long time
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Joined: Jul 2002
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From: NY
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I have been building PC's and reselling them for 13 years (as a hobby). I highly believe that unless you buy the 'top of the line' system from any given 'brand' computer, you're getting shortchanged. With exception to IBM, most of these companies (Gateway, Dell, Compaq) use sub par components.
Dell for instance, tries to make everything so that you have to buy things from them, ie. case fans, upgrades.
Dell's major selling point is that they are extremely cheap in price.
With that in mind, they've attracted thousands of customers (myself included) because of their cheap prices. Most people end up saying "I know it's not the best, but hey, the price is cheap, so I'll buy it."
This is where we see people dropping their standards for quality machines for a low price.
For me, as I've gotten more and more involved in my day job, I don't have the time to build custom PC's and be able to fish phone calls to support them. Dell's pricing has made it incredibly easy to just order a setup and let them handle my 'customers'.
Dell for instance, tries to make everything so that you have to buy things from them, ie. case fans, upgrades.
Dell's major selling point is that they are extremely cheap in price.
With that in mind, they've attracted thousands of customers (myself included) because of their cheap prices. Most people end up saying "I know it's not the best, but hey, the price is cheap, so I'll buy it."
This is where we see people dropping their standards for quality machines for a low price.
For me, as I've gotten more and more involved in my day job, I don't have the time to build custom PC's and be able to fish phone calls to support them. Dell's pricing has made it incredibly easy to just order a setup and let them handle my 'customers'.
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From: cali
ive had my dell xps laptop for some time now. with out having one problem, alot of people i know use dell and have never seen a problem. so i dont know where u guys are getting that dell sucks. im sure there not the best out there as there is allways some one better, but for the price and service you cant go wrong with a dell.