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Would you recommend buying a Dell?
- Thread starter vsrdan
- Start date
Definatly no. I refurbish computers and laptops for a living, and Dells are consistently the most failure prone machines around, especially their lower end stuff. Their higher end machines are better, but still not in the same class as most other units.
[T5K]thrasher
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I voted maybe yes.. Just becuase I love my lappy 
for desktops DIY or find some one to do it for you.
for desktops DIY or find some one to do it for you.machwireless
[H]ard|Gawd
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laptops, monitors, and other peripherals, yes
desktops for a business, yes
desktops for home, hell no
desktops for a business, yes
desktops for home, hell no
This is quite true. It's what made me choose Dell the last time... or at least that's what motivitated family members...Juic3 said:Well good deals from DELL are hard to pass up from time to time
but never again. Their hardware is too "watered-down" and too proprietary to upgrade later on. You're much better off with some other company. For people who'll never upgrade, maybe it's a good choice, depending on their needs of course. That's why I voted "May or may not (depends on what is needed)". I did a job installing a parallel network for a client in the bay area a few months ago, so he could transfer his old stuff to the new network.
He was replacing his old systems with brand new Dells and to our astonishment NONE of the new Dells had any PS/2 ports!!!
EVERYTHING was USB driven. Oy!!!
ALL of our KVM boxes were useless to us. We hadda go to Fry's and get adaptors just to make everything work.
Do you're research IN DETAIL before you buy, so you won't get stuck having to make a mad dash to a `puter store at night like I had to do.
He was replacing his old systems with brand new Dells and to our astonishment NONE of the new Dells had any PS/2 ports!!!
EVERYTHING was USB driven. Oy!!!
ALL of our KVM boxes were useless to us. We hadda go to Fry's and get adaptors just to make everything work.
Do you're research IN DETAIL before you buy, so you won't get stuck having to make a mad dash to a `puter store at night like I had to do.
MD_Willington
2[H]4U
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If I needed something for home office or internet surfing, I'd pick up a celeron based DELL.vsrdan said:
Personally I've never had a problem with my Optiplex, it is what it is, a workstation...
So I don't really know what all the fuss is about.
MD
Worked on a lot of Dell's and IBM's over the past 10 years. (Literally thousands in a large corporate setting) I would take a Dell over IBM laptop or desktop any day. We have about %40 failure rate on our IBM laptop harddrives and several other components with high failure rate on the IBM's (Motherboards / Dockers). We have had our issues with Dell, but not nearly as much as IBM... The Dell laptops are not as mechanically sturdy (Read drop test), but nothing major.
IBM. Putting the death in deathstar (deskstar). (Flame on IBM lovers.. )
Professionally I used to support several thousand Dell PC's, now mostly IBM's.
I personally own and support the following.
1 Toshiba Laptop 2.8 Ghz HT (My run around machine)
3 Dell dimension 4700's (The kids machines 2.8Ghz's HT)
1 Dell Dimension 4600 (The Snapstream HTPC 4 tuners 2.4 Ghz HT)
1 Dell Dimension 8200 (2.8Ghz HT Video/ picture/ extra gaming machine)
1 Dell Dimension 4300 (1.7Ghz Parents PC) (Remotely supported)
1 Dell Dimension 2200 (Cant remember speed. Used as a secondary PC for one of the Kids at his fathers house.)
1 PowerEdge 1600SC (2.8GHz Xeon Testbed server)
1 PowerEdge SC1425 (Dual 3Ghz 2Mb cache Xeon's. Battlefield 2 server (Linux))
1 Homebuilt AMD 64 3200 (My main game machine)
1 Homebuilt 2.4 Ghz (8 camera Home security system)
1 Homebuilt 2.4 Ghz (Kitchen PC. E-mail / General web surfing)
1 Homebuilt 1.7 Ghz (Grandma's machine) (Remotely supported)
What it comes down to for me are these 2 things.
Generally I could not build the Dell Pc's for the money they cost me. I always end up spending about $100 more for the same level or lower quality parts than Dell would put in. They are great for what they are and have treated me very well. The few issues I have had have been very minor.
My Homebuilt PC's have also served me well, but are mostly specialty PC's (Gaming/ Home security, Utility). I could have bought Dell's but I wanted specific parts in these PC's as well as a bit more performance. Sure I could have bought a Dell and added to it, but it would have cost me the same if not more.
-----------
In the end it comes down to the Price / Performance / Features. Dell sometimes fits the bill and sometimes not. For gaming, I would probably never buy an XPS, because for the same money or less I could build my own PC with the same or better performance.
IBM. Putting the death in deathstar (deskstar). (Flame on IBM lovers..
)Professionally I used to support several thousand Dell PC's, now mostly IBM's.
I personally own and support the following.
1 Toshiba Laptop 2.8 Ghz HT (My run around machine)
3 Dell dimension 4700's (The kids machines 2.8Ghz's HT)
1 Dell Dimension 4600 (The Snapstream HTPC 4 tuners 2.4 Ghz HT)
1 Dell Dimension 8200 (2.8Ghz HT Video/ picture/ extra gaming machine)
1 Dell Dimension 4300 (1.7Ghz Parents PC) (Remotely supported)
1 Dell Dimension 2200 (Cant remember speed. Used as a secondary PC for one of the Kids at his fathers house.)
1 PowerEdge 1600SC (2.8GHz Xeon Testbed server)
1 PowerEdge SC1425 (Dual 3Ghz 2Mb cache Xeon's. Battlefield 2 server (Linux))
1 Homebuilt AMD 64 3200 (My main game machine)
1 Homebuilt 2.4 Ghz (8 camera Home security system)
1 Homebuilt 2.4 Ghz (Kitchen PC. E-mail / General web surfing)
1 Homebuilt 1.7 Ghz (Grandma's machine) (Remotely supported)
What it comes down to for me are these 2 things.
Generally I could not build the Dell Pc's for the money they cost me. I always end up spending about $100 more for the same level or lower quality parts than Dell would put in. They are great for what they are and have treated me very well. The few issues I have had have been very minor.
My Homebuilt PC's have also served me well, but are mostly specialty PC's (Gaming/ Home security, Utility). I could have bought Dell's but I wanted specific parts in these PC's as well as a bit more performance. Sure I could have bought a Dell and added to it, but it would have cost me the same if not more.
-----------
In the end it comes down to the Price / Performance / Features. Dell sometimes fits the bill and sometimes not. For gaming, I would probably never buy an XPS, because for the same money or less I could build my own PC with the same or better performance.
For desktops, and purely based on price, I would say the only time I would ever buy a Dell is if I were going for a low-end system. The kind they sell for $350 or less. If you want ANYTHING better than the low end, it will be cheaper to build it yourself, even including the cost of Windows.
The incremental cost of getting more RAM/bigger HD/faster CPU/whatever is ridiculous.
There is one other advantage to building your own computer, and for me, this is a HUGE issue: I get to install and tweak my own OS and have a perfectly clean environment to start off with. If you buy a Dell (or any other vendor), you start off with a truckload of cruftware. I like my OS clean. No stupid AOL software, no Dell phone-home spyware, nothing except what I want.
Case in point: My several-years-old IBM Thinkpad 600 (PII-266) vs. my dad's Thinkpad R42 (P-M 1.4GHz). Mine has a custom install of Win2k, his has the factory install of WinXP. Mine cold boots to a responsive state (no hourglass of any kind) a full minute before his. And that's after I tweaked (as much as possible) his services and start up programs.
The incremental cost of getting more RAM/bigger HD/faster CPU/whatever is ridiculous.
There is one other advantage to building your own computer, and for me, this is a HUGE issue: I get to install and tweak my own OS and have a perfectly clean environment to start off with. If you buy a Dell (or any other vendor), you start off with a truckload of cruftware. I like my OS clean. No stupid AOL software, no Dell phone-home spyware, nothing except what I want.
Case in point: My several-years-old IBM Thinkpad 600 (PII-266) vs. my dad's Thinkpad R42 (P-M 1.4GHz). Mine has a custom install of Win2k, his has the factory install of WinXP. Mine cold boots to a responsive state (no hourglass of any kind) a full minute before his. And that's after I tweaked (as much as possible) his services and start up programs.
T0ddyH0oddy
Limp Gawd
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Oldwolf said:
Wait, so it's Dell's fault you or your client were too stupid to do the proper research? Or maybe you are so ignorant you didn't even consider if legacy support would be an issue.
Yeah, looks like Dell is the culprit here.
Depends on the situation. At the place I work I do all the maintenance and tech work, we use almost all Dell machines. We pretty much stick with the lower end systems because they are cost efficeint for the purpose we use them for, once software is included there is no possible way we could build a similar system for cheaper. After 3 years (when the current batch of dells were purchasd, also when I started working here) I have seen only two probelms out of 25 Dell systems. One was a hard drive that went bad, the other was an excessivley loud fan. Dell overnighted replacement parts, before I had even sent the bad parts back to them. Two thumbs up there. So for purposes such as these I would say Dell is great, and thier customer service is better than other companies I have dealt with.
On the other hand I dont think I would ever suggest someone purchase a dell for a high end gaming system. Thier profit margin on high end systems is beyond unreasonable. I build systems for friends/family and will usually create a Dell quote for comparison purposes. I almost always end up building high-end systems for 50-60% of the price that Dell charges.
On the other hand I dont think I would ever suggest someone purchase a dell for a high end gaming system. Thier profit margin on high end systems is beyond unreasonable. I build systems for friends/family and will usually create a Dell quote for comparison purposes. I almost always end up building high-end systems for 50-60% of the price that Dell charges.
I'd take a Dell over Gateway or HP/Compaq any day. However, I prefer building my own desktops than having one by Dell. Laptops are another matter: after using one for over a year, I would choose a Dell without any hesitation.
But I would gladly recommend them to my family... less repair work for me to do.
But I would gladly recommend them to my family... less repair work for me to do.
@ Teancum: if you're interested in tweaking Windoze XP to the max, consider nLite. Yes, even the Dell-supplied OEM CD can be completely cleaned by this amazing program. A better solution would be to switch to Linux altogether, but that's another story for another day.
Regarding Dell, their quality control is now getting WORSE. Just look at this... I'd stay well-away from them for the time-being...
Regarding Dell, their quality control is now getting WORSE. Just look at this... I'd stay well-away from them for the time-being...
I currently have 2 Dells - my laptop thanks to the first $750 coupon last October and the 2nd I got a refurb for my wife cause it was cheaper than building one (scary). I chose maybe depending on situation because I really wasn't looking at a computer either time...just did it because of the deals.
ckozlowski
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We support about 1000 dell machines here between laptops, desktops, and servers.
I would reccomend their server units for their management features and ease of access. Their rack systems seem vastly superior to any Compaq and HP system we've recieved.
Laptops are alright, I like the docking stations, failure rates have been low on our Latitude D600s.
Desktops, eh. I hate the chassis design, as the locking mechanism is prone to bending, not to mention that the chassis itself is awkard to work with. Desktop diagnostic is useless for reporting hard drive errors, and I've fought with Dell when trying to explain to them that even those their diagnostics says everything is fine, Ghost won't copy to the hard drive and Western Digital's utility (on a WD drive) says it's broken.
Also, they use some cheap plastic retention mechanism to hold the expansions cards in. This is prone to breaking, meaning VGA cards suddenly pop out of the slots of running machines when a user moves their tower. I've had to go in and screw down the video cards of countless desktops. I endlessly reminded the OEM company I worked for of this issue when evaluating chassis designs.
I would reccomend their server units for their management features and ease of access. Their rack systems seem vastly superior to any Compaq and HP system we've recieved.
Laptops are alright, I like the docking stations, failure rates have been low on our Latitude D600s.
Desktops, eh. I hate the chassis design, as the locking mechanism is prone to bending, not to mention that the chassis itself is awkard to work with. Desktop diagnostic is useless for reporting hard drive errors, and I've fought with Dell when trying to explain to them that even those their diagnostics says everything is fine, Ghost won't copy to the hard drive and Western Digital's utility (on a WD drive) says it's broken.
Also, they use some cheap plastic retention mechanism to hold the expansions cards in. This is prone to breaking, meaning VGA cards suddenly pop out of the slots of running machines when a user moves their tower. I've had to go in and screw down the video cards of countless desktops. I endlessly reminded the OEM company I worked for of this issue when evaluating chassis designs.
Call me biased if you want, but I'll never recommend any system that uses proprietary parts. Now, crack open any new HP computer, and find a regular Asus board slapped inside. Back it up with the last two years of customer satisfaction and quality awards that Dell can only dream of....and the answer becomes clear.
NotEnoughSpeed
Limp Gawd
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I bought my mother a Dell Dimension 4700 PC because for $589.99 I got a P4 3.0, an Intel 915 PCI express mobo, 80 GB hard drive, 512 ram, CD-RW, and a dell 193 19 " LCD. Now granted when I got it I wiped the drive, and reloaded it with only the software I wanted on it for my mother, and it works great. She almost never calls me up for tech support. I am looking to buy one of their inspiron 700m notebooks soon. Tech support sucks with dell, but their machines arent all that bad.
Rustedimpala
Limp Gawd
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Ive had a few Dells and never had any real problems out of them. I currently have a Dell Inspiron 6000 and its great. Biggest problem with dells is all the crap they load onto the hard drives, its best to just wipe them and reinstall the OS. The only other problem I see with the lower end Dells is the lack of memory and what they charge to add more. Best to buy the least amount of memory from Dell and order a stick or two from Newegg and install it yourself.
soulsaver_8229
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i voted cause tv comercials say i have a voice! and my 1 vote counts!!!! hooray
everyone listen to me now cause i voted!
really tho, i say may or may not......depends the situation.......thats a rahter vague poll
soulsaver_8229
everyone listen to me now cause i voted!
really tho, i say may or may not......depends the situation.......thats a rahter vague poll
soulsaver_8229
I use a lot of Dell's at work becuase that's what we're allowed to buy... honestly some of the newer machines that have come in have been okay, but Dell likes to use custom board layouts that are hard if not impossible to replace with off the shelf components.
That wouldn't worry me as much expcet that I've seen whole batches of dell's come in either DOA or DshortlyafterA...
Add that to the outsourced support and well, yeah I probably wouldn't but you can't keep a completely closed mind when you're buying OEM machines.
That wouldn't worry me as much expcet that I've seen whole batches of dell's come in either DOA or DshortlyafterA...
Add that to the outsourced support and well, yeah I probably wouldn't but you can't keep a completely closed mind when you're buying OEM machines.
chrisf6969
[H]F Junkie
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I've had many Dells, and recommend them to many people. They have nice quality stable machines, and if you ever have a problem their tech support is top notch too.
Personally, for my home machines, I build my own. But for my office or other people (who I don't want to be their tech support on) I recommend Dell. In fact, Dell should be giving me a cut. I've recommended over 20+ Dells the past few years. In fact, I just stepped someone through ordering a Dell 700m laptop last week. (I configured it, put in their CC#, etc.. for them = held their hand through the purchase)
And I've done that for:
friend John 2x
his parents
my parents
my brother
other friend John
his wife with 2 office PC's
ANOTHER friend John 3x (=1 lap, 2 desk)
friend Mike 2x
friend Matt & his gf
my work PC's 4x
1 of my employees
Lets see... thats 20 right off the top of my head, who I helped configure their DELL PC's in the past few years. That not counting the many other's that I've just recommend or forgotten about. Everyone has been happy with their purchases to my knowledge, and I've helped a few of them with upgrades, etc... many get spyware/viruses, and Dell stepped them through a clean install, etc..
Any Dell reps reading this PM me, if you want to set me up with some type of referral credit system. Credit toward a purchase of a system or accessories. (thinking about buying a 24" 2405 monitor or 7800GTX maybe)
I remember a few years back when the P4's had just come out there was supposed to be like a $100 referral thing, but I never got it either. It must have been some MIR thing. (b/c 2 different people put me in as their referrals and I never GOT ANYTHING )
Plus I've bought 4 Dell 19" flat panels in the past 2 years. 3 direct through Dell, 1 new one off of ebay. (2 were just last month or so)
Personally, for my home machines, I build my own. But for my office or other people (who I don't want to be their tech support on) I recommend Dell. In fact, Dell should be giving me a cut. I've recommended over 20+ Dells the past few years. In fact, I just stepped someone through ordering a Dell 700m laptop last week. (I configured it, put in their CC#, etc.. for them = held their hand through the purchase)
And I've done that for:
friend John 2x
his parents
my parents
my brother
other friend John
his wife with 2 office PC's
ANOTHER friend John 3x (=1 lap, 2 desk)
friend Mike 2x
friend Matt & his gf
my work PC's 4x
1 of my employees
Lets see... thats 20 right off the top of my head, who I helped configure their DELL PC's in the past few years. That not counting the many other's that I've just recommend or forgotten about. Everyone has been happy with their purchases to my knowledge, and I've helped a few of them with upgrades, etc... many get spyware/viruses, and Dell stepped them through a clean install, etc..
Any Dell reps reading this PM me, if you want to set me up with some type of referral credit system. Credit toward a purchase of a system or accessories. (thinking about buying a 24" 2405 monitor or 7800GTX maybe)
I remember a few years back when the P4's had just come out there was supposed to be like a $100 referral thing, but I never got it either. It must have been some MIR thing. (b/c 2 different people put me in as their referrals and I never GOT ANYTHING
)Plus I've bought 4 Dell 19" flat panels in the past 2 years. 3 direct through Dell, 1 new one off of ebay. (2 were just last month or so)
So far the Optiblek GX110's are pretty stable and not failure-prone at all (only thing to go on any of those so far have been the drives, which is typical for any system)
However, I voted no.
The fact is we've been burned BADLY once by Dell during a major issue with one of their servers. The server had bad RAM, but they wouldn't replace the RAM because the utility they gave us to test it with didn't say the RAM was bad (they did end up replacing it after the fact with *refurbished* RAM, but lost several days worth of time on our production network because they were so anal about replacing the RAM)
A friends Dell SAN shits itself, and is told they "have nobody to send" even though they have a 4-hour response time in their service contract.
Their sales reps don't even return our calls when we wanted to evaluate their laptops when we were looking to replace our Stinkpads and Trashiba's (They eventually went with Gateway. We went with HP in our Canadian facility)
One of their sales goons called us up once and asked if we'd be interested in buying servers from them. We laughed in his face. After that fiasco with the RAM, we'll never touch another one of their 'servers'
Their servers suck anyway, we've replaced most of their servers with HP DL380 and DL385 servers and couldn't be happier in terms of performance, manageability (iLo > *) and their support (which, IMO, is the best in their industry with regards to their server and backup hardware)
However, I voted no.
The fact is we've been burned BADLY once by Dell during a major issue with one of their servers. The server had bad RAM, but they wouldn't replace the RAM because the utility they gave us to test it with didn't say the RAM was bad (they did end up replacing it after the fact with *refurbished* RAM, but lost several days worth of time on our production network because they were so anal about replacing the RAM)
A friends Dell SAN shits itself, and is told they "have nobody to send" even though they have a 4-hour response time in their service contract.
Their sales reps don't even return our calls when we wanted to evaluate their laptops when we were looking to replace our Stinkpads and Trashiba's (They eventually went with Gateway. We went with HP in our Canadian facility)
One of their sales goons called us up once and asked if we'd be interested in buying servers from them. We laughed in his face. After that fiasco with the RAM, we'll never touch another one of their 'servers'
Their servers suck anyway, we've replaced most of their servers with HP DL380 and DL385 servers and couldn't be happier in terms of performance, manageability (iLo > *) and their support (which, IMO, is the best in their industry with regards to their server and backup hardware)
I wouldn't touch for the simple reason that their customer/ tech support is horrible. Ever since they outsourced to India, it has gone downhill. I ended up returning a laptop (faulty hard drive - go figure) after being on hold for 2 hours for tech support only to get a tech who barely spoke english. All in all it took me 8 hours to set up a return.
I used to work for Dell sales and I have heard customers literally crying because of being on hold, or transferred back and forth.... only to wind up in my department's phone que.
I understand that tech support is much better for business customers. Dell seems to want to keep them. I understand that tech support is still in the US.
I used to work for Dell sales and I have heard customers literally crying because of being on hold, or transferred back and forth.... only to wind up in my department's phone que.
I understand that tech support is much better for business customers. Dell seems to want to keep them. I understand that tech support is still in the US.
SnackDaddy
n00b
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- Nov 19, 2004
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- 48
I've used dozens of dell servers and hundreds of dell desktops and laptops. Same with IBM, Compaq, Gateway, HP.
They all have problems. They all work well most of the time. All of them have crappy tech support from time to time. They have really good support much of the time too. They ALL use proprietary hardware in some systems and less proprietary in others. (this is the argument I hate the most)
It's up to you to be 100% informed about what you are buying. After that you just have to hope you aren't one of the unlucky ones.
I have been most satisfied with dell. But not unsatisfied with the others Still have a 7 year old Dell server running 24x7 with no problems at one place. We will be replacing it next month though, just in case. Got a couple 5-6 yr old Compaqs and IBMs too.
I've personally used homebuilt/overclocked for years but this last time I didn't have the time or the ambition to mess with configuring, building and tweaking a system of my own design. I chose a Dell 8400 desktop. The XPS was way overpriced for basicaly the same system and the lower end just didn't meet my needs. I'm completely happy with it after almost 1 year. Got a good deal. Couldn't have built the same machine with legal software cheaper.Have had no problems at all. Plays HL2, Doom 3 and WoW just fine. I did wipe the drive and reinstall windows, but I would have had to install it on a homebew too so no big deal there. Probably can't overclock it, haven't looked, but I don't care anymore. 3GHz and a gig of DDR2 is pretty fast.
Just like the undying Chevy vs. Ford debate, depends on the individual and their experience.
I would buy or recommend Dell any time.
They all have problems. They all work well most of the time. All of them have crappy tech support from time to time. They have really good support much of the time too. They ALL use proprietary hardware in some systems and less proprietary in others. (this is the argument I hate the most)
It's up to you to be 100% informed about what you are buying. After that you just have to hope you aren't one of the unlucky ones.
I have been most satisfied with dell. But not unsatisfied with the others Still have a 7 year old Dell server running 24x7 with no problems at one place. We will be replacing it next month though, just in case. Got a couple 5-6 yr old Compaqs and IBMs too.
I've personally used homebuilt/overclocked for years but this last time I didn't have the time or the ambition to mess with configuring, building and tweaking a system of my own design. I chose a Dell 8400 desktop. The XPS was way overpriced for basicaly the same system and the lower end just didn't meet my needs. I'm completely happy with it after almost 1 year. Got a good deal. Couldn't have built the same machine with legal software cheaper.Have had no problems at all. Plays HL2, Doom 3 and WoW just fine. I did wipe the drive and reinstall windows, but I would have had to install it on a homebew too so no big deal there. Probably can't overclock it, haven't looked, but I don't care anymore. 3GHz and a gig of DDR2 is pretty fast.
Just like the undying Chevy vs. Ford debate, depends on the individual and their experience.
I would buy or recommend Dell any time.
Juic3 said:Well good deals from DELL are hard to pass up from time to time
I got my 1st dell this way. ( Power Edge SC420 server )
Other then that, I would recommend their Laptops, maybe a server ( if the $ was right) and I would NOT recommend a Desktop.
If you don't mind being your own tech support, go for it. I think that a lot of Dell's customer base is not as tech minded and there in lies the rub.
As a counterpoint, I contacted Emachines tech support twice for my m6805; the wait time was 20 seconds for the first time and 31 seconds for the second, and the tech gave me his rep id as well (said that was the procedure they followed).
Try that with Dell support...
As a counterpoint, I contacted Emachines tech support twice for my m6805; the wait time was 20 seconds for the first time and 31 seconds for the second, and the tech gave me his rep id as well (said that was the procedure they followed).
Try that with Dell support...
I would recommend Dell to most people that don't want me to build them a PC. I have had excellent luck with Dells support. I do stay away from Dell home like it is a plague, but so far small business has treated me very well. I also install and repair Dells at work, when we switched from Gateway to Dell, our failure rate dropped dramatically. Plus so far when they have screwed up, it has been in my favor.