Anyone else think Dell is becoming shady?

[bradb007a]

Anyone else think Dell is becoming shady?
Vote

 

[Adul]

why do u say this? care to state some reasons/examples?

 

[dullard]

My opinions on Dell.
1) They used to far surpass all other companies' technical support. They won many awards for this. They hit the same economic slump as other companies. Thus they had to cut costs somewhere. Techinical support was one major place. It isn't as good as it used to be, but it still is the best of the large companies. Some people call this worsening support "shady", but as long as it is as good or better than other companies, it isn't shady to me.
2) In the majority of cases, Dell has the best price possible for a non-home built machine. They often beat the other companies by 20% or more. This is great for the consumers, not at all shady.
3) Dell used to use a lot of proprietary hardware - now it is almost all standard and easilly upgradeable. Thus in this area Dell is becoming less shady.
4) Dell sells what most people want. And as it is, most people would rather save a few bucks than get the top of the line for everything. Sure (for the most part) they aren't using hard drives with 8MB buffers, but then the customers save a bundle. And given the choice most will choose the money over a slight speed increase. So the part quality isn't very shady to me. Plus now that Dell is much more standardized (point #3), you can always upgrade yourself to higher quality parts.
5) No one company can perfectly match all consumer segments. But Dell hits the jackpot on the majority of people's needs. This isn't shady to me. So what if a few percent of people want something slightly different, let them go to another far more expensive company.

 

[bradb007a]

Its just the impression I get when dealing with them.
I asked the poll to get other people's opinions to see if they felt the same way.

I don't want to unfairly slant the Poll since I don't have any evidence other than talking with friends of friends who use to work phone sales. I know those guys make good commisions on upselling. It just makes me question Dell's latest ads where they promise to match what you need with what they sell you. My implication is of course, that the average sales person doesn't *realy* care what the average non-technical user needs, just what the sales person can convince the user he/she needs.

Even the website has "Dell Recommends" upgrades on everything. Why would I need a Pentium 2.8 at twice the cost of a 2.4 when the bottleneck in todays systems are the bus, hd & memory. BTW I know every company lives on marketing riff-raff but I'm only asking about Dell here.

Thanks
Brad

 

[bradb007a]

Originally posted by: dullard
My opinions on Dell.
1) They used to far surpass all other companies' technical support. They won many awards for this. They hit the same economic slump as other companies. Thus they had to cut costs somewhere. Techinical support was one major place. It isn't as good as it used to be, but it still is the best of the large companies. Some people call this worsening support "shady", but as long as it is as good or better than other companies, it isn't shady to me.
2) In the majority of cases, Dell has the best price possible for a non-home built machine. They often beat the other companies by 20% or more. This is great for the consumers, not at all shady.
3) Dell used to use a lot of proprietary hardware - now it is almost all standard and easilly upgradeable. Thus in this area Dell is becoming less shady.
4) Dell sells what most people want. And as it is, most people would rather save a few bucks than get the top of the line for everything. Sure (for the most part) they aren't using hard drives with 8MB buffers, but then the customers save a bundle. And given the choice most will choose the money over a slight speed increase. So the part quality isn't very shady to me. Plus now that Dell is much more standardized (point #3), you can always upgrade yourself to higher quality parts.
5) No one company can perfectly match all consumer segments. But Dell hits the jackpot on the majority of people's needs. This isn't shady to me. So what if a few percent of people want something slightly different, let them go to another far more expensive company.

Those are all good points thanks for you opinion!

 

[sandorski]

I dunno as I have never bought a Dell, Compaq, or any other Namebrand(Home built rulz!! ). From what I've seen, what made Dell great was their method of distribution. Add in decent quality, good customer support, and sell exclusively on the net(and be the first major player to do so) and you have yourself what Dell is today.

 

[LikeLinus]

<< don't have any evidence other than talking with friends of friends who use to work phone sales. >>

That's your downfall right there. You really shouldn't create polls and start giving Dell a bad rap from overheard 3rd party bullsh!t.

They sell great hardware for their price. Maybe they do try to upsell a littlebit, just like EVERY other company in the world. I wouldn't call this "shady", i would call this normal business practices. As consumers we have to be smart and know what to buy and how much. With the research we are provided from the web and people we talk to, we should not get dupped into buying something we dont need. If you do, it's your own fault, not the fault of some guy just trying to make a living pitching his companies computer parts.

That being said, I have two friends who work SBS here in Nashville at one time or another. They both say, of course they want you to try and upsale. But they never did anything "shady" and the machines are great for what they are.

My Opinion? Kill the poll and move on with life.

 

[Smilin]

What a coincidence!!!

I came to the forum to pass some time while I'm on hold with Dell tech support. To give you a few stats:

My call was answered and I was placed on hold for a total of about 20 seconds. My tech had me try a few small things but is otherwise taking my diagnosis as valid. He's off double checking that my parts are in before we get off the phone. He just came back, the parts are in. It's a mobo replacement so he's going to send a tech out to take care of it for me.

I'm sorry guys but I'm just not having any problems with Dell.

They beat everyone on price and their machines are top notch. I custom build my own so I don't really order from them for myself but I recommend them to anyone looking to buy off the shelf.

We use Dells as desktops here at work and are starting to use them to replace our Compaq servers. Perhaps I'm just lucky but I could go on for about two pages with REAL-world experiences with them that have been nothing but positive.

My humble opinion

 

[everman]

Even the website has "Dell Recommends" upgrades on everything. Why would I need a Pentium 2.8 at twice the cost of a 2.4 when the bottleneck in todays systems are the bus, hd & memory

What's the problem with that? Ok so they reccomend you spend too much money...hehe but some people "do" want the "fastest" even though it really isn't significant at all. The chips to however got a lot more but maybe not that much more. It's what you call a premium for the highest end parts.

 

[SteelCityFan]

Originally posted by: bradb007a
Its just the impression I get when dealing with them.

Even the website has "Dell Recommends" upgrades on everything. Why would I need a Pentium 2.8 at twice the cost of a 2.4 when the bottleneck in todays systems are the bus, hd & memory. BTW I know every company lives on marketing riff-raff but I'm only asking about Dell here.

Thanks
Brad

I don't think I have ever seen a "Dell Recommended" upgrade that I did not agree with...
For example...

I just checked their page for a couple different PC's. I notice that they are not only using the 'Dell recommended" but also things like "great value".

Click on Dimension 8200 and for Processor, the have "Dell Recommended" on the 2.53Ghz 533FSB chip. I would definately agree with that over the 2.4Ghz (default) since Bus speed is one of the Bottlenecks you mentioned...although the price is quite a bit higher, but note that they print clearly what the price difference is. It is up to you to decide if you want it.

They also recommend that you buy a full year of Virus scan instead of a 3 month trial offer. I can agree with that too.

In the 8250 section, they have "Great Value" listed when going from a 60GB drive to an 80GB drive for $20.

They also highlight their sales or specials.


I don't see anything wrong with this at all. IT is the best way to do it online where there is no sales person to interact with the customer. The best they can do online is highlight possible recommended upgrades.

 

[SteelCityFan]

I also have had nothing but good experiences with them.... from quality PC's to great support. They have always answered the phone promptly. Back when I bought a 266Mhz pc from them, the speakers had to be replaced for something as simple as the 2nd input being loose on the subwoofer... so when I hooked up my diskman to the speakers, it would require situating the cord just right. My stereo at the time sucked, so this is how I did it.

The shipped new speakers to me overnight in advance of me sending the old ones back... and they paid for shipping both ways.


The PC is still going strong too. The PC I sold to my wife's aunt, and the Sony monitor is what I am looking at now.

 

[Passions]

The only thing I don't like about Dell was shipping my comp out via USPS!!! GRRRRRRRRRR....it took 2 weeks to get here, GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. But paying $450 for a Pentium4 2.4ghz, 256mb PC2700, GeForce4 Ti4200 64mb, 40gb HD, 40x CDRW, in my opinion R0X0RS!!!!!! Thank you, Dell, I love you!

 

[DrVos]

Here at work, we're in the process of moving from some older 700mhz workstations to the newer Xeon 1.8ghz+ workstations that Dell offers..Customer support has been in my experience, better than with any other company I have ever dealt with. For instance, yesterday I noticed a problem with the quote package Dell sent us for a recently configured computer. I called up Dell SB and in about 20 seconds I was talking to a live CS rep who took care of the problem. All in all, I spent 5 minutes on the phone. It took me longer to navigate the touch tone menu than wait on hold! Thats what I call customer service.

All in all, I'd trust Dell more than any local company around here. Most of the mom and pop computer stores seem FAR more "shady"

 

[Rand]

I've always found them to have solid texh cupport and excellent prices relative to any other big OEM.

I still have a slightly bad taste in my mouth from their fiasco with selling a number of laptops with desktop Pentium 4 processors and marking them as being Mobile P4's and refusing replacement when the customer learned they had been decieved.... well besides those few customers that banned together on the lawsuit.
Granted they've long since started labeling their processors properly for their Laptops....

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

They sell OEM drives as retail, then act like you are crazy when you complain, so yes.

 

[Cerb]

I've never bought a Dell (or any brand name PC ), but I have messed with many, and a bit of tech support...Dell may be not be amazing, but try getting help from your local ma bell telecom and then come back and complain .
They usually (with the exception of the occasional great deal like any company selling products) don't have the best price, but the parts are always good, nice and upgradeable as long as the person didn't get the $700 desktop version (ugh)...and if I had to open a machine and do anything to it (and it wasn't one built by me)...I'd have to go with a Dell, then Gateway (wierd and often loud cases, but not usually too bad), and then in deepest pit of Hell, HP and Compaq (I have a friend who got a HP celery 400 because his mom would buy it at the time...later he was quite happy with a Duron 800, more RAM (64MB? screw that), a real modem, and a clean install of an OS (WinXP)...nothing to piss you off right good like the mobo having the space and traces for more PCI slots and an AGP slot and the physical slots not being there!).

 

[Bleep]

I have never bought a Dell but I recommend them all the time and my customers have never been screwed over by dell, right now I only build high end machines to gamers and for those that want a just good machine Dell is the way to go.
Bleep

 

[neoro]

I got a Dell......
Bought it long long time ago.......
during the pII 450MHz Era.....
For the Period of 2 years throughout my warranty period
I changed my

Hard Disk
CD ROM
Graphic Cards
Modem - 3 Times..........
Keyboard
Mouse

Dont get me wrong here
1) The support was excellent. I just call them up, tell them the problem and "chated" with them for a while and the next thing I know it.... The Delivery Man was at my door for a Door-to-door exchange.....
2) There was sometime I felt that the hardware wasn't working right.... not that it was actually Out Of Order......... I still get something new...

Well......... You dont really enjoy all the Fun of overclocking though......
The options in the bios is rather limited....
But from what i heard.... The PSU is custom build and you can only get it from them.....

 

[Boris691]

u used to like dell and used to suggest them. i no longer do

they have some "shady" things about there company but not so much that i would call them that.

they dont always put in the best part but make you think it is better then it is. the will say 512 ram. and not mention that its 133 sd ram.
this slows down a p4 system by a huge amount.

they dont offer to much in the way of options. i used to be able go to there site and change almost everything about a system. now there are very few things you can change. like if you dont want on board sound then you have the turtle beach sound card to choose. thats one option. i know its an good sound card but i would like some more selection. or a choice of 4 video cards seems off to me. some of these thing have changed, such as now they offer two sound cards but its still not up to par with what i was used to with dell 2 years ago. they have made buying a computer easyer which is good. but they have also left some things out to make it that way. dell is good but you can do better nowadays.

they used to be the best by me. but the saying "were getting a dell" just does not give me any excitment anymore.