Do you think Dell systems are really "THAT" good....

[chiwawa626]

Do you think Dell systems are really "THAT" good....its been pissing me off. PCworld has an automatic firstplace in every category all the time for DELL systems. Preformance wise all the other oem companys using athlons are usualy better by a lot. If the company who made it is small oem, usualy pcworld puts tech support: "fair" due to "Insufficent data" thats BS. Take away dells tech support and u got regular oem systems, but then again, when i call system support for my old ABS brand computer from ABScomputers.com, i get support faster and easyer then dells long holds. Also i called for help on several dell systems and ended up doing the troubleshooting myself with no help from dell. Overall i dont see whats soooo....good about delll and why they always get #1.

 

[nickburns]

i owned a dell p3 450, and never had any problems with it........its just that the damn case only had 2 5.25" drive bays.

 

[chiwawa626]

problems isnt the thing, ive had and have worked with many PC's that never had problems, dell and non-dell, but....

 

[nortexoid]

that's cuz they do benchmarks comapring systems that aren't even comparable...really..they're all using diff compoennts and such - obviously, the ones they do test, the dell's having better components...

anyway, any system running the exact same hardware and driver set will perform on a par w/ eachother whether or not it's made by dell or my retarded cousin...

(he's not really retarded, but let's pretend this time...shhh)

let the dell face off against alienware, falcon, etc. systems and see how well they stand up....they won't...(stand up that is)...

 

[R0b0tN1k]

Dells are fantastic. I've used them at home and at work and they really are great stable and dependable machines. Their next-day on-site support is top-notch...you just have to know how to get past the front-line helpdesk. There is a lot more to a computer system than speed and performance...which is why AMD and VIA components are nowhere to be seen in professional and business-oriented systems.

 

[Zenmervolt]

ZDNet also seems to have 1st place reserved for Dell, but I also noticed that Dell is the #1 advertiser on ZDNet by a large margin, and that the systems compared are often not comparable, such as when they compared a Dell Inspiron 8000 to an IBM ThinkPad T21, when a ThinkPad A21p would have been a much fairer adversary. Also, I have heard too many stories about Dell's going bad, though the warranty service is always very good.

Zenmervolt

 

[chiwawa626]

i find that in some of those other such as micronpc syst preformance, and alienware, u get better components, bigger better monitors, and cdrws and stuff...

 

[chiwawa626]

<< Dells are fantastic. I've used them at home and at work and they really are great stable and dependable machines >>



Ive used alot of computers too, most are pretty good, a lot computers are as stable as dells, mabey not the athlons on via chipsets u guys build at home, but im sure gatways athlons are stable and a lot of the other ones too.

 

[divinemartyr]

Either way you look at it, any company that can offer a 3-year ON-SITE warranty cannot be making a bad product and making money at the same time. Not to mention, Dell, being younger than some of the other companies out there such as Compaq and HP, already has servers which meet or beat their competition, sometimes by a large margin. A close friend of mine is a network administrator for an advertising agency and all he purchases are Dell servers. My company is now standardizing everyone on Dell laptops as well. Dell just makes a good product overall. They use a lot of Intel components (motherboards, nics) and while they may not be the highest performing components, they are definitely some of the most stable.

divinemartyr

 

[ElFenix]

now that micro$oft is going to be terribly evil and require everyone to register then to call them and wait for hours each time you reinstall windows and not let people run windows on more than one computer dell will look like a steal if you're not going to overclock. maybe even then.

 

[rahvin]

Dell support kicks ass. Next day airborne replacement on a 19&quot; monitor and they picked up the return shipping, again, next day airborne with pickup. Things don't break often if you pick good components but I gotta tell ya, if something does break at 10pm at night it's nice to have a part airmailed the next day (with a 10min phone call at 10pm at night) and in your hands by noon the day after that. Plus if you factor in the cost of software Dell computers are very very price competitive with building it yourself.

 

[sciencewhiz]

PC WORLD bases their recommendation on three major factors: price, performance, and support.

SUPPORT: Dell's support is the best that I have ever experienced. There is not contest here.

PERFORMANCE: Dell's systems are not the fastest systems on the block. They cannot outperform Athlons but do very well when placed against other PIII systems.

PRICE: Dells systems are comparable to or better priced that similarly equiped PCs from other major brands. When I was pricing computers, they were cheapest by $100 when considering major manufactures. If you can find a cheaper system, it is because someone skimped on the support or other components (not including building your own)

Since Dell has two categories virtually wrapped up it is clear why they always rule the PC WORLD charts. remember people do buy systems for reasons other that performance, performans, performance

 

[cockeyed]

A buddy of mine just bought a Dell on my recommendation. This is his 1st PC. I picked out all of the components for his system. After adding up the cost, I found that I could not build that same system for their price. They don't use proprietary parts and upgrading should not be a problem. The motherboard is an i815E made by Intel so it should be stable running a PIII-866. When you compare everything you get for your dollars, Dell is hard to beat.

 

[chiwawa626]

I aggree dells are great pcs, stable, and everyhting else but preformance is a big part too. also i wonder why they always win? Hp should be up there atleast once

 

[hans007]

dell wins. Guess why. Check the back cover. All the magazines are biased. My dad's company used to make systems for retail, but they just makes stuff for HP now. Anyways in the early 90s late 80s they were told by pc mag reviewers that their system would register an &quot;Average&quot; rating instead of a below average if they were able to give the reviewers &quot;extra&quot; systems for their own personal use. As in give and let them have forever. Well they didnt give any and their systems were bashed in the review. Dell pays for the back cover ad. It is quite possibly the most expensive ad space in the magazine. Thus #1. Gateway pays for a nice fold out in the middle. Again they are in the top 5. Etc.

 

[dcdomain]

Yup, I think they are one of the better system builders out there. And by that, I'm talking about the larger ones, not the enthusiasts ones like Alienware... I find Dell and Micron pc's to be very well built and stable computers. Used them at school and at work before...

I personally used to have a Dell, ran fine for 4 years... no problems at all. Recently handed down to my sister... great computer... would have probably bought a Dell again (with that 20% rebate) but this time, I chose to build my own.. and wanted to go with AMD anyway.

 

[Cknyc]

Just look at the back cover of the magazine, If there is a large 3 page dell add then thats most likely the reason Dells get first place.

 

[Erasmus-X]

Dell doesn't always build the fastest or most appealing PCs (I usually build my own), but I will have to say that their support kicks total ass.

A power surge hit my apartment about a year and a half ago and one of the things it affected was the Dell Dimension XPS-R400 in my bedroom. The surge fried the BIOS and the system would no longer boot. I gave Dell a call at about 11pm on a Sunday night and TWO DAYS later, a technician arrived at my door with a replacement motherboard. Didn't cost me a dime.

On another occassion, the Altec Lansing ACS295 speakers that came with that same system failed (the left speaker was blown). Dell rush-delivered me a replacement set via Airborne Express and even paid the shipping to send the bad ones back.

Now that ladies and gentleman, is SERVICE. In fact, Dell is the only OEM I've ever dealt with bearing this kind of quality. They are really THAT good. Ziff-Davis and others tend to be biased towards Dell, but the truth of the matter remains that they really do stand behind their products.

While I'd probably not buy another Dell desktop (they tend to be too lacking in expansion and they offer no performance-tuning options), I'm definitely going to be picking up a laptop from them. I really don't mind making the extra investment for a Dell, even if a competitor offers a similar product for less. They definitely get my A+.

 

[HellRaven]

<< Dells are fantastic. I've used them at home and at work and they really are great stable and dependable machines. >>


Well, just keep in mind thats your experience. I have talked to many people that weren't so enthusiastic about their Dell.



<< Their next-day on-site support is top-notch...you just have to know how to get past the front-line helpdesk. >>


I would pretty much agree with that. Next-day on-site is always nice.



<< There is a lot more to a computer system than speed and performance... >>


As a general rule that is true. However, what if AMD were able to offer equivalent or better performance at a lower price than Intel with close if not comparable stability? Wait, they do.



<< which is why AMD and VIA components are nowhere to be seen in professional and business-oriented systems >>


Ok here is where I lost you.

Do you actually truly believe that AMD and VIA don't have a larger professional and business marketshare because of stability? I think that is just an excuse to cover up the real reasons.

The way corporations work and how they make purchases is interesting but when you look at it, it is pretty easy to see why. I don't claim to be an expert, but like I said - it doesn't take much to see what goes on.

The reason corporations and professionals buy Intel systems is based on several things.

1. They are longtime Intel users from before the KT133/Tbird.

2. Purchasing managers don't want to &quot;rock the boat&quot; or &quot;risk&quot; getting AMD systems because they are afraid that if there are any problems (problems which can occur no matter what the platform) they will get blamed for it.

3. Dell is very big in the business/professional market and they only use Intel because of their exclusive contracts and long term relationship with Intel.

4. The management and employees are more confortable using an Intel system due to their lack of knowledge with computer hardware. Due to their lack of knowledge, they rely on a more &quot;trusted&quot; name due to the fact that Intel is a much more widely known and regarded name because of their past products and large marketing budget.

I don't really blame companies for going with Intel. If I were in the higher ups of management with a limited or outdated knowledge of computer hardware I would go with the name I know and trust, which is Intel.

Intel systems are slightly easier (in general) to get stable when compared to a Via/AMD system. However, if we are talking business purchases, a business will be buying from a large OEM such as Gateway, Compaq, Dell , etc. These companies are allowed the luxury of tweaking and tweaking until they get a correct configuration which is then duplicated on every system they buy. They update the configuration as new patches are released and bugs are fixed. Any company worth anything will know how to correctly set its computer systems so that there are a minimum of problems out the door whether it is an Intel/Intel system or a Via/AMD system. If not, they are not worth buying from.

I have seen no data from a large OEM or one of the few &quot;brave&quot; businesses that have gone with AMD that have shown AMD systems to be X% more likely to have stability problems. Perhaps someone could give me a link to something like that or maybe PC Resources can jump in and edumacate me...but as far as I can tell if the company you buy from knows how to correctly set up their systems and all the &quot;other&quot; components are the same, you should not have a large difference in stability between an AMD/VIA and an INTEL/INTEL system.

Like I said, I don't claim to be an expert but I think the reasons and arguments I listed above are whats going on.

 

[Davegod75]

nothing is better than building your own system. Plus i hate dell's case's

 

[jeans2nd]

I thought I heard a year or so ago that IBM was getting out of manufacturing PC's and that they had entered into a contract with Dell for Dell to build their PC's. If so, then wouldn't IBM be just as good as Dell?

 

[KarsinTheHutt]

I've never had any major problem with my Dell system. I'm very impressed with their customer service (I had to replace some broken speakers) and reliability.

 

[Viperoni]

Dell has good customer service, you can't say they don't, but when you compare the actual components inside, they just don't stack up.
I mean the big OEM's (not necessarily Dell....) were and still are selling 1gigahertz machines with m64 video cards.
That's pathetic IMO.

Bottom line is: Big OEM's practically cannot build a computer using the high quality parts you do, because they would go broke doing so. Think about it. There's are reason why they're &quot;less expensive&quot;

 

[KarsinTheHutt]

The M64 is an 'option' for those 1 Gig+ systems. You can easily configure the system for a higher end video card (up to GF2 ULtra).

Dell always gives you a choice - they build what you ask them to build.

 

[Electric Amish]

We use Dell's here at work. Yeah they are stable I guess. On the other hand, they are slow, for some reason. All the people around the office that know anything about computers or have built their own have made the same comment. One guy asked for his custom built Athlon 650 back after we gave him a 1ghz Dell because the 650 felt faster.

Also, the brilliant people in the &quot;upper&quot; IS department had the brilliant idea to get 1ghz Dells for all the desktops and put the TNT2 M64 video card in them. That's what I'm using right now. I can't tell you how much it sucks watching screen redraws!

Although, the 2d is better than the 2d on my other Dell 733 with a Geforce 256 in it.

DAMN! I wish I could get one of the Dells with a Matrox G450!

amish