Your opinon on Dell Deals that end today.....

[TheBends]

Today is the last day for the Free Shipping deal at Dell today. I was wondering if you guys could give your opinion on the following deals that were posted on another site. Are these HOT or Warm deals? Please don't flame me. This is my first post! Anyway, here they are:

LAPTOP DEAL
"Inspiron 3800 Pentium III 600, 14.1" active matrix Screen, 32MB, 5 GB, 24x CD, 56k modem, Works 2000 Suite, ONLY $1349. Good luck finding a current model 14.1" screen laptop anywhere within $500 of this price."

DESKTOP DEAL
"This is an Intel 815 chipset based machine with fast 133 Mhz bus. Here is how to get it. Select Desktop, Dimension, Advanced (4100) customize, P3/800-866 with premium sound, All option view, Select 866, $100 off, 10 GB Drive, 64 MB PC133, Video Ready, Sound blaster live! Digital. Final Price = $1029. Awesome deal. Includes speakers, 3com ethernet card, no modem. Add more RAM elsewhere and use your present monitor. These machines have 2 dimm slots so get dense memory."


What do you think?
Thanks

 

[pen^2]

i am not sure about the laptop one but the desktop is suck fo sho! hell, just from top of my head i figured that kinda setup should never be sold for over $600. RIPOFF

 

[CyberPriceList]

i think the free shipping expired already.
intead they are offering free color printer OR scanner

 

[anazoal]

The laptop's a good deal (if a little skimpy on RAM), but the desktop is not.

 

[Souka]

If you get a dell Inspiron or Latitude laptop (P2-366 to P3-600) I HIGHLY recommend getting some sort of extended warranty...you'll need it.

I just left a job after being there almost 2 years. Alomst everyone used Dell laptops. As an administrator, my technicians were CONSTANTLY working with Dell getting repairs. Guess who had to deal with the top-doggs when their systems kept failing.....me. Biggest problem we had was some systems would just shutdown on their own, without warning. Win95, 98, NT4, W2k...didn't matter...about once every month or so, click...off the system went. My people and Dell could never figure out why.

Otherwise, they were decent workhorse laptops...much better than the Compaq Armada's we sometimes used.

My Two Pesos...

 

[bygdaddy]

I've had a Dell Inspiron 5000e for about 2 months now. I have been working it pretty hard and it's been rock solid....so far. 8)

 

[Biel]

Yea. I agree. Don't even think of skimping and not getting the three year warranty if you buy a Dell Laptop.

The last one I bought had all tese components go out within the first three years (fortunately, it seems ok after that, then again, how often does one use a 3 year old system?):

-hard drive
-floppy drive
-keyboard
-modem
-power supply

my $0.02...

 

[kombatmud]

I used to think dells were really reliable, until I did tech support for a company that used them exclusively. I've seen them die in ways I never thought laptops could die in. The good news is, I've had a lot of luck opening them up and fixing them after they die, as normally it's just a connection that comes loose. Dell technicians have even told me to try tightening the screws on the bottom when they stop working, to try to fix them, and amazingly, that has worked on multiple occasions. That being said, a 600MHz P-III laptop w/ a 14.1" screen is definately work more than $1300, however I would not use it without upgrading the ram first.
The desktop doesn't seem so impressive tho.

 

[bcterps]

Hmm, I've had my Dell Inspiron 7000, Pentium II 300, 128 megs of ram, 13 gig HD, DVD drive, swappable zip drive, 15" screen, etc. for 2.5 years now and havent had any problems whatsoever. My only complaint is that the thing weighs a ton.

--Ben

 

[bigbootydaddy]

WELL, my company has a comp purchase plan thru dell and i went ahead and did it, and got the 933 which screams speed, hehe, and the thing i hated was rambus, too expensive to upgrade, but they thru in the free dvd a while back and fireport stuff, so it was cool, the discount was nice.

BUT!!!

i got it and instantly had hd problems, and so i formatted and reloaded form a real ms98se cd and it works beautifully, all that dell customize crud i think is what kills it, so i went plain and am very happy with it, its the xbr series, so just think about it...

one complaint is that there are NO ISA ports, i know they are old, but i have one card that ran on it and was kinda dissapointed to see no isa ports..also the monitors are nothing beyond plain, i like my old compaq monitors cause they came with extra usbs up the butt and some other stuff, but whatever floats your boat,nevertheless pc world rated the dell desktops number one almost everytime, they are expensive, but egh, again i only got it cause of employee discount

my 2000000 cents

 

[mikebill]

the desktop one seems only cold to me. Won't expect a real deal on desktop from Dell. The same configuration will be half priced from emachine.

 

[anazoal]

We have two DELL laptops and they're performing wonderfully considering the amount of abuse they get. They are a bit bulky though, and before we did a clean install of Windows, were prone to random system crashes and other odd hangups.

I always get an extended warranty on PC's. Components I've had problems with:
Motherboard (Gateway)
Monitor (Gateway)
CD-RW (HP)
Floppy drive!!!! (Gateway)
Keyboard (Gateway)
Ethernet PCMCIA card (DELL -- although I think someone yaked the connection piece)

 

[Nack]

The laptop is a good deal, but you you might do as well or better finding a clearance sale at a B+M. I bought an IBM thinkpad recently (last month), very similar to the laptop Dell is selling, only with a slower processor (C466), a DVD drive, 64MB of RAM and a 6GB hard drive for about $1000 on clearance. All of the other features, including the 14.1" XGA 1024 TFT active screen, were the same.

The desktop is a ripoff. Build it yourself. Save $400.

Good luck,

Nack

 

[Long]

We use Dell desktops and servers at work. I'm not up on pricing but component wise it's decent except for the lamo ATI video cards that have very little or no support for Windows 2000. Other than that they use Intel motherboards, Crucial (Micron) memory, Maxtor hard drive, 3Com NIC, Microsoft mouse, etc.

As for laptops, we have no Dell laptops. We do have Gateway, Sony, Compaq, and dropped them all except for Sony.

 

[gopalkk]

For buying a PC, you should wait as much as possible.

I am sure Dell will announce more price-cuts
say about 10-20% more, as they have to compete with AMD chips.

I can suggest buy-atlas.com

 

[navap]

I think they will extend the deal, or even offer more discount.

 

[RossMAN]

I agree the Dell laptop deals were good, I was seriously considering getting a Dell Inspiron 4000 laptop for a few days. Thankfully I decided against it because I don't really need a laptop, so it would be fun for about a week then I'd look at my credit card bill with a fat $2,000 charge and wonder "why oh why".

So instead I bought a LOADED Dell Dimension 4100/866 for close to $2,000 mostly because of two of their specials they were offering:
Free upgrade to the beautiful 19" Dell P991 SONY FD Trinitron monitor
Free shipping

Plus they have a $25 referral program which is really nice, you refer someone to the same salesperson (yes you have to use the phone, and kiss your 1% eBates goodbye since it's a phone and not online order). Anyhow if you refer a new/existing Dell customer to your salesperson you receive a $25 GC and so does the person you referred. I found out it kind of works like a WebCertificate.com, supposedly after your system ships within a week you'll receive something in the mail. The $25 GC can be spent anywhere on the Internet that accepts Visa/MasterCard so I'll probably wait for Buy.com to have free shipping weekends again, use a "new customer" coupon then boom badda bing! I was able to convince my roomate and my sister to buy a new Dell Wednesday so I received two $25 GCs from them. Plus I said that my co-worker friend who bought a Dell in July 2000 had referred me so he received a $25 GC and I received one also.

What do you guys think of my new Dell?

Qty Part# Abbreviated Description
---------------------------------------------------------
1 461-0507 Dimension 4100 Series,Pentium III Processor at 866 MHz
1 310-0436 Microsoft Internet Keyboard, Dell Edition for Windows ME
1 310-0589 Logitech MouseMan Wheel (PS/2v),Factory Install
1 310-8921 EducateU Information/TechSheet ,English,Dimension,Used
for
1 311-7001 128MB SDRAM at 133MHz,Factory Install
1 313-0471 3COM V.90 PCI Telephony Modem Factory Install
1 313-1303 DVD ROM with Software Decoding
1 313-2001 12X Max Variable DVD ROM Drive Factory Install
1 313-3925 harman/kardon HK Speakers Factory Install
1 313-7222 Dell Application Back-up CD, Factory Install
1 313-7869 SB LIVE! Value Digital,Factory Install
1 320-4512 NEW 32MB DDR nVidia GeForce2 GTS 4X APG Graphics Card
1 340-2409 3.5",Floppy Drive,Factory Install
1 340-7300 40GB Ultra ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM),Factory Install
1 412-0175 Resolution Assistant, Factory Install
1 412-1009 MDK2 Action Game
1 412-1050 SPIRE 6.0 For Windows Millennium,English,Readyware,
1 412-1951 Dell Solution Center,Dimension
1 412-2578 Norton Anti-Virus for Windows Millennium,US
English,Factory
1 412-3526 No Internet Access Requested, Factory Install
1 412-5430 Software,Music Match 5.10, Original Equipment
1 420-8050 Windows Millennium (ME), Factory Install
1 430-0591 No Network Card Requested, Dell Dimension
1 460-6417 19"(18" Viewable)P991 Factory Install
1 460-8320 No Zip Drive Requested
1 900-1600 Type 3 Contract - Next Business Day Parts & Labor
1 900-1602 Type 3 Contract - Next Business Day Parts & Labor
1 412-2356 Microsoft Money 2001 BOEM,CD with Doc,English
1 412-2612 MS Office Small Business Edition 2000 SR1,CD with

 

[lex]

Nack: Where did you score that laptop at?? Sounds like one I would like to get!