What do People think of "Dell" Computers?

omnicorp

I recently got a new Dell 4600 and have had a few minor problems with it, nothing much, just error reports and such on some programs and was wondering what people thought of Dell PC's.

They naren't as bad as trhe old Gateway we had, but that was about 6 years old so...

Anyway, I've heard bad things about them and was wondering if these comments (which were sadly, very General, like "Dell Pc's are nothing compared to HP's," etc...) have some point.

jank

I think some of the members on here are after having some bad experiences with their build qualities and their after sales services like support and the like.

Personally im not after experiencing any problems what so ever with these machines but we bought them almost 2 years ago and things have changed since then. I think their production lines are more rushed these days hence lower quality

aidan_walsh

I've been using various Dell Demension models in college for the last 4 years with little or no trouble.

Headshot

****ing dell

Big Nelly

Dont like Dell/HP/Compaq/anyone PC's...they usually throw in cheap equipment and the upgradeability is useless.....as far as I know the Dell systems you cant replace the system board in them???

Build your own system and you will get top quality equipment for a better overall price!! its easy!! I have built 2-3 systems now! the first time is the hardest and then you will fly through building them!!

radiospan

I don't like Dell. They seem to use Intel Extreme Graphics or some piss poor onboard graphics for many of their PCs.

It should state in their brochures that these PCs don't have a hope in hell of running any modern games properly with onboard graphics solutions.

Komplett have a new PC Builder on their UK site, might be better bet than Dell.

Ciaran500

Dell make decent work pc's but if your doing any gaming or anything to stress the pc stay away!

The Muppet

You get what you pay for and if its a cheap work machine you are after Dell is hard if not impossible to beat pricewise. If your into playing games a self build is the way to go.

grimloch

Big Nelly wrote:

.....as far as I know the Dell systems you cant replace the system board in them???

true the motherboards they use wont fit into ''normal'' cases and dell cases wont accomodate normal motherboards, im pretty sure they use different PSU's too, that being said i think that goes for all prebuilt computers....except maybe alienware, plus dell charge way too much if you want to upgrade anything via them

Nukem

I have two dells in our house and i really dont like them.Bought one 3yrs ago and the other last yr.Never again.Needed a comp fast and at the time i didnt know much about comps now i do and realize the errors of my way.

Just cheap parts is all i say. (i.e) The lastest dell gaming system the XPS
has a a X300SE i mean 90 euro in Kompeltt or a X800XT whish is a top class card but they tack on about 150% of the component price.

In a nut shell-DELL to dear or cheap parts!!!!!

Dr. Dre

'nuff said

Tiriel

haven't had any problems with my Dell Inspiron, have had it 1year 11 months... extended the warranty cos of rumours I'd heard.. so far have no idea of customer service as I haven't needed anything! touch wood quick overall very very happy and satisfied with all aspects of Dell product.

secret_squirrel

Dells are great for work pc's - I keep trying to subtly kill mine off at work and it just wont die!!!

Other than that I dont think they are a great deal. And their advert at the moment tells you that they wont rip you off with an old product and then goes on to tell you about the latest offer - a P4 2.4Ghz ffs.

OfflerCrocGod

omnicorp do you have a free will?

Bri

They stink. Not getting into why just believe me!

isolde

I'm no computer expert but I have a Dell Inspiron 5100 (laptop) and I really regret buying it. I would never buy a Dell laptop again. I've no idea what I'd buy instead but it wouldn't be Dell!

Laptop is only about 18 months old and overheats and turns itself off all the time.. a friend of mine had a look at it for me recently and it hasn't turned itself off much lately but it still sucks. They have had similar problems with hundreds of other 5100s (I read about it on their forums) but when you ring them they won't admit any liability and spend about an hour on the phone telling you to do this and that to no avail.

Anyway that's beside the point I guess. Having said all that, I have a Dell Dimension PC and it works perfectly. It's just the laptops I don't trust.

~ isolde.

Mac daddy

Dell = Crap hardware they don't make any of there own stuff use the cheapest of cheap parts-

As for there support i once had the joy calling them to get a cd rom drive replaced for one of the lads - Drive was not detected in OS or at post - Reseated cabling checked jumpers - tried a new drive worked fine - Called Dell up to get it replaced - i was on the phone for 45 minutes the guy did not have a clue what he was doing asking me to check the device manager? WTF told him what i did and what needs to be done.
I was then told he would have to speak to there technical expert - he called me back 30 minutes later - to see if he could send me a software diags?

Told him no just send a new drive and i will replace it myself - he had to go off again - came back to say drive would be sent out to me

All together 2 hours on the phone= not a happy chappy

Muppets :eek: :eek:

Thordon

I would advise against getting a Dell unless youre using it for a business or something. Its SO easy to build your own, youll save loads and end up with a powerful quality computer tailored to your needs. As has been said earlier, Dells are very hard to upgrade and tend to have Celerons (useless for anything graphical like games) and crappy onboard graphics.

They will run word processing/web etc all fine, but tbh, a 5 year old computer can do that.

Dr. Dre

Attached is a very funny story of a guys alleged dealings with Dell.
Quite lengthy, but worth the read IMO.
(MS Word)

stevenmu

From an it point of view dells are great. Pretty reliable and when something does crap out it's very easy to get in and swap it out. They may use cheap parts but they're generally only cheap because they're not bleeding edge technology, generally they'll last as long, if not longer then top of the price-range stuff. For home users just looking for a cheap internet/email/word processing machine they're pretty good for the same reasons.

If somebody goes and blindly hands dell €1,000+ for a "gaming" pc without knowing what parts are in it or if it's good value or not, then they deserve whatever they get. Fair play to Dell for helping people with more money than brains dispose of some of it. Let's face it, if Dell didn't take their money the next passing volcano insurance salesman would.

koneko

Dell PCs are better than a fair amount of the other pre-builds out there, particular some of their newer stuff (like the XPS systems). Still doesn't beat building your own, and they can sometimes use quite cheap/shoddy parts (espesh the mobos).

stuey

imo the old dell xps machine. such as the xps500 or xps900 are fantastic pcs. They have a habit of being able to last for ever. I have three of them one aa server. They run so god damn well. They were very welll built and the parts can take a beating. It is a fact. Pcs of about 4-5 years ago were built far better than pcs of today. They had fewer problems with parts and everyhting just seemed to work. Pcs nowadays seem to be built at a lower standard.

I think dell are ok. With there cheap prices they are still screwing us over. I still think that if you are going to get a good pc build it urself

fintan

The service you get with dell all depends on if you are a business or home user.

I would only deal with dell through a business, simple as that

petes

I have an inspiron 8600 laptop and 2 year old dimension....both work perfectly ok..with only minor issues...at work we have all dells...and so far i havent found them to be a problem...they are great for business!!!

on the gaming end...anyone who plays games will not use integrated graphics anyway..there built like that for a reason...they use your existing sys mem and to keep costs down

ive been playing far cry, doom 3 and hopefully this weekend half life 2 on my laptop...and they all work fine..

but i do agree with the benefits of building your own pc...
you can build a new comp with all the bells and whistles for half that of a a decent prebuilt gaming rig (bar alienware) and as someone here said they are not that hard to build

as much as i like dells..the next pc i own will be built from scratch!!!

petes

just a quick note i forgot to add...dell support is complete crap...i used it once and they couldnt resolve my issue - the blamed the manufacturer of the part that wasnt working..nothing to do with dell...if you buy a dell dont use the support

omnicorp

I think it's the cheap Chinese stuff they put in them, but they are cheap.
That said it IS hard to find a good quality computer.

Oh, and I take back what I said earlier, Gateway ARE very GOOD.
our old 350mhz could nearly match our new 2.8Ghz

The Real B-man

fooking dell i have an 8300 and it ****e to mod and a poor 250w psu i defo building my own when i have the money and as for customer service paaaahh they transfer you to india for it ahhhhhhhhh

Headshot

The Real B-man wrote:

fooking dell i have an 8300 and it ****e to mod and a poor 250w psu i defo building my own when i have the money and as for customer service paaaahh they transfer you to india for it ahhhhhhhhh

ya you talk to this bloody indian dude he doesnt have a clue lol

the_syco

I have a Dell. Its not too bad. My 3rd PC I built myself (the 1st & 2nd were a 486, and a P1), and I got ripped off, it was crap, etc, so my Dad bought a Dell for the 4th PC. Its not too bad. It still works, and I'm able to add new stuff to it. Heck, D3 works on it, and HL2 should.

Any modder giving out that Dell is crap is a fool. Dell are mass producers of PC's. They sell to buniess's. Which is better from a business POV; 3 PC's to the gaming community, or 300 pre-made PC's to some company? The latter is.
Also, they'll survive because of their "tech support". Although it is crap, Gateway gave none, and they went bang after a short while.

The next machine, I'll build myself. I've learnt my mistakes, and know where to buy the stuff. Also, that the cheapest isn't the best, etc (f*cking celerons!).

[edit]
Forgot to mention; When I got the Dell, it was fine, but started to get sluggish after a while. When I looked inside it, I found that the fan of the graphics card was 5mm's away from my sound card. A serious design fault, but after changing around te config, I sorted it out (Also had to borrow a graphics card from a mate).

=-=

Oh, and by the way, I'm told that Dell are WAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYY better than Gateway from someone who works in the tech side of his company.
[/edit]

secret_squirrel

the_syco wrote:

(f*cking celerons!).

/me sighs for the good ole days when an overclocked celery 300a was as good as or faster than the top of range P2 450.

the_syco

secret_squirrel wrote:

/me sighs for the good ole days when an overclocked celery 300a was as good as or faster than the top of range P2 450.

I found out 2 months after I bought my 500Mhz Cleron, that if I had bought a 566Mhz Cleleron, I'd have been able to OC it to 800Mhz. I had 1st "Mom & Pop" store experience...

Dr Bolouswki

It should state in their brochures that these PCs don't have a hope in hell of running any modern games properly with onboard graphics solutions.

Yeah - you should give advertising and marketing seminars, that'd be a great way to sell a product. And it DOES state in the brochure, on an easy to read grid, that the entry level PC's are NOT suitable for games.

Alot of people have also stated dell components are crap - well, we choose our memory from a pool including kingston, crucial etc and hard drives from maxtor, WD, samsung etc - do you think dell could sell the PC's at the price they do using Geil memory and Raptor hard drives?

yes the mainboards are yellow pack but the PC buying public don't really care about these things - what they want is simplicity and reliability.

Take a look at the posts on this forum - a lot of people are praising dell pc's. Yes, I build my own PC's too, but I work in sales at Dell and there are 3 problems involved when someone complains about Dell. Stupid salespeople, stupid tech support, and last (but by no means whatsoever least) stupid customers.

Many of the sales people at Dell don't know a whole lot about PC's. What they do know is how to sell. Personally I give the most accurate technical assesment of a machine, but I hear many people saying 'Yes thats a very fast machine' about a piece of crap celeron. Mostly they don't know what fast means, and also they will say it cos thats what the customer wants to hear. I have lost sales because when a customer meentions games I tell them the ****ty €599 offer won't do it (celeron and integrated graphics) they'll move on to another sales person, hear what they want to hear, and buy it (OOOhhh look, my PC's so modern, it's got a flat panel!) These are the same idiots who complain 3 months later when it won't run the game they bought for little timmy.

Also, even though they know nothing about PC's, they won't buy extended next day warranty (I have a friend who works with computers they confidently say - yeah, data entry most probably) so if something does go wrong, they piss and moan cos they have to toubleshoot over the phone and then send the PC away with a courier AND its only 12 months cover. I mean, I build my own systems and I'll buy a part with 3 year cover over 1 year as long as its within 20%. Why? PC components sometimes break! Oh my God!

Yes, Dell tech support seems to be fairly crap. It's in India, which means unfortunately sometimes debatabley poor levels of english. However, education standards in India are high and I'm sick of all the racist crap that I hear daily when customers complain about it BEING in India. Who gives a fcuk where it is - if its crap its crap, country is irrelvant. I worked in tech support for two years in Gateway, and the main problem with tech support is customers freaking out. They are stressed cos the PC don't work, stressed cos they have to wait on the phone before they talk to someone, stressed because even though they are being given simple clear and concise instructions they think OH MY GOD COMPUTERS I CANT HANDLE THIS and don't follow what they are told to do, and stressed yes because the level 1 support is formulaic, often given by badly trained personel and sometimes delivered in very strong accents with poor english by people who can't understand kerry or cavan or dublin accents. Everyones stressed so and the end result is crap experience of the dell product. Fair enough, but look at all the reasons. And keep in mind 90% of tech support calls are generated how? That's right - user error.

Dell didn't become the biggest PC company by being crap. They are not the fastest growing PC company by being crap. We are not taking points of HP, IBM etc year in year out by being crap. Point is, you hear a lot from the unhappy customers, and nothing from the ones that are happy.

My advice when buying a Dell PC? PM me! I know what I'm selling and I'm good with the discounts! My advice when dealing with tech support? Be firm, polite and know what you're talking about. Even the worst tech will replace a part if you give him good reason to believe you know whats wrong. My commiserations to the guy who had all the trouble with the dead cd-rom drive. My advice if you're a 'stupid customer'? Do 5 minutes research on that interweb thing about what makes a good computer. Buy any of the entry level PC magazines and have a read through it. And, this might come as a surprise, spend a bit more than entry level prices and you will get !Gosh! a better PC.

Is a car crap if it breaks down when you drive it madly around waste ground? Toddle off to the mechanic then, but don't expect him to be sympathetic.

Any big corporation has things wrong with it. Any enthusiast will generally think generic brand products are crap. Apart from PC's, I like creative writing, and one of the main themes in my work is immorality in business and the way people think that profit comes before moral obligation. Dell, for all its faults, is a pretty good place to work, a pretty good product and very price competitive, and the corporate message they push internally is a stong ethical one. I am far from a 'company man', but my attitude comes from experience not prejudice.

However, they do charge too much on higher end stuff.

Caveat Emptor.

Thanks for listening.

Capt'n Midnight

omnicorp wrote:

I think it's the cheap Chinese stuff they put in them, but they are cheap.
That said it IS hard to find a good quality computer.

Oh, and I take back what I said earlier, Gateway ARE very GOOD.
our old 350mhz could nearly match our new 2.8Ghz

Not sure of the stats now but when AST where here 90% of EU PC's were made in Ireland and most of the components came from Ireland too, Intel proc/MB's creative xylinx etc. etc. etc.

Stephen

/* remembers his old AST system with 100mhz Cyrix CPU. God that was sh1t

halenger

plazzTT wrote:

It should state in their brochures that these PCs don't have a hope in hell of running any modern games properly with onboard graphics solutions.

That said I've seen them play a certain multiplayer version of a certain just recently released FPS game. These PCs did seem to be using GeForce 440s or something. They were playing it on full settings (AA n all that).

Anyhow. That said I'm not a huge fan of Dell. My reasons are as follows:
1) They're a low priced competitor for my own company (whose prices I do try to match but it's hard when you're using standard parts);
2) Non standardness. PSUs not replacable (some ATX/AT hybrid). This seems more expensive in my mind but they probably make it back in replacement parts. The cases are not even funny. A friend of mine has one and he can't even remove one side nor the front. The side is literally rivitted to the case.

I think I had more points but I don't remember.

I do however have a Dell Inspiron 8000 laptop which I'm not terribly displeased with. It's too heavy but it's really a desktop replacement so no real problem there. The 4200RPM hard drive is slightly annoying but other than that it's served me well. At least it has a fuller keyboard (compared to the non widescreen newer (may cheaper?) ones).

I wouldn't badmouth Gateway really. I had one as my first PC and have never really been displeased with it. Doesn't suffer the problems of non-standard parts.

RicardoSmith

Anyone who complains about Dell really doesn't know much about computers. Its like complaining their 1.4 VW Golf can't keep up with Home built Rally Car. You'll find it difficult to build a PC and include the same licenced software and a warranty for less. As for reliability, I've just finished on a upgrade project where we installed over 1000 Dell PCs and laptops. We had about 12-14 machines fail.

But asking on a computer forum, where the majority of people will build their own computers, and don't want a warranty, support or software and are going to be doing a lot of gaming, is obviously going to get most people favoring home built PC's.

That said I think the higer spec'ed Dell PC's are over priced. Incidentally I currently have a Dell 2x Xeon workstation with 2x TFTs at work and its a lovely machine. Very quiet. I'd hate to think what it cost though.

halenger wrote:

....
I wouldn't badmouth Gateway really. I had one as my first PC and have never really been displeased with it. Doesn't suffer the problems of non-standard parts.

Gateway were/are just a cheaper Dell. You got lucky with yours. I've never seen so many failures as I have with Gateways. Really bad monitors for some reason too.

omnicorp

the Gateway monitor was very bad, flikering all over the place.

Fenster

I'd never, ever shop from Dell as I got screwed around big time. They might have good PCs, but their customer services are terrible:

Last Febuary, I decided It Was Time For A New PC. Being somewhat unfamiliar with assembly, I just went to the Dell website and basically ordered their most expensive gaming desktop.

The transaction got turned down.

I ring the bank, they say everything is okay with the account, so I submit it again.

Again, it got turned down.

At this point, I get a call from a Dell sales rep. I can't remember his name for the life of me, so lets call him Simon.

Simon tells me that if I like, he can resubmit the entire transaction to the bank from his end. I agree, and this time around it goes through perfectly.

That was Thursday, on Monday, I arrive home from work to find a shiny new laptop waiting for me.

I figured that it was just a distribution cock-up. I work with distribution myself, so I didn't think it was anything big, until I called the next morning to recetify my order. Simon insisted that I had in fact ordered a laptop and spent a good ten minutes arguing with me on this matter. Eventually he admits that he messed up and promises that the laptop will be picked up and my desktop delivery by friday.

Two weeks pass...

I call Simon, and once again he gives me this big bull**** story about how the courier tried to contact me, but failed and tries to argue with me about how they've done their best. I deal daily with the courier that Dell use and I point out they had several contact numbers for me (work, home, my mobile and my brother's mobile) and that if delivery fails despite that, they leave a note informing you of it.

He admits that he took no action regarding the laptop and I give him until Friday (this was Monday) to provide the desktop, or I'd seek a full refund.

Well, roll on Friday, nothing.

I ring Simon and get a voice-mail message informing all callers that he had left Dell and that any outstanding issues must be dealt with through customer services.

I contact customer services, and get put through to one of the Indian support centres. In fairness to the call centre, they were actually pretty helpful. They laid out all the facts of the issue from Dell's side and I basically found out that Simon put through a laptop in the initial order and took absolutely no action otherwise as he was leaving Dell within a month.

With what I had then, I emailed Dell in Ireland and told them I wanted an immediate refund and uplift of the laptop or I'd take them to court-I know that this seems a pretty short timescale, but I work in a warehouse and deal with distribution services daily, so I don't really take any crap from them with regards stuff that I order.

They agreed immediately to a refund and uplift. However, another week passed in which delivery "failed twice". I contacted the courier myself at work and found that no order had been sent to them by Dell about uplift of a laptop. Extremely pissed at this point, I threaten to go to the press unless I get an immediate ulift and refund. The laptop was collected the next day and my money back within a week, at which point I went into Maplin and bought the parts for a better PC than the Dell one, which worked out about €500 cheaper.

So, I advise everyone to avoid them.

omnicorp

damn, one month too late for me.

It isn't to bad, I amn't using it for quantam physics just

1. Internet
2. DreamWeaver
3. SimCity

seemns fine so far, except for:

1. Internet Explorer (I now have Firefox)
2. Outlook Express (I now have to trail through eircom.net)
3. More

Fenster

omnicorp wrote:

2. Outlook Express (I now have to trail through eircom.net)

Why not use Thunderbird?

omnicorp

The things that have gone wrong so far:

1. Internet Explorer
2. Outlook Express
3. Several Age of Empire Crashes
4. Several other crashes
5. I hate the damn keyboard
6. The mouse is fairly crap
7. The mouse mat (a dell one) is nearly broken after a month

My Uncle works at Delll so I won't slag off their Staff....

Fenster

Replace the keyboard and mouse then. Those are the first things I did with the last branded PC I bought-gots me a nice MS natural keyboard and optical mouse.

omnicorp

OK, and how do I replace Windows XP?

Fenster

Install Linux?

omnicorp

It's not that bad

Fenster

You asked an honest question, I gave an honest answer.

Dr Bolouswki

1. Internet Explorer
2. Outlook Express
3. Several Age of Empire Crashes
4. Several other crashes
5. I hate the damn keyboard
6. The mouse is fairly crap
7. The mouse mat (a dell one) is nearly broken after a month

Yeah - Dell are crap :rolleyes:

The Muppet

King Jerk wrote:

Yeah - Dell are crap :rolleyes:

Especially Dell Internet Explorer and Outlook Express and dont get me started on Dell Age Of Empires.,:D

Dempsey

Im happy with what I got from Dell when I ordered off them but I'll still be building my own from now on.

RicardoSmith

Fenster wrote:

Why not use Thunderbird?

Because it doesn't support hotmail? Yes all that software Dell makes like XP and Outlook, and mouse mats....(How do you break a mouse mat?). They are also bad people because they gave simon a job, and because blue.

Fenster

RicardoSmith wrote:

Because it doesn't support hotmail?

You mean "Hotmail doesn't support Thunderbird," rather?