What's Your View Of PC World And Dell

kah22

This is more curiosity than anything else.

In another Forum that I subscribe to someone asked the question about buying a laptop within a set budget. I shared with them a Dell laptop I'd bought from PC World because it was a dam good price.

Anyway you should have heard the reactions: What PC World: You'll live to regret it: Wouldn't trust PC World as far as I could throw them. Just wait till you need service' That general type of very negative comment.

It was almost, but not quite as bad, when it come to comments about Dell.

Now to be honest I've bought Dell before and found them to be pretty good. I've bought from PC World before, but not computer, and never had to go back. So I'm left wondering: 'what's all the stink about.' It strikes me that if PC World has as many outlets as it has then it must be doing something right.

What's been your experience with PC World and Dell - just curious

Collumbo

I can't speak for PC World as I've never bought anything from them.

I have owned several dells. Mostly, great machines, no problems.

I did however have one serious bit of trouble with one it. The short story... eventually got it solved and my money back after 15 phone calls over 6 weeks (all made by me, put on hold for endless minutes). There seemed to be no communication among the various customer service staff whether using their CMS or otherwise, as the next person hadn't a clue what I had discussed with the previous person. It was a total and utter pain in the hole dealing with them. And, I had great difficulty understanding their accents (They were all in India). Lovely people and all... I just hadn't a clue what they were saying a lot of the time. God help you if English wasn't your first language dealing with them.

I have since bought a Dell XPS 3 years ago and it's a great machine. Very happy with it. Haven't had to make any phone calls :-)

BMCD44

Generally i find PC world fine, remember your buying a make of laptop, not there own, except for Avent. So if there is a problem with say an acer laptop, its Acer thats a fault, however thats when customer service comes in. I have never had to return anything to them so far, fingers crossed!

As for dell, well they used to be good, but we have baught many laptops and desktops from the over the last few years in work and the quality seems to be going downhill, (many returns and defects) so much so that i have descided not to buy my own latop there and look else where.

CyCaboose

I haven't been to PCWorld in a long long time, my general opinion of them is not much... I just think they're a rip off... maybe they aren't anymore as its been years since ive been there, but when i compared a hard-drive price in PCWorld with something I could order online there was a HUGE difference, I know online is always cheaper than bricks & mortar stores, but this was a huge difference in price, and it sickened me to see them sucker people into buying them...

so yeh i dont think too highly of them, but maybe they're cheaper now.

As for Dell, I bought a dell laptop 7 years ago and the thing still works.. the thing is built like a tank - i've never had to deal with their support tho... but their laptops themselves I've never had a problem with

ytareh

Both are ok until something goes wrong -expect to be without your product (and on hold on phone with Dell) for a LONG time.

ED E

If you are small/medium business dell are great. Home user not so much.

Rock solid machines either way, if a bit overpriced at times.


PC World I've rarely dealt with.

spider guardian

Bought a Compaq laptop in Currys (same owners as PC World) a few years ago, still going strong! Have bought a few peripherals in PC World, their generic chargers are very expensive, €90 for some of them, aimed towards the sucker market I would think since you can get the exact charger you need for your laptop on ebay for €15/20 in some cases. Always pays to check the net first.

JasperKat

my neighbor bought a laptop from PC World just before christmas for his daughter, it started giving problems in March, non-bootable-volume or something like that was coming up on it about every 3/4 time she turned it on... he went back with it & the guy at the desk got on the phone to some support guy in UK & was relaying messages to my neighbor (he wouldn't give my neighbor the phone to talk to the support guy) they were adamant that it was viruses giving that error message, now neither of us are techy but I don't think a virus would show up like that but I stand to be corrected.

Anyhow, upshot was my neighbor got the laptop checked out by a company who wrote a letter saying it was the hard drive failing & he took that back to them, after a bit more arguing they finally refunded his money!

Jasper