How are Dell computers?

Hi,

Wondering what the general consensus is on Dell computers. Kinda feel like getting a new desktop. Had bad experiences with Packard bell (2 Windows 7 desktops blue screening), and HP I have had awful experience with their support.

So how are Dells? Hows the service? Hardware quality?

=)

 

Well I have two dell devices in my house, a laptop & a desktop. my wife laptop is in pretty bad shape (random reboots when streaming hours of online video) but I have to admit that she doesn't really take good care of the system (like clean up programs, make sure it's clean of malware since she uses a lot of Chinese sites, defragging the hd) and the laptop is about 4 years old (and never had to send it in for servicing).

My desktop is a new dell i7. I did have the HDD die on me but dell was pretty good with getting it replaced. Just called and said I had problems and they just asked if I know how to swap them out (I do), and sent me a replacement the same day (only took 1 day to show up). Other then that the system has been great (got a nice deal through work). My monitor is also a dell and all I can say is :drool:. I also used dell monitors at work and they are just fantastic (probably some of the best **** out there).

 

My brother, my father and a friend of mine all have Dell laptops. My brother and father never had problems in years. My friend's HDD died, Dell service managed to replace it in under 24hrs on the weekend!

The company my father works for has a leasing contract with Dell, he gets Dell machines for 15 years now, everything fine!

 

I have to say, the Dell screens at uni are LUSH. Huge resolution, USB ports, and you can spin them 90 degrees to have them portrait.

 

At the company i work we use many dell computers, but i think they overpriced for the hardware are innside.
Well the service notebooks over 1200€ are good quality, but the office desktops are not worth to buy it...(i hate my dell desktop at work :banghead
Buy good hardware, build it up by yourself and you need no support/service :110:.

 

My Dell desktop is about 3 1/2 years old now, been running around 12-14 hours a day most days since then. Only problems I've had is one hard drive failing to write recently and some of the keys on the k/b stopped working. I got mine from the Dell Outlet on ebay, due to apparently having a scratch on it - I couldn't find one!

My only experience of customer service was when I paid for it - had to ring up and do it via credit card, talking to several people Indian and Irish along the way - why do they have to recruit people from areas that I can't make heads nor tails of what they're saying!

 

Many hard drive failures =/ is that coincidence do you think?

 

i have a DELL Precision 690 at work and i'm quite happy with it. we have quite a few workstations and laptops and most of the issues that we have with them are hard drive and power supply dying

they have good support.. however i do think they're overpriced.

 

My girlfriends Dell laptop is 6 years old, and other than the usual XP bloat, runs like a dream. I also tech supported about 2000 Dell machines in my old job and their reliability is pretty damn good. We have machines that have been out of (the extended 3 year) warranty for the last 3 years and still run fine.

We have also had Dell machines DOA, a whole crate full of GX something or others go back the same day they arrived.

They are no better or worse than any other machine basically, as long as it does what you want, for the price you are willing to pay, then you take your chances (on the batch that comes off the assembly line) the same as with any other manufacturer.

 

i build you every dell , with first class hardware cheaper than dell. I dont know its only in germany, but here you get an faster better system cheaper as any dell setup!

An example i build up an DDR2 system with an Gigabyte MB Sockle 775, 4Gb DDR2 1088MHz Ram, dual core 2 @3Ghz, 500GB WD HDD, ATI HD Graka with 1GB, system runs at 1333FSB. Everest says on reading 7700points. Gigabyte Tower, Coolermaster 400W NT, win7pro.
costs: 550€ (office pc)
edit: Same speed as my 775 q6600@3,2 Ghz running at 1666FSB (one year older)

Dell wants for an 2GB DDR2 667, Dual core 2 2,6Ghz, graphic on board,350Gb HDD system ~600€ here ... maybe in usa cheaper but wtf ;-) ?

But i agree dell make good laptops.

 

Dell don't manufacture most (all? might be different with laptops) of the parts themselves, they just assemble/sell the computers. The HDDs in mine were Western Digital, if that helps. HDDs issues are usually one of the most common hardware errors there are.

I don't see why so many people are making such an issue of the pricing. Factor in a new Windows license cost and it will likely be the same price maybe more if you build it yourself.

 

True, but the assembly of the components and the casing (desktop and laptop) can affect the overall thermal characteristics of the machine, leading to overheating when the casing is poorly designed. I haven't had much trouble with the three Dell laptops that I have used, aside from two of them having graphics issues (one out of warranty, one replaced with a newer model).

 

My current Dell laptop hasn't had a problem but I know their support is great from past experiences.. as for desktops I would only get one if you don't plan on upgrading.

 

Well, my opinion might not count for much as I've had my new Dell laptop for almost 4-5 months now I believe, but anyway it has proven to be a most reliable system, powerful and solid. Being a 13" system packed up with some nice specs it does heat up a bit, but again, I have it powered on 24/7 and on full processing/power consuming mode, with a cooler pad when at home to avoid any loss of performance or danger due to overheating.

I've had a few software issues but those are obviously the fault of crappy Windows Vista (need to upgrade to 7 asap).

The only hardware-related issue I had (and still do once in a while) is with the touch sensitive buttons which are above the keyboard those which control moslty media related actions but also the WiFi/Bluetooth card/radio and the optical drive EJECT button (which can be quite annoying), turning off or freezing and not responding to touch, in which case you would be forced to go through right-clicking the drive icon for ejecting the media. That would be the only con I would consider thus far, and the only fix/work around for now is turning the system off and disconnecting the battery and reconnect it again.

 

If you're smart about it, I don't find dells to be that overly pricey. When I bought mine, a coworker gave me an assembled price and it was only shaving off $100 and I still would have to build the thing (yeah I use to do that in the past but I really don't want to deal with the hassle anymore). Plus since I worked for a studio that bought dell PC, I was elegable for EPP (employ discount) that saved me about 7ish percent.

Just don't let them install crap/software you don't need as well be flexable in parts you can easily upgrade your self later down the line for cheaper (ie, go with not massive HDD and slim down on the amount of ram you throw in). As well keep an eye on the site, there is pretty much always a different deal every few weeks. If you wait it out you might find a really good deal on the system you want.

-edit-
Regarding HDD failures. That pretty much happens regardless of the company who builds the pc (dell/hp/etc) and a lot of it depends on who the HDD is from. In the past when I had my P2-P3, My HDD would die out in 1 year and they were all maxtors (I went through about 3).

 

!! WARNING LONG POST !!

I have a had a few Dells over the years (my current is Studio XPS 16) and they have all worked wonders. Except for the part where I broke them (I tend to be a catastrophic user, eg my computers either work perfectly or have blown up into tiny pieces or suffered some other malady) service from Dell. I've only had a HD go out once on one and only had to replace the keyboard one because my cat decided to play with the keys.

Full disclosure though: I used to work for Dell

that said let me give you a few hints:

It used to matter (and it still does to some extent) that what machine you bought dictated what level of support you got. Eg. Dimension/inspiron got shit support and XPS got fantastic almost business like support. Same goes for Vostro getting decent business support while Latitude/Precision support would almost get down on their knees and blow you.

Its not the case anymore, you get this nice tier system, which shit being front line, Tier 2 being decent, and tier 3/4 being the payed for ProSupport option. Its fairly standard now across all lines now (with exception to those in enterprises or buy Precision machines, those support ppl still love the ****).

Another thing, on laptops never go with depot only service. Dell outsources their depot service to CTS and Foxconn. CTS isn't bad but they tend to take forever, and Foxconn, well they sure can put the goods together in the first place but when it comes to taking them back apart and fixing them... well your better off buying a new machine.

Also if you have the skills, go with the onsite service, but when they ask when you want the onsite guy to come out, tell them you want to install the parts yourself. Some of the onsite guys can be thicker then rock when it comes to computers and most usually just follow a guide they finish reading in their car before coming to your door.

TL;DR - Phone support is okay as long as you get to the second tier or pay for prosupport, depot service should be avoided and onsite is okay but if you can do it yourself then tell the phone rep.

The hardware tends to be top notch but finding third party replacements for things (other then obvious upgradeables like video cards or HDs) can be a pain.

If you are going to buy from Dell and your flexable with specs and are more concerned with price, then shop the outlet, just be sure that you can pay for it right when you see it. Also focus on "Previously Ordered New" (usually means that the customer ordered it but canceled just before they where to get the machine and usually hasn't even been touched) and "Certified Refurb" (usually means that the customer got it played with it for a week and sent it back or got it opened the box sneezed and sent it back). "Scratch and Dent" usually means Lemon or beater, a good chunk of these tend to be the machines that are returned to dell when there has been a major fault with them. Then again I've seen a few machines come out of "Scratch and Dent" that the only thing wrong with them is there is a scratch on the case or the OS just needed a reinstall.

Hope that helps :110:

 

I've got a Vostro 1500, and used to work with old Optiplex 260s at my old job. The latter are WORKHORSES and their only flaw was their shit Maxtor drives (one out of the 50+ Opti's drives would go out about every month).

My Vostro rocks. Never had a problem, except when I first got it in the mail, there was a hairline fracture in the screen (like, it was broken, but the LCD hadn't bled yet). I emailed, went through all that jazz, and they sent me a replacement unit (so I just swapped the hard drives) and then a return shipping label and I put the old one in the box.


I'm not sure what the warranties are in England, but here if you get the damage protection plan... you can run yours over with the car near the end of the warranty and they'll send you a brand new one, which by that time, is usually an equivalently-priced (and closely equipped but usually better) newer model.


Here's another good story. Another drive went out in a newer Optiplex that one of the managers had (going back to my old job scenario). It had some random 80-gig drive in it.
I called Dell at 3:30ish (in case they closed at 5 or something in whatever time zone I called) in the afternoon. He walked me through the diagnostic steps that I had already went through (the dell BIOS had a hard drive checker built-in). Technically, the HDD diagnostics said the drive was good, but it was obviously not as I couldn't even get windows to finish installing before the drive would fritz out (audibly) and crash the system.
So he says they'll send a new drive

Guess what I get in THE NEXT DAY. The replacement drive. So that's a new drive, shipped to the store free of charge, in less than 18 hours (keep in mind this is a definite business setting, but we also didn't have any sort of contract with Dell). < 18 hours!!! Pow.
Here's the best part:
they didn't send just-any 80gig replacement,
they sent a WD 10,000 RPM Raptor. WTF?
:sexy2:

Oh, and re-read phate's post above, because he pretty much laid it out for you.

 

Thanks guys, some great information here, And I did read all the posts fully!

With regards to building one myself.. to put it bluntly, I can't be arsed and don't have time. I just want to open a box, install my software, and be done. I would love to, but right now, no..

The prices didn't seem *too* bad to me. Sure, a bit more expensive for a bit less than the Packward Bell was, but i'd rather have something thats not blue screening. A brand new PC blue screening! And I'm not going to use oodles of HDD space. My laptops 60gb drive has about 14gb free or so, but that means I have plenty of space for my music for some time to come, and seldom do I purchase more now..!

 

i just got a dell xps a few months ago when my pc exploded, and i'm realy satisfied with it, and the component building is top quality as is the case.