How are Dell computers?

i had a Dell computer at the office where I used to work as a minion

Disregarding the fact that it was SOOOOOO slow because it only had 256 of RAM, it was a good and trusty machine...

I would have improved it... but all my attempts failed due to some guy from the IT department uninstalling all the upgrades and thingys I installed to boost the machine's performance

 

Hmm. That makes me wonder if I should check the HDD in my PC.

When the HDD went out it was a thin maxtor but the replacement they sent me was a Western Digital but a bit more bulky. I wonder if maybe I got sent a faster drive. I was actually kind of glad when the hdd they sent was WD (I trust them more).

 

Another quick ProTip:

If your buying a laptop and you can afford it: BUY COMPLETE CARE.

Once you have that anything that could possibly befall your new toy will be covered under warranty. You don't need to get it right away, as you can add it to your warranty at any time, but if you don't get it when you first purchase the machine, you have to wait about 30 days before it to go into effect.

 

I bought a dell i7 from ASSEMbler for school, I like it, I just added RAM for general purposes. No complaints. That being said I'm gonna buy a new mobo, and graphics card and do an upgrade(but by the time I have money I'll just by a new comp I guess lol)

 

There standard, average.

 

Which sure as hell beats a lot of manufacturers these days.

 

What do you consider top of the line?

 

Yeah, what do you consider above average in comparison?
On the flipside, which manufacturers would you not touch with a barge pole?

 

Dell are awesome, in my experience.

The only brand I would not touch are Gateway. Yuck.

 

the parts inside aren't made by dell so i don't get the question.

 

Well, how do you generally find their choice of parts that they use to build their computers? How is their service and is the chosen marriage of components reliable?

 

I will tell you this from experience (two of them).... always get the extended warranty.

I had a customer who's friend that lives in Brazil was visiting and brought in his laptop for repair. The laptop was an XPS model and was just under 3 years old. Believe it or not, I looked up the service tag number on dell's site and the laptop was still under a full customer care warranty. This was good because the laptop's motherboard and videocard were failing and that's something I cannot fix and will be too expensive.

After a quick online chat with a dell rep on their site and following their diagnostic questions, I gave them the address and the next day a dell repair guy came in with a replacement motherboard and video card and changed it. So, it pays to get the extended warranty if you plan on owning a laptop or PC for quite some time, which is very viable to do depending on what you're going to do with it (ie. web, email, documents - which do not require the latest and greatest).


On the other hand I worked with a dell system out of warranty and to add salt to the wound the customer was cheap. This was an older dimension PC and you cannot remove the back I/O plate to replace the motherboard with an aftermarket one... which was the case as the mainboard was bad in that dell.

Customer could only afford a motherboard, nothing else. So, I had to break out the dremel and cut the back out to put the replacement board in and have the ports be accessible.

 

My opinion of Dell Computers is:

Cheap components in a box. If you don't need a fancy-pants graphics card, sound card or über-fast RAM and hard drive, then Dells are perfectly acceptable. They're They're OK build quality, OK spec, just plain OK. Also, they're eminently disposable (as in: you run them, and when they go wrong people would much prefer to toss them then repair them). They are uninspiring workhorses.

In terms of their higher-end models (ie: the XPS series) - they're not bad, but they are mass-market versions of high-end rigs. Other manufacturers offer a superior spec and build quality. But if you want a fast PC you don't need to think too much about purchasing, they're fine.

Technical support can vary from person to person and country to country.

 

What brands offer the best build quality then?

The only thing I would possibly upgrade is RAM- and with so much in modern system I don't think thats going to be an issue.

 

Quality is a big word, probably more attached to company reputation/brand.

I would say Sony, IBM, HP and so on..

Dell doesn't really fit that group, but I am still very happy with my 'cheap' Dell laptop and the support they give when problems occur.

 

If you are truly worried about quality above all else, build the system yourself. If you want a good plug-and-play system (though I still always wipe and reinstall), Dell is a good choice.

 

QFT.

The only way you will ever get a machine that YOU want and know is a good machine is the one you put together by hand. Doing that you know what is exactly in the box and know exactly what you options are if something goes wrong.

 

Dell in Denmark are not popular after kontant (a tv show which is a part of the Tuesday news hour at 9 in the evening) busted them breaking a lot of Danish laws and other shit. So my advice is this, stay the fuck away from Dell. Dell even played "happy customers" on kontants website.

http://www.dr.dk/DR1/kontant/2010/03/03153546.htm

It is no wonder why, I buy no name brand PCs, or build them up from scratch with friends who help me. Dell in Denmark is not a good company, they are a bunch of fucking cunts who break the laws in Denmark, so fuck them, and their "happy customers" ! And oh yeah I know you can not read Danish so you have to believe me about Dell and their so-called happy customers, and their non existing customer support here.

http://www.dr.dk/DR1/kontant/2010/03/16133446.htm

The mainpoint of my post is this. Stay away from Dell . And just be a little bit arsed about making your pc yourself. Or you can be one of the lucky people who can get a PC for free from James Burgett, that WORKS.

 

I find it better/easier to do a self-build that way you know exactly what your getting for your money (exact brand, model...etc)as you pick all the components yourself plus it also means you can say for example use a smaller and cheaper 250GB HDD instead of 500GB, go for a cheaper budget case...etc in order to get a better graphics card or better PSU.

 

My Dell XPS 400 has survived about 5 years now as we got it in May of 2005. As a computer it has been great overall. It has had its ups and downs, my original Geforce 7300gt that came with it died a few weeks out of warranty so I ended up replacing it with a Geforce 8500gt I got on clearance and I have been through probably 3-4 dvd drives. As old as it is it can still put up a fight with its old original dual core processor lol. I've been happy with it but basically Dell's are overpriced, you could much build the same computer for probably 200-300 less then we paid back when we bought it.