[bassetman]

Originally posted by McTimson:
sleekluxury, you don't 'build' anything when you buy a Dell, they build it for you. My point was, you can get a better computer for cheaper than Dell offers, using non-proprietary parts, and get free tech support here. Why would you make a call for tech support for anything when you have this site?


See, that's my point, they'll either have you reformat or buy a new one, when all you have to do is run one program. Would you rather lose all your data, or take 2 minutes to run a simple program?

[ComputerFix]

My fiancé uses a Dell for work, and I have never seen a PC burn up components as fast as her first, then second, system have. (two boxes in 3 years is a bit much as well!)

Granted, it isn't like a floppy drive, for example, is expensive or difficult to replace, but given how infrequently she used it (the drive), I think that it should have made it longer than a year on one, 6 mos on the current (and needing to be replaced again!)

As for Gateway...no experience first or second hand.

[Stoner]

Good mornin' CF

My first computer was a Gateway. Still use it for business.
But talking about defective parts:
The CD rom went bad under warranty-replaced free
The mouse went bad under warranty-replaced free
The keyboard went bad under warranty-replaced free
The monitor went bad just out of warranty
The hard drive went bad just out of warranty (interesting light show from the underneath of it, however)
The first install CD was defective

I'm now more of a mind to build or buy at an auction.
Recently picked up a P11 450 Dell for $20 at a Lexis Nexis auction, to play with Gotta love the value of 'old' tech

[aineo]

My first computer was a Gateway also and it sucked!!! I had to replace the modem 9 times (Yes, 9), the soundcard 3 times, and the monitor twice. Fortunately it was all covered by warranty, but it still sucked. My second computer was a Dell and I highly recommend them! I have not had a bit of trouble out of it. That's my 2 cents worth.

[shadowboss]

I've been using a Dell Inspiron 8200 1.6GHz P4 mobile and 512M RAM for about a year and 9 months with no problems. While I can't speak firsthand about Gateway, most IT departments in the companies I've worked for seem to prefer Dell.

[brite750]

Originally posted by shadowboss:
I've been using a Dell Inspiron 8200 1.6GHz P4 mobile and 512M RAM for about a year and 9 months with no problems. While I can't speak firsthand about Gateway, most IT departments in the companies I've worked for seem to prefer Dell.

If it's like my company, it's not that they prefer Dell, the company probably has a contract to get service and better pricing if they buy Dell. The IT has no choice. The problem with Dell and Gateway is they buy their components in massive numbers for the cheapest they prices they can find. If you notice on their sites, they don't name their components, except video card, you get what ever they have on the assembly line at the time your pc gets built. I like build it yourself or small local companies (with good reps) they build a system with the parts you pick, sure you have to do some homework, but you end up with alot better product. I do 3D CAD work so my company spent $3000 on a Dell Precision 650 Xeon workstation with a $1000 video card, I spent $1000 on a XP2500+ system that smokes it in ever way. So keep being lazy and sending you money to Dell/Gateway.

[prospect]

I have a friend that just bought a Dell. Well it didn't take her long to screwup her OS. It is Dells' version of XP. And boy does it suck!

I'm running XP Pro/sp1. It does everything for ya.

When I got Dells' version of XP to go in, it didn't installl any of the drivers for anything. There was a seprate disk for the drivers. And I had to call there support in India to get the righ drivers off the disk.

It was a mess. But after it got it up and running it seemed ok. But ya have to write down everything about the drivers.

Otherwise you'll forget. And it always happens when the tech support is done.

[brite750]

Originally posted by prospect:
I have a friend that just bought a Dell. Well it didn't take her long to screwup her OS. It is Dells' version of XP. And boy does it suck!

I'm running XP Pro/sp1. It does everything for ya.

When I got Dells' version of XP to go in, it didn't installl any of the drivers for anything. There was a seprate disk for the drivers. And I had to call there support in India to get the righ drivers off the disk.

It was a mess. But after it got it up and running it seemed ok. But ya have to write down everything about the drivers.

Otherwise you'll forget. And it always happens when the tech support is done.

That's just more reasons not to buy mass market machines. Buy local, support your neighbors, not some guy in India. Keep your local economy going. When you build-it yourself or buy from local pc shop, you get OEM disks for everything, you pay your $30 and get all OS/drivers everthing loaded and ready to go. If you have a problem, you can take box to shop in person, no shipping crap, and talk to someone that not only speaks engish, they may be the person who built your rig.

[shadowboss]

Originally posted by brite750:
If it's like my company, it's not that they prefer Dell, the company probably has a contract to get service and better pricing if they buy Dell. The IT has no choice. The problem with Dell and Gateway is they buy their components in massive numbers for the cheapest they prices they can find. If you notice on their sites, they don't name their components, except video card, you get what ever they have on the assembly line at the time your pc gets built. I like build it yourself or small local companies (with good reps) they build a system with the parts you pick, sure you have to do some homework, but you end up with alot better product. I do 3D CAD work so my company spent $3000 on a Dell Precision 650 Xeon workstation with a $1000 video card, I spent $1000 on a XP2500+ system that smokes it in ever way. So keep being lazy and sending you money to Dell/Gateway.

Brite750, It's actually not about being lazy! I have built many systems before, but have you ever tried building a laptop? That's why I chose Dell. It's a trade off--time for money--in most cases. Some people don't have the time to assemble a system even if it is a cheaper way to go. For them, the convenience is worth paying a little extra $$.

Also, I find it hard to believe that building your own system is cheaper than buying one from a PC mfr. Many times you'll see a system from a major brand advertised at $799 or less. When I built my own systems, just the motherboard and CPU can run nearly $500. That's not even counting the cost of a Hard disk, RAM, or even the tower.

Lastly, I suppose I should have qualified my statements a little bit when I said that IT departments recommended Dell. I have friends who work in my company's IT dept., and my friends have recommended Dell. This wasn't just because it was the patent "company mantra". This was from friends who have actually had to troubleshoot, repair, and maintain systems from many various makers.

Ok, I hope that sheds some light! But like I said in the beginning, I can't speak to the performance of Gateway since I have never owned one. They might be just as good for all I know.

Cheers!

[Big-K]

I agree with the part about homebuilts costing more. Someone i know(my age) built his own rig, it cost him over 1000 bucks i think(not positive), either way, its not ALL that much better than mine which cost me 325 with shipping(stormtek thunder). He did however chose each part himself so he knew everything about it, although he does still ask questions on tsg.

[brite750]

Originally posted by shadowboss:
Brite750, It's actually not about being lazy! I have built many systems before, but have you ever tried building a laptop? That's why I chose Dell. It's a trade off--time for money--in most cases. Some people don't have the time to assemble a system even if it is a cheaper way to go. For them, the convenience is worth paying a little extra $$.

Also, I find it hard to believe that building your own system is cheaper than buying one from a PC mfr. Many times you'll see a system from a major brand advertised at $799 or less. When I built my own systems, just the motherboard and CPU can run nearly $500. That's not even counting the cost of a Hard disk, RAM, or even the tower.

Lastly, I suppose I should have qualified my statements a little bit when I said that IT departments recommended Dell. I have friends who work in my company's IT dept., and my friends have recommended Dell. This wasn't just because it was the patent "company mantra". This was from friends who have actually had to troubleshoot, repair, and maintain systems from many various makers.

Ok, I hope that sheds some light! But like I said in the beginning, I can't speak to the performance of Gateway since I have never owned one. They might be just as good for all I know.

Cheers!

It is about being lazy, many people who buy Dell or other mass market pc's, tend to know nothing about computers, don't want to know nothing about computers, and that's fine, in fact that's the way Dell markets them. Watch the commercials some time, Dell says call us and tell us what you want to DO with the pc and we will spec it out for you. This way you don't have to know gigs, megs, ram, dual-channel this, Raid that. For those people Dell is good choice, but I still think you should buy local from a reputable dealer. BTW I didn't say it was cheaper to build your own, it may or may not be, my point was that by telling Dell what I needed I ended up with a $3000 pc, when I spec'd it myself after a little research, I ended up with a better pc for $2000 less, that's a savings. As far as laptops go, don't have one, never wanted one. Our sales engineers that travel all over the world need them, I don't, they are a very expensive toy, but they serve a purpose. I have heard that Toshiba is the best, a friend of mine had a Dell and it was a piece of junk, but that may have been operator rather than hardware related. Please do not take offense of the word lazy, I meant lazy in that people don't want to do alot of research about something that they have limited interest in, not weather or not they build their own, I don't have the time or inclination for that either, just put it on my desk and fire it up.

[brite750]

Originally posted by Big-K:
I agree with the part about homebuilts costing more. Someone i know(my age) built his own rig, it cost him over 1000 bucks i think(not positive), either way, its not ALL that much better than mine which cost me 325 with shipping(stormtek thunder). He did however chose each part himself so he knew everything about it, although he does still ask questions on tsg.

I looked at the specs of your pc, and yes you can get some good deals on AMD Duron comps, with onboard everything. If you post your friends pc I'm sure for a $1000 that the parts are not the same, however if your pc does what you need it to do and is reliable, then you got a bargain. You could use some Ram though, TSG has said many times that XP needs 256 just to run properly.

Stormtek Thunder / AMD Duron 1.6GHz / 128MB / 20GB / CD-RW / NIC / 56K / XP Home Edition
Features
AMD Duron 1.6GHz Processor
128MB Onboard Memory
20GB Hard Drive
CD-RW Drive
1.44MB Floppy Drive
6-in-1 Flash Memory Reader
32MB DDR 3D SiS AGP 4x Graphics (Onboard)

10/100Mbps Ethernet Adapter
PCTel HSP56 MR 56K Modem
PS/2 Keyboard
PS/2 Scroll Mouse
Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition

Wouldn't mind something like this for my daughter for $350ish

[shadowboss]

No offense taken at all brite750. My Dell laptop is of the classification "desktop replacement". It is bulky, large and heavy, but it also is much more compact and saves me a lot of footprint space. I've had very good performance out of it, and that's basically all I wanted to share with the original poster.

I agree with you that it is probably better for your local economy to purchase and service your PC locally. But, I think you end up paying more for it because the mom and pops don't have the supply chain infrastructure of the big PC makers. Not that that's good or bad, it just is what it is.

Now take this with an ounce of humorous sarcasm ok? No offense intended, but getting back to the principle of being lazy for a second. I suppose, if I weren't so lazy, I would do some research, go out and buy all the necessary parts, and build my own car. I don't even know how to fix my car to be honest with you, and I just don't have the time anyway. I'd rather pay someone who invested their time in learning about auto repair to fix my car. Sure, I know some basic auto repair, but there's no way I'm going to jump in there and replace a timing belt! HAHAHA Anyway, my point is that the same logic applies to PCs. For some people, they see their PCs as a tool, not a toy. All they need it to do is perform a particular function. So I don't think it's fair to label these people as lazy which implies that they lack some sort of mental fortitude. In the end, I suppose it's about your priorities. For you and me, we like to know what's going on under the cases of our PCs, but for others, they couldn't care less.

Oh, and before I forget. I happen to agree with you that it is despicable for Dell to say, "...just call us and tell us what you want to do, and we'll customize a PC just for you..." I think this opens way too big of a door for gramma and grampa to get screwed over when all they need to do is check email from their grandkids. Just seems like a way for Dell to take blatant advantage of people who don't know anything about computers. Consumer beware.

[Big-K]

Originally posted by brite750:
I looked at the specs of your pc, and yes you can get some good deals on AMD Duron comps, with onboard everything. If you post your friends pc I'm sure for a $1000 that the parts are not the same, however if your pc does what you need it to do and is reliable, then you got a bargain. You could use some Ram though, TSG has said many times that XP needs 256 just to run properly.

Stormtek Thunder / AMD Duron 1.6GHz / 128MB / 20GB / CD-RW / NIC / 56K / XP Home Edition
Features
AMD Duron 1.6GHz Processor
128MB Onboard Memory
20GB Hard Drive
CD-RW Drive
1.44MB Floppy Drive
6-in-1 Flash Memory Reader
32MB DDR 3D SiS AGP 4x Graphics (Onboard)

10/100Mbps Ethernet Adapter
PCTel HSP56 MR 56K Modem
PS/2 Keyboard
PS/2 Scroll Mouse
Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition

Wouldn't mind something like this for my daughter for $350ish

Nice job there brite, but thats not my specs I have 256 onboard(i added a stick of 128), a 40 gig hard drive, a cd-rw combo, no idea waht the graphics was but i upgraded it from onboard to a radeon 7000 64mb, i think it came with a modem, it had no os, and it only cost me 300 or so, 323 with shipping. I dont know seriously what his specs are, i can ask though. Hes already got somewhere from 384-512 and is upgrading another 512 cuz its not fast enough for him. Hes got 4 usb and is gettin a new card with 6 usb. Very sweet computer. Mine works great though. If you need a computer fer your daughter for 350 or so, look in the hardware section. Theres a twopage thread called Upgrading Ram, I posted a link to a very good computer alot like mine for 350 or so. It does come with XP and a burner.

Either way the supplier of your specs was wrong. I can get you the original page for my computer though if you want it, its in the tigerdirect archive.

[skyman]

In today's computer age you have 2 types of people.

One, the people who know all the ins and outs of computers and know exactly what works best for they want. They know and understand all the hardware that will create a great system and know how to build it and make it work for them.

Two, you have the average user who wants to experience
the web, email, word processing, a calendar, a file that they can put their recipes in, a simple spreadsheet or database program and have someone to call when they have a problem.

Both users have a place to go. If you are in the latter category,
Dell is the best way to go.

Dell is cheap and offers the most for your dollar and is more than the average user will ever need.

Is Dell the system for everyone? No but it is the best that is out there for the AVERAGE user...