06-30-2005, 05:00 PM

Hello
My gf's sister is in the market for a new comp and their Dad has been quizing me on what to get.
He's found some good Dell offers but i was hesitant as i've heard some unfavourable comments.

Are Dell actually any good (forgetting the fact it's a windows machine), i figure they're a big successful company for a reason (and yes i know the M$ are big yet innately evil).

If they suck big time then who are some decent brands to consider?

And remember, we're trying to impress my lady friend's dad so i need top notch advice. :ninja:

Cheers
M

06-30-2005, 05:07 PM

They are great computers and you can't beat their prices.

06-30-2005, 05:18 PM

tell him you have to be careful when buying a windows machine. Because the hardware is often sub-par and doesn't always sync the greatest with the windows OS. With Longhorn on the sights in aprox. 3 years you will end up buying another machine because the current one will not run longhorn worth a hoot. Inform him that windows xp is riddled with viruses and worms and has not been cleanly updated since 2000(1). Tell him apples past two releases are already ahead of longhorn and longhorn is still 3 years away. In three years apple will release 1-3 more OS's all of which will continue to put longhorn years behind.

Tell him, if hes really serious about buying a Dell, tell him to consider buying an external Firewall/router, along with the latest anti'viral protection. Also tell him in 3 years to fork out another 1000$ on a machine to support longhorn, because the already out of date xp will soon be useless. Remind him of windows 95, that was released 5 years before xp and the difference between xp and 95 is amazing. Tell him long horn is looking at about 6-8 year difference being that xp is already what 95 was in 2000.

Then show him the beautiful world of mac, tell him apple has always been ahead of windows. Tell him apple has not left its users in the dust with a shotty OS promising a new 'wonderful' os in 8 years. Each and every release of Apples OS has been leaps and bounds ahead of XP and longhorn. And, tell him apples new OS releases run on models of apple machines that were made years and years earlier. Ie little G3 Powermacs running tiger which were released over 7 years ago.

But then inform him apple is now in 2007ish going to be using Intel processors which will further improve the already superior apple product.

Then tell him if he really wants to buy a dell to buy a Intel processor of atleast 2Ghz, over 1Gb of RAM, over 80Gb hd, LCD monitor, DVD burner ,USB 2.0 or he will have useless hardcore out of date machine in 3 years.

or he could buy any mac and have a perfectly fine machine in 5-6 years.

06-30-2005, 05:23 PM

Yes, U can't beat dells prices. I do think that their service is so-so. Someone in my family had a dell laptop and it would not turn on. He had to call dell, which took 30min before they answered it. They sent someone out 2 days later and it happened that the motherboard was bad. It got fixed but then the ethernet didn't work. So for the second time in 1 week the motherboard got replaced! It worked again for about 3 months and then the ethernet stopped working again............... The story goes on, but i'll stop now


On a more positive note, my dell desktop has been working for 4 years without any problems (probally B/C i use the mac more anyway)

If U R looking for an alternate PC brand, i think Gateway is good. They have a good price and the systems come with plenty of HDD space. :mac:

But i agree try introducing him to a mac first!!! :doctor:

06-30-2005, 05:37 PM

Dell's desktops aren't too bad, but I wouldn't buy a Dell laptop. My sister's Dell laptop has had two hard drives die on her (she bought an iBook after the second time), and my dad's Dell laptop has essentially melted half of its motherboard from either a power supply problem or a short circuit somewhere on the mobo - twice. The HD from my dad's Dell is in my sister's old machine and it's running okay, but for how long is a complete unknown.

If I were going to buy a new wintel machine right now, if it was going to be a desktop, I'd build it myself (though that may not be feasable for them). If I was going to buy a laptop, it'd be a Toshiba, hands down. I bought a friend's old Toshiba before I got my PB, and it was very reliable and performed well. My family's first laptop was also a Toshiba, and even though it's pretty old (P3/Celeron (not sure) Mobile 450mhz, Win98, etc), it's still running strong.

06-30-2005, 05:44 PM

I'd actually consider Toshiba, Sony, IBM and Fujitsu Siemens...
They're the ones I've used over the years and have been as solid as a rock.

The others (Dell, Acer, Gericom) were very poor compared with the better brands.
If it's got to be a laptop - make sure to spend a buck or 2 more, because the wear & tear on mobile machines is always greater than on desktops.

Unless of course she's going to be one of those people who buys a laptop and leaves on the desk all year...

Btw. all my friends who have wintel laptops do that - those with mac's don't... weird coincidence? Or better sleep functionality?

06-30-2005, 05:45 PM

I usually stick to Toshiba for laptops and HP for desktops.... I started buying either one of those two PC brands back 3-4 years ago and they just seem to be the magic combo for me... no isssues or hardware failures yet.... Well.... Except that they run Windows.

06-30-2005, 05:58 PM

Toshiba makes excellent laptops... and I'
ve heard a lot of people that are happy with Sony's Vaio

06-30-2005, 05:59 PM

cheers for the responses (already)

I've tried the Mac angle (maybe i should have said that in forst post, sorry) but she's going to be needing MS Access and some other stuff that windows is a necessity for (IT course at uni, little uni mac support etc..)

But keep the suggestions coming, i'll pass them all on.

06-30-2005, 06:06 PM

Originally Posted by damontgo

Toshiba makes excellent laptops... and I'
ve heard a lot of people that are happy with Sony's Vaio

Yeah... the couple of Sonys I've played with have been really good too. I've seen one have goofy LCD issues... But that one had lived a rough life. Also they have alot more bundled software you have to uninstall... or it slows them down.

06-30-2005, 06:26 PM

My lid shut switch broke on my Dell laptop, I was able to contact their customer service online(which came in handy because I was in the middle of class and pulling a phone out wouldn't have worked), setup an RMA, the next day I had a box dropped off, the day after that UPS picked up my package, I had it back within a week after I first contacted them.

I'll admit there are better designed laptops out there, but Dell is good enough, mine has held up really well over 2 years of being carried everywhere on campus. I wouldn't hesitate to buy one again. I like the Dell Lattitude D610, which is a business model. Replacement parts are easy to find and cheap...

06-30-2005, 07:13 PM

Every Dell ive used has been a p.o.s, my friend bought one recently, before it was 6 months old he had already formatted it twice. He has had to call Dells service and support twice, both times they said they would have to research his problem and call back. Well, they never called back. One of the times it was super important because it wouldnt turn on, but since most of us are some what knowledgable about computers we managed to fix it. Dell still hasnt called and its been over 6 months.

Another problem he had with his computer was the graphics card. The week he got the computer the moniter stopped getting power and wouldnt work, so we started checking things. It ended up being that the graphics card worked its way out of the port. The way Dell secures their vid cards and things is by having one big "latch" holding them all in with a screw, so basically you unscrew the screw, pull back the cover and you can plug in/remove cards and things. When they made the computer they forgot to put a screw to hold the latch down and never closed it, so when we opened the computer the vid card was just hanging there.

(Sorry this is so long) If you were going to get a PC I highly recommend Sony Vaio. Ive had one for a little over a year and its been perfect. Probably the best PC ive ever used. It came with a card reader that reads compact flash cards, the sony sticks, etc. it also came with 3 usb ports in the front, a fire wire port, and the red, white, and yellow inputs to hook up vcrs and digital cameras, it also has a serial port in the front.

So as far as pc, ide look heavily at sony vaio, they make good stuff and their support is pretty good too, considering ive only called twice for minor things.

06-30-2005, 07:13 PM

Originally Posted by mig.gentry

cheers for the responses (already)

I've tried the Mac angle (maybe i should have said that in forst post, sorry) but she's going to be needing MS Access and some other stuff that windows is a necessity for (IT course at uni, little uni mac support etc..)

But keep the suggestions coming, i'll pass them all on.

Tell her to wait a year or two. Once the intel macs come out U will be able to install windowz on them if you wanted to.

If she needs one right away, U could still get a mac and buy Virtual PC and run windowz programs.

06-30-2005, 07:18 PM

Originally Posted by macEfan

Virtual PC

It is really too slow to be of any use.

06-30-2005, 07:22 PM

Ok while then i guess she should wait a year or two if she can.. If not I also reccomend Sonys,Gateways,and apple monitors