Need Help About I Am About to buy Dell Desktop

11/21/03 | Old Professer

[Old Professer]

My present computer is dying; I must replace it. I need answers to a few questions and I can think of no better place to get them.

[CheneyChick]

Mac Bump

Cheers, CC :)

[chilepepper]

Sorry to disagree but I for one wouldn't buy a DELL for this reason: DELL tends to design things DIFFERENTLY. We had a major, freakess lightning strike a couple of years ago (NEVER happened before where i live), and didn't have lightning protection. (Even though we got UPS out the gazoo)

SO the high volt comes in over the MODEM LINES and fries about a dozen DELLS.

DELL isn't at fault for THAT (we should have had protection there as well)

What I do fault them for is that they had SPECIAL NON-STANDARD power supplys feeding SPECIAL NON-STANDARD motherboards, so we got screwed with these machines... had to go the DELL and pay $80 for a simple powersupply!

Keep your DELLS. Don't like GATEWAYS either for reasons I'd rather not go into now, suffice it to say Gateway sells substandard, corner cut hardware. Them is crooks IMHO...

What brand? Believe it or not, i'm actually pretty happy with Hewlett Packards (i didn't think i would be, but the four or five we bought to replace the DELLS have been great), but clearly YMMV.

[highnoon]

One more thing. The rebate from dell is VERY tricky. You have to include your original packing slip, and it's very time sensitive as far as getting it in their hands before a certain date. I had a rebate due to me May 27th of this year, got it 3 weeks ago. You can go to their site, and it provides a link to the rebate company, and after two emails to them (one nice, the other not so nice) I FINALLY got my check.

[dhs12345]

Agreed. I have one myself. And they are easy to upgrade, too.

Don't by a Compaq!

Compaq expect you to rely on their expensive Tech Support and to by all upgrades from them. And they are very difficult to upgrade yourself.

[dhs12345]

HP offer good laser printers. I have had a 4L for 10 years and have not had a single problem with it.

Laser is better than inkjet if you don't plan on printing in color. Color laser printers are available but they are expensive.

In the ten years, I have replaced the toner cartrige only once. I use the inkjet when I want to print in color.

[js1138]

I would never buy anything based on a mail-in rebate. In fact I don't like shopping at places that offer them. I've been screwed out of two of them in the last couple of years, but the money isn't as important as the heartburn they cause when they don't come in the promised time.

As for standard parts, when you buy a name brand computer, you can consider it a throwaway when the warranty runs out. You don't get a real copy of windows, and you can't install any non brand parts that will survive a reinstall. If the disk crashes you lose everything, including windows -- unless its still under warranty.

[octobersky]

"I wouldn't buy anything from Best Buy. They've burned me once too often."

Roger that. And they appear to be trying to burn me. I am still trying to collect a rebate I sent off for about three months ago. When I call their rebate center to inquire about my $150 rebate they point the finger at the fulfillment place, give me a case number and tell me if I haven't received anything in 15 days to call them back. I'm on my third attempt at trying to collect this rebate! I think what they try to do is wear you down. They make you give up by making you jump through countless hoops. Whenever I call they are very polite and apologetic about it though. I am tempted to politely and apologetically contact my BBB & my state's attorney general consumer fraud division! Grrrr!

[dhs12345]

That is annoying -- you don't get the full version OS. I actually had to pull out my old Win3.1 diskettes in order to re-install Win 98 (had to have a full install version OS in order to "upgrade"). Actually, it didn't upgrade from 3.1 just wanted to check for a valid OS.

Don't throw away your old diskettes.

[Christy]

At my suggestion a friend bought a Dell computer aprox 3 monthes ago. She has Outlook Express for e mail, but cannot spell check. Repeated calls to tech support and still no solution. Any one else heard of this problem ?

[Drammach]

Check out your local computer stores and dealers.

Take the specs of the Dell promotion with you, and compare.
If there is a local computer ad paper in your area, ( Kansas City has "Computer User" free at most supermarkets) check it out for specials.

Buy local, get local support.
Have that old hard drive installed as a secondary in your new computer, or just have the data transferred to the new hard drive.
Your local dealer will probably do it for little or nothing, just for your business.

Local support.
Anything goes wrong, service is a short drive away.
No phone calls to India, no language difficulties, no frustration.

[octobersky]

Yes. I read that it's because there is a glitch in the shared files or something. You can get an excellent and free spell checker for outlook express here.

[Old Professer]

I have a new monitor; I went to the online store for Dell and discovered the unit I am considering does have 3.5 floppy.

[LADYAK]

My XP is slower than all get out switching from each user and booting up etc....I will check the amount of RAM...thanks for the tip.

[backhoe]

Don't throw away your old diskettes.

Good advice- sometimes in my fooling around with old iron, I've had to "bring the machine up" by starting with DOS or Win 3.1-- an IBM release I "liberated" from a trash pile behind the wife's office. Keep those programs, 'cause you'll have the Devils' time trying to locate them now.

[JohnSmithee]

"I just won't buy one until they quit showing those dumb intern commericials."

LOL.

Yep, still waiting for the end to come...

[dennisw]

I would never buy a Dell unless I saw it mentioned on this bargain page. They tell you how to shave 50-100$ off the purchase price. Be sure to get free shipping ---->> http://www.gotapex.com/



If I were you I would get a Celeron 2.4GHZ. 256mb RAM is necessary and if you can't put in extra memory yourself then bite the bullet and pay Dell. 99% of the time the Dell computers come with 128mb memory


http://www.gotapex.com/

[W1_hooyah]

"Dell's are the Toyotas of the Computer world. They are reliable and long-lived."

Don't insult Toyota by comparing them with Dell, or any other unreliable PC maker for that matter. I would LOVE to find the "toyota" of computers but it doesn't exist.

I've never been an Apple fan, but I may become one soon. Too many problems with all PC models related to cheap components and miserable old MS software. Computers are too cheap in my opinion, I would be willing to pay more for a manufacturer who used reliable components.

[js1138]

I've gotten all my rebates from Best Buy. It's CompUSA that screwed me out of two of them. But I just don't buy anything anymore based on rebates. Occasionally I send them in, but I no longer worry about whether I get the check. Life is just too short.

[JohnSmithee]

"Cut down the above and make a deal with your local computer guy to build you a custom model."

This is the way to go. Check out tigerdirect.com for bare systems and other interesting computer "stuff".

[JohnSmithee]

"Don't insult Toyota by comparing them with Dell, or any other unreliable PC maker for that matter. I would LOVE to find the "toyota" of computers but it doesn't exist."

A few months ago I came across a Toyota with 450K+ miles on it. Hard to believe.