I KNOW how you feel my friend. I wrote a diatribe of my at http://www.tableofwisdom.com/MrArbitrage_Stock_Picks.html
over a year ago. Since it is mine, I’ll just paste it below to add to yours.
I am about to purchase a new PC this month and it will probably be an HP - but definitely not a DELL. They are like the GM of PCs. Good luck!
Dell: “Dude, You’re getting a ...”
by MrArbitrage
I’m writing as one who is objective on Dell stock. I have never been long nor have I ever been short DELL as I don’t see a great deal of investment potential in the “screw driver shops”. The margins in this business will not get better. I did purchase a Dell desktop about 2 years ago and it went through 2 mother boards in 1 year – now it makes some really crazy, LOUD noises when I download from the Internet. It sounds more like an old washing machine than a computer.
Yes, they were “gracious” enough to replace the motherboards after I haggled with the company and got passed around to a few different departments. I had to wait a few days for some sub-contractor to come out and repair it. He was very nice. He said this motherboard problem was widespread that year and he repairs these all the time because the parts (I forget what he called them but they look like AA batteries cut in half) were not adequate to handle the…” I said “why didn’t they have a recall?” He said that it’s cheaper for them to send out repair people to each location per incident and have the technician repair them onsite.
Keep in mind, this computer is now a few years old (and out of warranty). I thought surely they wouldn’t make this mistake again – but about a month ago I was talking with someone in the course of business who told me they had just bought a brand new Dell this year and to my surprise – he said he has already had the motherboard of all things – replaced.
Prior to my Dell experience, I had always bought Gateway, since 1996. Their customer service was wonderful. My laptop is a Gateway. I had nothing but good experiences with GTW. I am going to be purchasing a new notebook computer this Christmas. I would automatically buy a Gateway but I’m going to do some homework just to make certain they’re still as good as they were before the acquisition by Acer.
One good portent regarding Gateway is that I recently called their technical support department to help me with a possible virus and I was very pleased to talk with a kind young AMERICAN from the mid-west! That was actually an improvement that resulted after the acquisition. The tech support was good before but it was re-routed through Bombay and depending on who picked up the phone, it was at times hard trying to understand their English.
If my research on Gateway under new ownership returns favorable results, I will probably buy the new notebook from them. If not, I’ll look at HP. One thing I can say for certain is that I will never buy one from Dell. I should have been skeptical from the beginning when they were running those commercials with that kid who acted like a stoner and whom later was arrested for Marajuna. Instead of the slogan being “dude – you’re getting a Dell” it should have been “dude – you’re getting a crap box”.
Contact: mrarbitrage@tableofwisdom.com
LOL. In our case it would now be “Dude, you’re not getting anything!”
My experience with HP has been quite satisfactory, although I’ve only had to deal with them once. I bought an HP desk top recently for my children from Sam’s Club, my first HP computer. Good deal on it, bright 24” monitor with HDMI connection, BluRay drive, 1 TB hard drive. 5 months later, the wireless keyboard went haywire. I called up HP support around 3PM my time, spoke to a guy who was obviously Indian by his accent, but his English was clear and fluent. The very following morning, a FedEx truck came to my front door and delivered a spanking new replacement wireless keyboard and mouse, as mine were still under warranty. I didn’t have to pay a dime, not even for the rushed overnight shipping! Thus far, I’ve been very impressed with HP’s customer service. But as I’ve said, I’ve only had a single encounter with them.