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My very first poll


brkville42NY
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Is Dell a better buy or is Gateway or Apple better  

18 members have voted

  1. 1. Is Dell a better buy or is Gateway or Apple better

    • Dell
      13
    • Gateway
      0
    • Apple
      5


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Dell is complete crap. There customer support is aweful, their systems (especially laptops) suck.

 

Brief history: Only computer I've ever purchased and not built myself is my Dell laptop.

 

2 hard drive failures

3 memory failures

1 motherboard failure

 

Last one took 3 MONTHS to get my laptop back. The actually lost it...Yes...LOST. Told me I'd get a completely new one...They lied. I e-mailed michael_dell@dell.com and got a response from one of his ENGLISH speaking assistants (the tech support people don't speak english and their favorite phrase is "I understand your frustration sir."

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Building your own desktop is easier than you might think.

 

It also depends on what you're buying it for, what you want to do with it, desktop or laptop...

 

If you're installing Linux on it, I'd stay away from Gateway. They may have changed recently but my friend had one that was a couple of years old that I could not get linux installed on. I probably could now, but I'm remembering that you're a n00b, as you said.

 

I have a Dell laptop that I really like. Everything works on it. I got lucky, though. The next version up from my laptop has built-in wireless that does not have native Linux drivers.

 

In the end, it's up to personal preference.

 

Now, if you're asking whether you should go PC or Apple, that's a whole other story...

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For the previous two years, I have travelled North America implementing new systems for my employer. I visited 64 locations and setup 192 Dell Servers and 32,000 (give or take) Dell workstations. Of all of these, 1 server failed and was replaced by Dell within 24 hours and 3 workstations, also replaced within 24 hours. I had a RAID card die in one server and tech support would not have been able to get one too me within 12 hours as I needed. A support rep actually had the part in their office, so they hopped on a plane and hand delivered it to me.

 

I have heard stories from some people that Dell support has become fairly poor, and I have also heard that it is still great. I do know that when they opened the call center in India (or somewhere over there) that there had been issues as a result of the language barrier.

 

Overall, my experience with Dell (I personally have 14 Dell Workstations), has been great.

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I don't have any experience with Apple but have used both Dell and Gateway at a previous job. Both, in my opinion, were not worth the money. Both, unless recently it changed, like to stuff as much stuff on the motherboard as possible.

 

Building your own as recommended from others would be the way to go. With nearly jumperless motherboards and detailed manuals, it is quite simple even for the newest of people.

 

Steve

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BYO.

 

Apple is overly expensive, and maybe the OS is quite cool, a proprietary hardware system is not what I am waiting for. Slight doubt on the side of a laptop, there apple may just be ok, and Build Your Own just doesn't work..

 

So for this poll, no vote from me...

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For the previous two years, I have travelled North America implementing new systems for my employer.  I visited 64 locations and setup 192 Dell Servers and 32,000 (give or take) Dell workstations.  Of all of these, 1 server failed and was replaced by Dell within 24 hours and 3 workstations, also replaced within 24 hours.  I had a RAID card die in one server and tech support would not have been able to get one too me within 12 hours as I needed.  A support rep actually had the part in their office, so they hopped on a plane and hand delivered it to me.

 

I have heard stories from some people that Dell support has become fairly poor, and I have also heard that it is still great.  I do know that when they opened the call center in India (or somewhere over there) that there had been issues as a result of the language barrier. 

 

Overall, my experience with Dell (I personally have 14 Dell Workstations), has been great.

Business is a completely different topic when you're referring to Dell. All business support is handled stateside. All joe schmoe support is handled somewhere in Asia. BS!

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In my "career" I have bought 3 PCs the other 60+ I have built or have rebuilt etc. One of them was a laptop (try building one of those) the other 2, one (my first real pc, other than the compaq 386/33's that I got at a local junk dealer) was a Packard Bell, which wast bad at all despite the reputation PB has or had. The other I got at Circuit City for 180$ while I worked there, It is a HP, same as the laptop, HP has been GREAT. If I were to buy another computer that was not an Apple it would be a HP.

 

As for Tech support -- Who needs that except for hardware replacement?

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