Re: Why Mike now knows more about computers than he did last week!

On Apr 26, 3:16 am, "John L Rice" <Drum...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I've never purchased a Dell for my personal use either! ;-) But I've had
good experiences with them in the corporate world at three different jobs. I
spected a server once using their configurator page and when we got it was a
beautiful machine. Well built and ran without a problem. They have great
warranties and while I've hardly ever seen the need to call for service,
they are always on top of it.

I have a Dell that I bought at the used computer store that's been
going great for about half a dozen years. I bought a new Dell laptop
that was a little rocky at first, but once I had it tamed, it did
pretty well, and it's still in use as the living room couch computer.
But it's always had a couple of problems that were never solved, I
suspect with the motherboard. The last one was that I couldn't get any
external disk drives to work through a Firewire adapter in the PCMCIA
slot. Tech Support finally told me that the motherboard wasn't fast
enough (probably an incomplete description) and that if I had
purchased the extended warranty and kept it up, they would replace the
motherboard for me - pretty good deal, actually, but since I didn't
have the warranty, I let it go.

Initially (some 4 years ago) Tech Support was very responsive and
usually helpful, but in the last year I was actively using that
computer, support deteriorated to script-based troubleshooting that I
had already done and I ended up either solving problems myself
(sometimes with the help of folks here) or just living with the
problems. When I bought my new laptop, I decided not to go with Dell
both because of the deteriorating quality of tech support and their
new policy of imposing a restocking fee for a returned computer. I
didn't want to risk that much money on a computer that I couldn't look
at and feel without buying it.

That said, my new Thinkpad isn't anything to rave about, but it's fast
enough to carry me for another couple of years. Lighter, too, but
somehow it doesn't seem to make much difference in the weight of the
traveling computer bag. Funny how a 6.5 pound computer weighs 16.5
pounds "on the shoulder."

That said, this is all corporate world service
calls and computer companies tend to kiss the ass of big companies who buy a
lot of machines and let the one-off home consumers struggle.

Yes, this is important. Also, the corporate world tends to buy the
better grade of Dell rather than the models intended for home users.
The home series change on practically a monthly basis (both hardware
and installed software) to provide the most attractive and up-to-date
package for the money. That's what they need to do in order to stay in
the market. The "business" series tends to be more consistent in
hardware and software configurations so the in-house staff doesn't
have a lot of different computers to support. Dell tells me that they
also use better quality components in those models, and I'm inclined
to believe them.


.

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