Post your experience with Dell here

Hi guys, Ive got a small business (about 10comps) and one of the workers is in love with Dell, and everytime there is a problem with one of the comps, he "subtley" suggests we get Dell's from now on. We currently use comps that I build myself based on scouring these, and similar forums for research each time. And if i dont have time for that, i usually just stick with brands like Asus, Abit, Corsair, Sapphire, Antec etc for the various components.


He keeps going on about how wed get better tech support, better products and says stuff like "what? dont you think Dell know what they are doing".

I have a bit of a negative preconception about Dell, which has turned me away from listening to him about it, but i just thought id ask you guys what you thought of Dell, and maybe post some of your experiences, both good and bad, with them.

Thanks

I have bought many computers from Dell, for one sole reason....They are cheap..

In my mind that is the saving grace of Dell, of the 40 or so machines that we bought in 03, 5 of them have had dead hard drives, and 1 bad motherboard. Overall not terrible, but their QA could be better.

Still you can't find much cheaper, and their warranties for replacing things are decent, but as far as the tech support goes, ouch. Tech support is exclusively Indian I believe now, and having to listen to them over the phone is painful. No offense to Indian people, however you can tell these people have been trained over and over to go along a set path to document the problem, which is great for less educated users, but with professionals especially when considering we bought small business, its saddening. You could spend up to an hour talking on the phone troubleshooting an obviously dead hard drive, or bad stick of RAM. They will refuse to issue an RMA number until you go through all their steps, which include things like unplugging and replugging the computer back in. All they do is read down the checklist they have in front of them. Like I said great for most home users, but from the business side of things not very practical, plus a lot of them are kinda of hard to understand as they have only had limited English verbal tranining.

So in short, Dell is cheap, with decent components, and lackluster tech support

Chosen One,

I'm 16 years old, and it is almost like the person who is in love with the dells, is my dad. He himself owns a small company, and bought around 10 dells last year. According to him, the customer service has been nothing less than perfect. Its all he will be buying in the future. I think Dell's relations with companies might be a step up from residential users.

AndyMac said:

Chosen One,

I'm 16 years old, and it is almost like the person who is in love with the dells, is my dad. He himself owns a small company, and bought around 10 dells last year. According to him, the customer service has been nothing less than perfect. Its all he will be buying in the future. I think Dell's relations with companies might be a step up from residential users.

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Yeah I will say Dell's company techs they send out on-site are pretty decent, but phone support is still subpar

UltimaParadox said:

Yeah I will say Dell's company techs they send out on-site are pretty decent, but phone support is still subpar

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Depends if you get the "flash card" support, or an actual higher level tech...

I'm a "Thumbs up" for Dell man myself. I was involved with over 300 PC's through their Large Business group and the support there is out of TX and overflows to Panama. The trick with things you "know" are dead is this:

If it's a hard drive:

Say it doesn't show up in Computer A's Bios, so you took it out and tried it in Computer B's and it doesn't show there, but the drive that came out of B shows in B and also in A.

And that it also makes a very loud noise when powered up and yada yada.

If it can't post in the bios they can't do any of their diagnostics to it (Like hitting CTRL-D) when the Bios screen loads that does one of the simple diags for HD's.

You might also be able to find a Distributor in your area that can sell you the systems for a fair price (maybe a few bucks more than Dell) but provide you their "First level support" as well, that way you get someone local and wouldn't have to go overseas on your first call.

Well, I had a dead pixel (right in the middle of the screen in Red) on my 2405fpw, The Customer Care guy over in india is awesome, almost no accent, Very nice, very responsive.. So far so good he has put in a new order for a new 2405fpw..

Dell Business is pretty stellar. Our company probably buys about 10k+ Dell Machines every three years. While we all bitch about our IT department and their management of software...no one ever bitches about their Dell.

For the single person Dell is okay/good...for the business, you have a great solution.

As for my family. I only do Dell's for two reasons 1) It will work 2) I force them to get the onsite warantee (i hunt deals to minimize this cost) if something breaks. Since i've gone to Dell for my famly (leaving Eraser, CowBox, SubCompact behind) my tech support for my family is all software and no hardware. That I can handle with remote desktop.

For my family so far....7 laptops, 4 desktops and only one has broken (and that was her fault for dropping her backpack on top of hte laptop and shoving the mouse button into the screen and cracking it).

-treP

i purchased a dell system 3 years ago, and for what it was used for at the time, it is nothing short of perfect. Great customer support however they do get busy and occasionaly there may be a long wait time.

I've purchased several Dell systems in the last 3 years from Home, the outlet, SB and EPP. The biggest problem was an outlet system that was shipped to the wrong address. No other real complaints and i've never had a hardware failure.

I've bought/recommended 5 Dell systems for family members and they haven't had problems either.

I have two very bad experiences with Dell:

(1) Purchsed a laptop fron Dell Canada. It broke before the warranty expired. They "fixed" it, and same problem + other problems again (looked like repaired by a amateur tech.). Customer support continued "talking" until warranty expired (this is a very long story in short version) and then asked me to pay for extended warranty if I wanted to fix it again. I ended up having the broken laptop.

(2) Bought a LCD flat panel from Dell (USA). Dead pixel and other problems (inaccurate display contrast) - complained on the 20th day. Customer service promised a new monitor and sent us a refurbished one. When asked about it, told that it was their company policy (replacing new parts with refurbished parts after 21 days). Then higher level people got involved, talked to a manager or somebody at Dell (after 2-3 days/5-6 calls to different people) they finally agreed ot replace the used monitor they sent us with a brand new one.

The first case was a personal purchase (I have a lawyer talking to Dell about it now). Second one was a govt. institutional purchase (over 30 Dell computers in the Dept. and more than 1500 Dells - I guess- in the whole institute).

Our institute continues to buy Dells just because they are cheap, although most of us acknowledge that the systems have more problems than other brands. The customer service is good only if you have lot of time to spend on phone talking to them or argue with them (and it is not guaranteed that "your" problem will be solved).

For me, personally, I have always lost money and/or time in dealing with Dell. So, I am NOT buying a Dell compuetr (or any other Dell product) for personal (or institutional use - if I had the desicion making power) in the future. If somebody asked me about buying a Dell, I just tell them the above and let them decide.

my 4700 has been wokring great.... i like dell... their not bad

This may be something worth reading.

Dell will be around tomorrow. That is something you cannot really say about some other computer makers. I know our county bought a lot of units from some outfit 5 years ago and the company went belly up 2 years later with 1 year of support left in limbo. Cheaper than Dell, but they (County) took one in the rectum when the units started to die.

I have dealt with Dell for close to 9 years and their customer service has gone downhill, but it is still customer service. Push comes to shove you can get some resolution, albeit incomplete and slow, to a problem. Better the devil you know than the one you don't.

Tech support for Dell's business customers is usually great. Its the exact opposite with Home customers though...

I work for a small buisiness, they sent us 2 pcs DOA, and a laptop that was doa :/ But I guess the good part is they sent us replacements fairly quick

we have 1000 dells at work (im an admin for a public school system). they're pretty good computers. problems here and there, but we're pretty satisfied.

if you can afford it, get the 3 year warranty. cause you might need it.

i've purchased a I8200 and two D2400's...both work flawlessly to this very day.

The LCD backlight died on the I8200 but a quick call to dell and it was fixed the next day on site.

One word.

Ugh.

If you are good with troubleshooting computers, and don't need to rely on their tech support (outsourced to other countires outside of the US), then they are just "ok" from what I have seen.

I have not been very happy with their quality of their cheaper models lately. They use P4 presscott's for their main models, whith very little cooling, which is a bad combo. You will have to accept that they use a lot of their own components, such as noname motherboards and special Dell powersupplys. Their bios is also very unique. Being cheap, you may get some quirks with them. I have a Dell SC420 server, and it will sometimes make a horrible high pitch wine.........

All in all, with their past attitude, I would look into other companies such as HP or IBM. I like the build quality IBM puts into their computers. It makes Dell looks very cheap. They may be at a bit of a price point, but your paying diffrent minimum wages, so to speak. ^_^ (If all things being equal, I like to support US workers).

This has been with Small Business. Their e-mail tech support is very "around the bush". They mostly just provide a lot of links to FAQ's which have almost nothing to do with the problem. Also, having to arque with their tech support is annoying. Some times its better just to make up something to get faster results sadly. When you turn on a monitor and it is really broke, and they just wont accept it and want you to do all these pointless things...............
I used to work for my local High School, and we had about 36 dells. One dead monitor out of the bunch, and one dead hard drive. Even their Educational tech support is indian based it seems. Nothing better then Home. But boy did they ship that monitor out fast, like overnight.
Personally, I have also used their home department too. A long time ago, about 5 years ago it was good! Now its bad. The poor "Home" users get a lot of bloatware, unless they spring for the Dell XPS gen5 I think?

Another incident. My roomate last year in college had a Laptop from their Home deparment. He had to talk to a few people on tech support for a long time, but they finally set up a onsite visit. They contracted with a non dell business, and the guy they sent out was very smart. I was impressed.

I know up front price can be very influential, but you sometimes have to think of the whole picture. If you don't mind what I and others have said.......... then Dell is for you, you deserve it.

~Hope this helps

i have an 8250..no problems ever..

runs fine for me..

I hate Dell tech support. I used to work for a University and our state required us to purchase Dell's with their onsite tech support. I don't know who the people who say Dell's onsite tech support is good got but it wasn't the clowns we got.

Build quality, and component quality (especially motherboards and PSU's) was suspect at best.

Spectre said:

I hate Dell tech support. I used to work for a University and our state required us to purchase Dell's with their onsite tech support. I don't know who the people who say Dell's onsite tech support is good got but it wasn't the clowns we got.

Build quality, and component quality (especially motherboards and PSU's) was suspect at best.

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yeah, that sounds like dell alright. but thats why i only use them for cheeeeeap internet surfing machines for family. $261 for a complete new system is much cheaper than I could ever do.

Awhile back I got an Inspiron 8500 (desktop replacement notebook with leet graphics) and it was great. I never had a single problem in the year and a half I owned it, never even had to call support.

I also ordered a 2005fpw from them a couple of months ago and their phone service was great-- their Indian tech upgraded me to next day delivery for free

The Dell I'm using at work is cheap and doesn't work too well, but there's no complaining for the price.

I work for a local gov't IT office. Whenever there is something outside of my scope (and more importantly, covered by warranty) I'll call up Dell for their "stellar" tech support. Oh man, do they suck.

No matter how clear I make it to "Sam" or "Frank" that I really do have a grasp on the concept of a malfunctioning CD Rom, he'll always insist that I open up device manager or some stupid shit.

If you're looking for a good solid machine that will look nice, Dell's the way to go.

If you plan on having to support the machine, build!

See my current sig...I'm extremely unimpressed by their quality of service at the moment...although some of their products and prices are really good.

punisher said:

Dell will be around tomorrow. That is something you cannot really say about some other computer makers.

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Were they here?

ive been very impressesed with dell and their services. If I didnt know how to change an option, they told me steps how to fix it. But the other dudes right, if anythings really busted, your screwed

I have a bias against buying computers built by OEM's, because IMHO you can often build the same computer (sans the exclusive case) for less with a little comparison shopping. However, Dell frequently has hot deals and that's why I bought my 8200 from them.

Overall their systems are hassle-free, something you'd expect from such a large and reputable company. They ship with the latest drivers, patches, and various updates, and the systems are tested at factory for stability. I don't have to many gripes with my system, except that cabling is HORRIBLE, you have ribbon and PSU cables running in every direction. I haven't bought another Dell recently, so I can't say whether or not they've improved in this respect.

Dell customer support is...meh. I was on the phone for 45 minutes once, only to speak to a representative who simply categorized my problem and immediately transfered me to the proper department, thus initiating another wait of 15 minutes.

Is anyone here thinking?

We keep making references to "build it yourself for cheaper". you are saying that dells suck, because you can build it for cheaper. this is the Pre-built OEM section. Think about that.

Also, think about the type of people who buy dells. Old people, computer-ignorant people, or people who need a lot of pc's really fast. Do you actually think they are in any position to "build it themselves"?

No.

I have a Dell 700m. Does everything I want it to do. Ended up getting a $35 coupon to buy a different wireless card for it as the Intel 2200b/g card really acted fucked up in this machine. Took a bit of convincing, and they only did ground shipping, so that was a pain. But it's a good laptop, and I'm happy.

I run the IT departments in a couple small businesses (50+ desktops at one, half a dozen at another). I too used to build the desktops by hand, picking every component and whatnot. But after getting burned by too many bad componets (and I bought Asus, IBM, Western Digital, etc), it just saved me so much time and grief by standardizing on Dell. After 5+ years with Dell, I can honestly say that the total cost of ownership is relatively low as compared to 'home-made' PCs. I'm strictly talking in a business environment though -- I still build my personal PCs

Their customer support has been very good -- just make sure you get into their small business group. they usually provide me with an 'upgraded' warranty or tech support at no additional cost whenever I purchase machines though my account rep.

As an added note it was their Home support I was dealing with...from everything I've heard they do a much better job with business customers. And if you have to spec a large number of systems it's a HUGE relief not to have to build and support all of them to the extent you would otherwise.

They would be on my short list for business use. Although I've had better support and service from HP Business desktops/workstations/servers.

bob said:

Also, think about the type of people who buy dells. Old people, computer-ignorant people, or people who need a lot of pc's really fast.

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forgot one category... those who saw an awesome deal for an internet explorer and jumped on it.

Okay well the overwhelming respons here seems to be that Dell are fine because they are cheap....my point at the start was (perhaps i didnt state it though, i cant remember eheh) that I can build the computers cheaper myself.

We would be paying extra...a reasonable amount extra...to go with Dell. I really am not prepared to pay extra if its going to involve me doing equal or more amounts of troubleshooting.

For a 10 computer network, unless there were serious downtime concerns, I'd just build the damn things. Bigger network, the maintainence starts building up and it's a good thing if you can just cross-ship the entire unit and not have to spend time troubleshooting, ever.

Small network, sometimes it's STILL a good thing, just because you probably already have way too many hats.

I do pc support for a company with about 400 users. a few years ago we built all the computers ourself, little to no real problems. But as the company grew it was taking up to much time to build all the computers and install them and put our fires... i was going insane. So i did what i had always told others not to.. started buying dell's. a year or so later we have about 150 dell's company wide.

They ship in about the same time it would take me to find the time to build em and for the most part there about the same price. If you dont mind spending about 30 min removing all the extra CRAP dell throws on the computer... who needs 923239293 30 day trials of software anyway?

As far as failure rate... well it seems to have doubled. Seems like every week someone has a bad harddrive in there dell, or the mem;s gone tits up. The funny thing is, everyone swears the dell's are more stable and never have problems.... i know the only reason they think that is because they come with slick 17"lcd's and pretty black keyboards..... stupid people i swear.

So even tho the failure rate is higher with dell ( AND IF YOUR MOTHERBOARD GOES DEAD AFTER WARR BE READY TO SPEND 300 FUCKING $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ FOR A REPLACEMENT THAT YOU COULD OF SPENT 55$ IF DELL WAZNT A CASE DESIGN NAZI) people like them cuz there black and popular, i like them cause there cheap and save me time...

SoniCraze said:

i like them cause there cheap and save me time...

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My point exactly...there's no arguing that you could build a faster computer, or a more reliable computer, or sometimes even a cheaper computer. But then you'd have to build it and troubleshoot it and repair it and order replacement parts etc etc...with an OEM system you just unpack the thing, lug it over to whatever room it goes in, and tell the network to ghost whatever belongs on it to the drive, story over. If it breaks, you call the OEM and tell them to send a new one out ASAP, rinse and repeat. Less time spent there so you can do more important/significant things instead.

25mins waiting is better than 45min "music listening session" (before getting back into the same "main menu" after another 15mins runaround) I had with their customer support sometime ago.

The following is a part of my post in "poll" thread:

Some here say Dell is not good for home use because home user warranty/customer service is not as good as that of small business/govt. users . I think, in reality, Dell knows it is easier to give a run around for a single home user, but it would be difficult to get away from business or govt. users (they have money and other resources to stand against Dell). Therefore, unsuspecting home users are getting trapped in Dell's cheap computers those come with fairly good warranties (at least on paper).