-J-

As above.... I Need a New PC and Dell seem pretty cheap for what you get. Anyone know if they are any good?

Mr S1

iTrader: (2)

My mate bought one last year and has never had a problem and we all have them at work - again, never skipped a beat and we use their servers, PC's, the lot.

Good as any other, just cheaper as they've got no retail overheads.

R4N SS

iTrader: (6)

they are good PCs but can be a coont if you want to upgrade certain components.

We use them at work also - cant really complain for the money tbh.

SimonT

I personally wouldnt buy a dell due to all the crap they bundle on it etc. We have to use them at work and everytime a brand new spanking one arrives we always format it and do a clean install.

I get all my computer stuff from here: www.aria.co.uk

Used em for years and cant fault them one bit.

andy_st200

yep dell are good pc's, bullet proof.. norton software bundled is shit but you can uninstall it easy enough , certainly price wise their very compeditive my aunt has one and i have 5 of em on my desk




** in an work enviroment you should have a base build of your own anyway for support reasons **

-J-

So seems they arent a bad bet providing i bin all the software they come pre installed with

SimonT

Basically yeah!

Zetec Andy

My mates has 2, one is ok the other is on its third hard drive!

Jonzy

I have around 750 dell workstations in work, far more reliable than any homebrew PC. Cant fault them apart from the 'ethnic' support staff they now have.

-J-

Ive got plenty of people i can turn to for support so hopefully ill never have to brave the Dell Help desks

plynchy

Had one for nearly 2 years, no problems at all. Got a 3 year "next day" new for old warranty off them too for Ł60. If you're going to get one don't let them sell you the warranty up front, wait till the standard year one has almost expired, they'll be in touch.
Also if you order on the phone they WILL haggle and you can negotiate all kinds of stuff.

Iain Mac

Won't hear a bad word about them.

Easy to order (as above, do it by phone and you can save more), it arrived on time, it works every time, and if a dunce like me can add another DVD drive and a Zip drive, it can't be too hard to upgrade.

I would like to know how to rename a drive though - the new DVD shows up as E:\Zip Drive but works perfectly!!

-J-

Sounds like im on to a winner here then... Thanks for all the info people

ballin

iTrader: (1)

dell are pretty good - very business orientated

Jonzy

Right click 'My Computer' > Manage > Left pane 'Drive Management' > Bottom right pane > Right click the drive and its pretty self explantory

Robin

My dad always recormend Dells to all his clients, dont skip a beat and very cheap.

Jim Galbally

nice cheap pcs for home/business

gamers avoid tho

Dan B

My 3 work machines are all Dells, two desktops and a laptop.

The only pain with upgrading I've found was finding the components that will fit......the new desktop needed a graphics card to replace the "useless" onboard card (which doesn't support 3d-acceleration in Linux - not much use when I help support a few gaming-servers in work), and the systems we tend to use at the moment in work (Optiplex GX280's, I think) only take half-height graphics cards.

Since fitting it, though, it's got a 52-day (and counting) uptime, so is nice and stable...

BM08

Ive always thought dell were like the bmw/mercedes of pc's myself!

Ive never owned, the only pc's ive had is a packard bell which i had for 7years and it NEVER went wrong

At the moment ive got an emachines pc, but the only parts now that are emachines is the case probably

UBster

Sales staff now as well

TRIED to order a pc for work about a month ago but after the member of staff gave me 5 renditions of " 56k modem installed very nice, very good" everytime i asked if it had a network/lan port on the motherboard, phone got slammed down pretty sharpish and ordered from www.meshcomputers.com

maybe when you order 750 you get a slightly better accounts manager

Matt

Jim Galbally

imalover,

dell are the ford/vauxhall of PCs... affordable average equipment.

they do do high end gear too tho.

Zetec Andy

The only Dell's that i like are the laptops, i think the desktops are overpriced internet only machines, then if you want a gaming machine the one n there site is Ł1,149

that includes:
1024MB Dual Channel DDR2 533MHz (2x512) Memory
250GB (7200rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive
48x CDRW and 16x DVD-ROM
Single 256MB nVidiaŽ GeForce™ 6800 graphics card

and thats with NO monitor, NO speakers, NO modem and NO printer what a fookin joke

You could built that spec yourself for around 600 quid

BM08

Shings

I have had mine for 3 weeks now.

Initially they fucked me about like you wouldn't believe.

It isn;t that the call centre cant speak english its that they just dont understand what you mean.


Mine is P4 630
160 gig HD
512 meg ram
17tft
CD re writer thingy
9 in 1 card reader.
Its a demension 3100

Only thing that pissed me off was I ticked NO to their broad band so they still sent me out AOL DELL and WANADOO discs and pre installed them all on my pc.

I'm very pleased with it now Stu H has taken all the crap off it.

M7 COS

We're on our second Dell at home and I think that they're pretty good for the money.

I'd certainly buy another.

-J-

Dont want one for Gaming - thats what my Xbox is for So long as i can get on the net, Edit my Photos, Sort my website out, Sister needs something to do her uni work on for her Art degree.

Fancy having a play around with a few Music editing programes.

But most importaint must have a decent hard drive for porn

Zetec Andy

I mean don't get me wrong, we all want our PC for different things, i paid Ł520 the the PC I'm on now as a base unit only deal as i had the monitor and printer etc, that was 3 years ago, at the time it was very good spec, its a Compaq by the way.

Recently i have spent another Ł510 upgrading it to the mutts nuts graphics card, new motherboard, more memory, juicy power supply all just to have a quick blast on battlefield 2 or half life 2, but my god its stunning when i do

dexterc

Thats the same for most major PC manufacturers though. Mate had 900 quid worth of PC world vouchers to build a pc with, and the prices there are ridiculous. The best Graphics card they do is a 6600GT or a X800GT. They only do one Athlon 64 Processor. He also paid 100 quid for a gig of generic ram, I got an offer through an email from an online store the following day for 2 gig of Low latency ram for the same price. I will never ever buy a prebuilt pc again.

andy_st200

i agree, but what you have to remember is not everyone has the technical savvy to this themself.. and then theirs the issue of if things dont work who to contact... most suppliers are shite when it comes to blame someone else for a pc crashing, so for the PC novice building a pc isnt either an option they want or should be undertaking

dexterc

True, but when I first did it I was surprised by how easy it was. I would rather contact someone with a degree of knowledge than give my money to the major manufacturers. Who arent exactly too sharp on helping you out when stuff breaks either sometimes.

If you can put an engine together, I would have thought you could learn to setup a PC no probs.

Zetec Andy

MY first PC was home built and again was great spec for the 400 notes it cost me, including monitor etc but when that eventually died i needed a PC asap, so i just went to PC world and bought the best spec i could get for the money which at the time was...

AMD 64 3200+
160GB HDD
512MB Ram
TV tuner
DVD/CD writer
DVD drive
Nvidia 128mb FX5200

that lot cost Ł520, now ive upgraded to...

AMD 64 3200+
160GB HDD
1.5GB Ram
TV tuner
DVD/CD writer
DVD drive
Nvidia 256mb 7800GTX
520w PSU (to run 7800GTX)
and a new Socket 754 Motherboard with PCI-E Slot, again for 7800GTX.

Il soon be upgrading the Processor (i spent the money on a TFT last time )

-J-

I cant be fussed with attempting to build one... My tech Knowledge about anything goes about as far as doing my shoe laces up

Jim Galbally

a lot of people when DIYing PCs will use cheap components aswell. you can take 2 identically specced machines, but one can cost 50% more due to it having proper componenets in it. motherboards are a perfect example. you can get em for about 25quid but some cost 200quid... and thats not because the 200quid ones are ripoffs

dexterc

I would say, again, thats also a problem with mass produced pcs. A lot of manufacturers skimp on things like the power supplies and motherboards, because they dont offer a number that they can wave at the consumer.

TrevCannon

Just watch out for there OS's because dell get it cheap off mircosoft, & soon they wont update on mircosoft website becuase they putting a stop to copyed OS's

Anonymous

The LEAST likely place to get a pirated version of XP is Dell (or indeed, any other major manufacturer)

Just because you don't get a genuine Microsoft XP disc doesn't mean that the software itself is pirated

The only keys that are being blocked by Microsoft's "Genuine Advantage Program" are the original leaked VLK's (Volume licenced keys) meant for large corporations etc

Dell machines are OK, their marketing is very good, they seem to be advertised everywhere. Their standard builds are good value, their add ons seem to be where they make their money. (If you use their online system configurator, you will see what I mean)

Jim Galbally

trev, you're joking right?

TrevCannon

Just been e-mailed from my man...

These Dell versions on Dell computers will NOT pass the NEW Microsoft verification Dell etc, have a special oem licencing deal with Microsoft which enables them to get supplied XP at a very cheap price.

Do not be fooled by being told they will work OK. They will probably activate OK, but will NOT verify. This new verification means that you can ONLY get updates and downloads as long as your XP passes the verification.

Then he puts at the end of THIS e-mail, THATS ONLY IF YOU USE THE OS ON ANOTHER COMPUTER WHAT AINT A DELL ONE

Surpose i was right about them getting it cheap tho

Anonymous

Like everything else, if you buy loads of any product, you get a decent discount. Imagine how many copies of XP Dell shift in a year worldwide?
Dell being American as are Microsoft probably doesn't do any harm though
As with all the other parts they use.
They are also in bed with Intel as you probably notice that Dell don't sell any AMD machines

TrevCannon

Yeah yeah thats defo true

Lmao @ intel & dell