> -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:hardware- > [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ben Ruset > Sent: Thursday, August 17, 2006 2:52 PM > To: The Hardware List > Subject: Re: [H] Dell Laptop Batteries > > Thane Sherrington wrote: > > > You do know they are one of the largest computer manufacturers in the > > world? > > Sure do. Ask the common person on the street. "Who is Acer?" > > > Affordable is one thing. Cheap to the point of low margins eroding > > quality and service is another. Dell is in the latter camp. > > Build quality? Customer service quality? > > Dell has acknowledged that their CS quality largely sucks. They're > working on fixing that. I have found that a lot of IT companies have > just as poor, if not worse, support than Dell. The fact that they have > acknowledged this and are working to fix it gives them high marks in my > book.
[Chris Reeves] One thing that I want to point out, though is that dell's newer "cheap" boxes really are POS. I find almost nothing to separate them out from eMachines. They are basically uber-cheap boxes with low end power supplies, bargain basement ram, no software to speak of except piled up with advertisement ware (Earthlink 6 Months!, AOL Six Months! And so forth) and basically discontinued HDDs. What the hell is Dell doing shipping any box with a 40GB HDD right now? Except eliminating inventory. That's Dell's issue. They've built up a fair inventory and debt that they are going to struggle with. Screw the batteries, it's the ability to pawn off all the old PentiumD processors they are holding at a price that doesn't make them eat their lunch. It's the ability to flog warehouses of HDDs, CDRW/DVDROM combo drives that are passé amongst whiteboxers. That's Dell's big task. I really don't mind Dell in the higher end market segment or in servers. But I've had numerous people with customer support nightmare phonecalls on cheap nothing PCs that don't provide them spit. Dell also went into some market segments it should have stayed out of (Printers?) Dell is a better manufacturer then many, but that's a little bit like saying you can drool more then other lobotomy patients. Dell's high end and server segment is solid. Their low end (read: sub $500 PCs) are garbage. And you get what you pay for.
