Just my thoughts on Dell Computers...

My pet peeve with Dell is their name recognition translates into "it has to be good (or "right"), it's a Dell." In the past month alone I've had four jobs where customers complained about slow response times, only to find AOL and XP installed with 55-60 applications running in the background on a machine with 128MB of installed RAM. I wised up on the last two, when I heard Dell I brought extra RAM with me and did a no-charge demo. My elderly customers may not be too hip about computer jargon, but "seeing's believing" to them.

I hate to tell you, I experienced the same service horrors on a Compaq desktop (prior to their takeover by HP) and on my current HP Pavlion.
Unfortunately "build your own" option is not readily available to most of us. I for one lack confidence in purchasing a few hundred dollars worth of components and being able to put them all together and make them work. What if I can't?. Local computer stores are rare in small communities. One I had access to a few years ago installed a pirated copy of Windows on my Compaq and went out of business.
I wish I knew what the answer was.

And that really is the sad part ... Dell certainly has no corner on the "customer no service" market.

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Originally Posted by x71s8zTN

I hate to tell you, I experienced the same service horrors on a Compaq desktop (prior to their takeover by HP) and on my current HP Pavlion.
Unfortunately "build your own" option is not readily available to most of us. I for one lack confidence in purchasing a few hundred dollars worth of components and being able to put them all together and make them work. What if I can't?. Local computer stores are rare in small communities. One I had access to a few years ago installed a pirated copy of Windows on my Compaq and went out of business.
I wish I knew what the answer was.

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This was me a year ago (already!) but with the help from the membership here I did it. I've done it since, probably 45 times or so now and sell the results. :)

I wouldn't dare rely on local merchants who have a high CAM fee and lease to pay for their space--their prices suffer as a result. Buy from Newegg, TigerDirect, ZipZoomFly, etc. and you get reliable products and service. Today's components are almost self-installing so it's much easier than when one had to configure all the system IRQs and manually configure network/modem settings. One pretty much makes sure the components are compatible, assembles them and that's all there is to it most of the time.