Dell - how the mighty have fallen

  I bought a Dell 10 years ago for the enormous sum of £1200, served me for years with no problem.

  The guy at the local computer shop who builds all my computers now reckons they just use the same cheap crappy components as everyone else nowadays tho.

 My advice is find a small shop and get one built, any problems with ours and we just pop it along and it's sorted usually the same day often without even being charged for it.

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I bought a Toshiba Laptop 10 months ago, and am very pleased with it.  I considered Dell at the time but couldn't get the spec I wanted.  I specifically wanted a high resolution screen in a small laptop, as using a big laptop on the train or plane is hopeless, but I need the resolution for the applications I work with.   I thought the Toshiba expensive at over £800 but similarly spec'd Dells weren't much cheaper if at all.

I built my desktop myself 4 years ago and it's still fast enough for what it's used for.  The only items to fail have been the case fan and he DVD writer that sometimes refuses to open, both replaced recently for less than £20.

My Medion akoya seems OK and the Acer I had prior to that was brilliant. The Acer I bought secondhand off a mate. The Medion I bought from Sainsburys 4 or 5 weeks ago for next to nothing for it's spec.

The point? Buggered if I know. I've never had a Dell.

98% of the time I'm right. Why worry about the other 3%.

O'tooles law. O'toole declared Murphy to be an optimist

Really sorry to hear about your oppo Nige. One of the reasons I bought a Dell was a recomendation from a friend, citing their excellent customer service. Being an IT numpty I pretty much f*cked up my new lappy straight away (I know ), the guys in Ireland couldn't have been more helpful. Same thing with my Dad. On my recomendation, he gets a desktop and suffers various minor dramas setting it up, adding peripherals etc., again the boys sorted him out quick time. A particularly nice touch was their habit of taking his number and ringing him back, so the support cost literally nothing...

I can't believe they've given up such a superb customer service just to save a few sheckels, surely computers (especially VFM ones, like most of Dells) are all about return business?

The lappy, in spite of my best efforts, has behaved flawlessly for two and a half years now. Best computer I've ever owned...

Flo,

 How small is your mouse mat????

Flo wrote (see)

. . . . . The lappy, in spite of my best efforts, has behaved flawlessly for two and a half years now. Best computer I've ever owned...

The best computers here have been those we put together ourselves using parts bought from magazines ads.

The Packard Bell currently being used, and purchased from the PCW bunch of amatures has probably been the worst computer used here.

What, not another jolly ?

for half the price you could build it yourself and have something much better, get a secondhand p4 laptop and just upgrade the hell out of it. i have a p4 2.8ghz laptop wiv 500gb disk space and 4gb ram and an ati graphics card, total cost £471, never used now cos this desktop is 4 times better.

I can't think of anything to put here.

Fair enough if you're happy putting electronics together, installing software and fault finding the inevitable niggles. I'm none of the above...

Oh, and you're right, PCW suck.