Desktops forum: If not Dell, what brands are highly rated?

first a Pentium 133, 16MB of RAM, Win95 from early '99. When my dad's branch office shut down, this was his "consolation prize"

My first new dell was in late '99. P3 550HMz, 128MB RAM, 16MB Voodoo3 3000 win98 SE

3rd current Dell is P4 3GHz, 0.5GB RAM, ATI 128MB Radeon 9800 Pro, winXP SP2 almost 2 years ago

My comments on dell are as follows:
1st system came with no support, since it was one of the office PCs

2nd system. Tech Support RULED!!! I had quite a few problems with this PC, but id' say hafl were my fault and the other half being win98 not stable enough. They were "american", courteous, and go the extra mile to assist you. I even had an engaging conversation about the NHL and hockey even tho i don't give a rat's ass about hockey!

And now....
-u get lucky and get an pure english speaker, but mostly indian tech supp reps. Nothing against Indians, but the accent was hard to understand most of the time. Many of them also seemed to have a subpar understanding and knowledge techinical expertise (altho this also applied to the "white folk" as well)
-Dell continues to use proprietary motherboards and cases. U can upgrade RAM, HD, optical drives, and even vid cards to a certain extent easily, but upgrading to a new mobo to support higher processors, and modding your case to support higher PSU is difficult at best, if even possible
-Like other prebuilts, they overcharge for alot of components (x2 as much for RAM vs Crucial.com and Newegg for example), and while their low end PCs are a nice deal, it's cheaper to make your own high end/gaming PCs
-they use refurbished, so-so parts, even for new PCs.

So why do *I* still buy from Dell?
-I'm lazy. Once I get settled in a more permanent job, I'll buy my own cheap components and put together my own PC for the fun and experience of it. For now, Im content having something that just works and being ablt to complain to some1 if i have a problem (winXP and the hardware have been good to me so far tho, barring an incident of clean install from too mcuh spy/adware)
-I get them cheap.... I always tell ppl to buy Dell cheap. Look for current promos AND online coupons to save up to 40% off or $500 off.
-Self built PCs are great for ppl who upgrade major parts (processor, PSU, vid card) often. My upgrade cycle will be moreso every 3 to 6 years.
-Like watching a bad movie u know is bad, I know what to expect of Dell, the good, bad, and ugly

MY CONCLUSIONS.....
is dell terrible? Not quite. They're not as good as they used to be, but for ppl who aren't too technical, don['t have time to build their own PC< or need tech support, go for it. For gamers and other advanced PC users, u can certainly do better.

is that you can order just the motherboard, cpu, hsf, ram, and powersupply from them. For a small fee, they will put it all together for you AND test it ahead of time prior to shipment........that gives you the option then of shopping around for the case, video card, floppy drive, harddrive, dvd-rw, sound card, modem, etc. for the brands that you want perhaps on sale elsewhere and put those pieces in yourself.

It's a great way to start on learning from the 'ground up' about building your own without worrying about messing up an expensive motherboard and cpu until you are ready to take that next step later on.

TONI

For your friend, tell him to go to www.crucial.com They have a memory scanner that tells exactly how many memory slots are there and what kind. Make sure to do the scanner twice though, because once in a while, it tells you the wrong details. If the scanner doesn't work, then he can look it up if he knows the manufacturer, the product line, and the model. It works for some printers. However, the scanner won't work some of the time on homemade computers.

My employer (10,000+ employees) went to Dell exclusively because of the best (cheapest) deal. I have bought locally for since 1994 and it's the only way I will buy. I can actually talk to a real person face to face. In that time I failed a CD drive (warranty) and one power supply which I had to buy. It is well worth being able to explain what I have and what I want to do. My local record seems to beat my office record for fewer repairs.

Could not agree more. I ran a PC network for 11 years. I quit to go back to school. I priced a ton of notebooks and found that Apple was very competitive on price, feature for feature, and outperformed most of the PCs. And this was a Master of Science program, not Fine Arts. Using Virtual PC the Apple outperformed 3GHz Dell Pentium 4's at the school. There were a few pissed off classmates. And if you run a big database you won't believe Filemaker Pro! A file 100K x 40 took 45 minutes to do a simple sort on Access. In FileMaker it took 15 seconds - no BS.

In over 2 years I have spent less than 20 hours troubleshooting this PowerBook. OS X is unbelievable. I had a few minor problems with case clips, and I cracked the bezel over the DVD slot, but that was from [over]use - it's where I rested my hand for the touchpad. But they moved it to the side, so that's no longer a problem.

One caveat: No matter what brand you buy make sure you get either the extended warranty or use American Express to pay for it. Borrow somebody's and pay them if you have to. Do both if you can. You're going to have the machine for at least two years, and the regular warranty runs out in 1. AMEX adds one extra year to all warranties, including extended. AMEX paid to get my case repaired.

I just bought an Apple running OX X Panther in Feb. 2005 and a Sony running Win XP/Home in Jul 2005. Every once in a while I have a Security Update for the Apple but I almost always get major updates for Apple's software: Garage Band, i-tune, Quick Time. The Apple just works, everyday. It is really a quality machine.

The Sony has glitches in it from the first day. Sony service is very poor. They think that every computer user is an IT specialist. "Fix it yourself." Every day or every other day I download updates from the 7 anti-malware programs and I scan every other day. The last MS Security Update took hours. Fortunately, one of the "fixes" that caused other computers to not work or even boot didn't happen to me. Maybe MS's update didn't install....maybe it was another "failed" update. I'd better check.

OS X Panther is just great. I don't need the widgets or the Spotlight program so I didn't upgrade. I won't upgrade to Vista either. That will be another "Swiss Cheese" OS from MS.

First off, whatever you do, do not get a Gateway. I had nothing but trouble with the Gateway computer I used for 4 years. There were problems with the Gateway right from the start. I would suggest getting a Hewlett-Packard. My brother and I both have HPs and we have been pleased with them. The only complaint is that they are a little noisy. I also like IBM a great deal but they are no longer in the computer business. I found the IBM computers I used over the years to be extremely reliable. I like Apple too. I feel Apple makes really good computers that are easy to use.

I went through the same dilema. My 1998 Atlas at 850mhz was in need of an upgrade. I would have bought another Atlas but the co. died in 1995. I considered building from scratch, and had a list of what I wanted in it, but some serious questions, from my geek friends, made me realize I didn`t have the brains to correctly mix, match, and install the components. I ruled out Compact, Dell, Gateway and HP, because they`re ''as is'' PC`s, not upgrade friendly. I`d worked with Apple`s and didn`t care for them either (limited software and hardware choices). Was hearing some good things about E-Machines, but they mostly offered the bottom line, starter machines for newbies. Then I saw an ad for their Media Center Model T6520. It has a lot of nice stuff in it for $600, but a cheap ATI 200 video card. For $200 more, replaced it with with an Asus Extreme AX700 Pro card. Added an external USB2 floppy drive,and put in a 2nd. 160Gb hard drive from my old PC. New rig scored 450 on Norton Performance Test.If you haven`t bought yet, try one on for size, it`s great for $800.

My sis "accidently" dropped my laptop on the floor. Thank God the only damage done was the power cable's little metal thing on the end was all bent. Dell sent me the next, perfect, sent the old back and I was fine. Tech Support was the best I've seen, well thats only comparing some old generic comapny, and I will certainly buy from dell again. Just wish they would lower their price on those XPS'.
-Ibrahim

I don't know who you are listening to or what you are reading, but Dell is second to none. I am on my second Dell and won't buy any other brand.

I'm discovering that the box (PC) is no longer the center of the debate. It the software and how fast or efficiently you can run it. Once PCs hit the 2gig under $500 mark then the box becomes disposable. If you read what happening in the industry then you can see the much larger trend is not what software your going to buy for your PC but what software your going to use on your mobile device or TV set. This will lead to a time when the majority people won't even own computers, or at lest won't know it. They will upload their digital pictures to Walmart.com and at the web site will be the tools to do color correction, red eye removal, and even x-boy friend removal. And it will all happen on their TVs using it's remote control. So it doesn't matter what you buy, as long as it will run the software you need any thing will do at this point.

I have used a medion computer now for 10years and has never experience any problem. Tech support is superb 24/7. Who can beat that? They even help me with third party software. Medions are expensive but the Germans know what they are doing.

It seems to me like you know a lot about dell, have you tried getting a job with dell instead of working for that company that you work for and are badmouthing?? You keep talking like that you might end up working with dell's technical support( in indonesia)

Ive owned two Sony Vaio's.Both great machines.One being a laptop and another being the desktop that I still use now.Its about 2 years old and it really works well even now.Well built machine unlike the gateway that cost me $2300 a few years back that died.After 2 years my gateway monitor just died.My dvd/cd drive also stopped working along with my hard drive acting up to the point where I couldnt even use the internet anymore.Needless to say I will never buy a Gateway ever again.
My only beef with sonys computers was the lack of upgradeability.But it seems the newer Sony Vaio's have that issue remedied.I look forward to purchasing another Sony Vaio in the near future.

is one great running machine I have not had one glitch with mine and it was in a car wreck as I was bringing it home totaled out a 2000 dodge ram with it loose in the back floorboards
but the 250 gig harddrive and the tv tuner along with the radeon 9200 its awesome power quick and has not slowed down with 100 gigs full already
the games play great weather it be flight sim or sim2
dos games fair just as well
it multitasks fluently and is a great asset to our home collection of compaqs , hewlett packards and a home grown
I would buy a Sony Vaio again over them all
Jonathan Roach
Spring Hill, Florida