Geralt wrote:In my previous job we were using Dell desktop PCs only as well as some notebooks.
We had about 250 PC machines with next business day contract and there were no problem with that. I only had to send fax or e-mail to service company, next day (sometimes same day) a man came with some parts to replace and in 90% of cases everything was working again.
As for laptops - colegue is using Dell a lot. He is traveling around Europe a lot and never had a problem with Dell support. Hell, when he was in Slovakia, dell technician has met him at some gas station to replace faulty keyboard.
But maybe Dell and theirs service partners are much more reliable here, in Czech republic or middle europe, than in UK
But yes, they are pricy.
How long ago was this though? I agree Dell were extremely good around a year to 18months ago, but since then they've plumetted to become the worst company I've dealt with. I'm really not sure what went wrong at Dell, as I say 2 years ago I just wouldn't recommend anyone else for laptops/servers, now I just wouldn't recommend them full stop ]They're never cutting edge, but usually reasonable performers and reliable in my experience (but maybe they've got worse lately from what people are saying).[/QUOTE] Again that's pretty much spot on, as I say a year or so ago I'd have recommended Dell, to me they were the dogs bollocks in terms of laptops/servers (I'd never buy a desktop from a manufacturer, anyway no matter how good, always build from scratch). Nowadays though they've just gone to crap - high failure rates in hardware, incompetence of their repair staff, worthless Indian call centre for home users, overly busy UK call centre for business users, outright and blatant intentional false advertising to try and scam people into buying from them and so on. In fact, on that note, I found this story from yesterday quite amusing:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/13 ... verssells/
The last few servers I've ordered have all been Dell but I really need to start looking into the likes of IBM and HP to see how their offerings compare. As for desktops in a corporate enviroment where cost is less of an issue and we don't have time to spend building every PC I'm a little lost as to which supplier to use however
http://www.stonecomputers.co.uk/ is looking quite tempting, they seem to have good offers for bulk buying and the kit I've dealt with seems well made, looks pretty decent and is full of completely standard components meaning that even if they're left floating around out of warranty instead of in the bin they'll still easily be repairable if a part goes. Also from people I've spoke to who use them they often manage same-day visits by their technicians to replace faulty components under warranty, or if you want they'll send the parts and let you replace them yourself.