[sclug] Dell desktop for 175GBP inc. delivered - offer closes 2/11/2005

[Will Dickson]

Dickon Hood wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 30, 2005 at 19:30:21 +0000, Keith Edmunds wrote:
> : Stuart Major wrote:
> : >This might seem like a daft question (and apologies if it is) but is 
> : >there any downside to this machine

TANSTAAFL. That does indeed seem very cheap. If it were me, I'd want to
know why.

> 
> : Probably not. However, after multiple problems with Dell's after-sales 
> : service with two of their machines, I will never buy Dell again.
> 
> That's unusual -- most people I know who have had to use them had found
> them fine.

Google reports approximately 1,640,000 hits for "Dell sucks". This
result is consistent with the set of anecdotes I've heard. Make of both
of these factlets what you will :-)

> 
> Add on top their non-standard power supplies and motherboards (same
> connectors, different voltage pinouts -- this can get unfortunately
> expensive if you're not aware of it), and the frankly ugly styling of the
> cases, 

which are non-standard as well, aren't they? IIRC the last one I dealt
with had extra special styling foo attached to the front, which looked
very pretty (OK, actually it didn't) but meant you couldn't install
standard peripherals.

plus a habit of underspeccing the RAM (and charging a fortune for
> upgrades) means I won't buy one.

<aol/>. The whole point of a PC IMO is that it uses a set of components
built to agreed standards, such that elements from different mfrs will
interoperate. In fact, come to think of it, it's pretty much the
hardware equivalent of open source. Dell take the standards and
deliberately break them so that nobody else's components will
interoperate with theirs. Is this really behaviour we wish to reward?

Will.