Who's a good systems vendor ? (Dell, Gateway, HP , IBM, Compaq,etc)

[SteveA]

and why?

 

[Digobick]

1. Dell - Great customer service, quality parts.

2. Compaq business computers - Good customer service, quality parts.

3. HP - Decent customer service, pretty good parts.

4. Gateway - Average customer service, decent parts. Have some problems if upgrading or run on a large network.

5. IBM - Decent parts, decent customer service.

6. Compaq Presario - Poor customer service, cheap parts. Pain to upgrade.


Those are ranked in the order that I would buy them.

 

[peemo]

Dell is my first choice. My first computer was a Dell. My experiences:

1) Nothing wrong with the machine - no hardware failures of any sort over the 3 years I owned it.

2) Excellent support - when Canadian support was closed I was immediately routed to Texas no questions, no charge. Support was very patient with a newbie who wanted to add RAM, change a video card, install a networking protocol, etc. I seldom waited more than a few minutes to speak with tech support.

3) Reasonable price - compared to Gateway & IBM, Dell is competitive. All are more expensive than building it yourself and probably more than the local Ma & Pa shops. Be sure to factor in software (like Office 2000) when comparing the total cost.

Downsides: You may be WAY overcharged for additional memory. Dell currently charges $320 Canadian for a 128MB PC133 RAM upgrade! It may be more difficult to upgrade depending on whether the vendor uses a proprietary motherboard. You may wait longer for bios and hardware driver updates. If you have a problem, you may have to ship your computer a long way to get it repaired.

Good luck.

 

[Prodigy^]

I've had an IBM, and I have the following experience:

* Good 24-7 support, competent and friendly people. Of course, as soon as it gets more advanced as how to install a program, they don't know jack.

* Quality parts. I've never had to get any new parts in 2 years.

---------

* Very expensive.

* Compatibility with other hardware than what comes with them is bad. It can really make the system messy.

* Custom made parts. Sucks for upgrading because you often can't remove the sound and/or video.

 

[rahvin]

Hands down Dell, I've owned by gateway and Dell personally and Gateway can't hold a candle to them. Dell has express parts delivery and will pick up the broken one on their nickle, no one else does that.

 

[AMB]

Out of all of them I would say Dell

 

[Horsepower]

My last 5 machines have been Dell. I only experienced shipment delays at the launch of the coppermine. All other Dell experiences were more than excellent. I have heard Micron is good, but their pricing isn't.

 

[mpitts]

Dell is generally the consensus answer to this question. I have had good luck with Gateway and I agree that the Compaq Deskpro's are excellent.. but avoid the Presarios!

 

[Redwingsguy]

I'd say Dell or Micron, and unless you're gettin a server pc, DONT GO COMPAQ!

 

[KarsinTheHutt]

I own a Dell and am very happy with it.

 

[Ulysses]

Dell is obviously a good choice - but they are still strictly for Intel CPU's, I believe.

For AMD CPU's you are probably best off with Gateway.

 

[claw]

Definitely Dell... my Dell 486 from 7 years ago still runs perfectly now with Windows 98 installed... I did have a power supply failure once, but that was after 5 years of use, so it was to be expected. Otherwise, it works great. I have a Dell Dimension XPS R400 now and it's been doing great. Out of all the vendors out there, Dell's are by far the easiest to customize and upgrade.

 

[deliriou5]

Don't mean to be repetitive, but once again, Dell.

I went shopping around for about 3 months before buying my computer, and no other manufacturer provides quality parts at such a good price. I compared Micron, Quantex, Gateway, Cybermax, and probably some other vendors that I don't recall before purchasing my cuurent computer.

Buying a computer at a retail store is the absolute worst mistake anyone could ever make when buying a computer, but I am sure most of you know that already. If you get a cheap system with a cheap processor, they will put all these junk parts in there. If you get a more powerful system, you may get better parts, but they will package it with tons of useless extras to make you spend more (video cameras, scanners, CD-R drives, TV tuner video cards, etc).

Dell is great because they pack their systems with trusted brand name products, not generic no-namers.

 

[LXi]

Direct sales vendors:

1. Dell
2. Micron
3. Gateway
4. Quantex(actually a pretty well known company)


Retail vendors:

1. HP
2. IBM
3. Compaq(avoid them at all costs)

 

[DBavaria]

I suggest go private, easyer to deal with

www.abscomputers.com great everything
www.cantekusa.com cheap

 

[steelthorn]

I have to agree with the best being Dell. I had one and it was the best computer I've ever had.

 

[Janus]

Once again I have to add my support for Dell. When I was a system administrator at a large NE Ohio university, we used to maintain an extensive corporate contract with Gateway. Unfortunately we reached a point where almost 40% of their machines were arriving to us with some defect or support issue (and we had a contact with Gateway for tens of millions of dollars!) When we required replacement parts or support for the Gateway machines, Gateway would just send us generic parts without any documentation, follow-up, etc. Granted it's not that we couldn't handle the repairs, the point is that we shouldn't need to with the money the university was spending.

Needless to say, we dropped Gateway like a bad habit and switched to Dell. Now almost three years later, I've heard the university is thrilled with the machines and we have almost no problems whatsoever. When support issues arise, Dell simply replaces the machine or even sends their own support staff to address the problems. In my opinion, Dell is a shining example of how mass market computer companies should operate.

As an aside, nearly all of the local school systems and governmental offices in my area use Dell computers with similar results.

 

[damocles]

DELL!!- friend ordered a computer from them (couple of years back). He didnt know anything about PCs. When he got it we opened it up, matrox millennium vid card and other name brand parts.

from my experiences avoid Compaq (overpriced crap) and IBM (hard to upgrade and also overpriced)

 

[Strych9]

Dell is the best...but why not build your own and save $$$.

 

[Vich]

#1 GamePC

www.gamepc.com

 

[RSI]

http://www.unrealpc.com choose a system there and see what y'think..

 

[dszd0g]

I pretty much agree with LXi's rankings. I might rank Micron above Dell though.

If you go with HP you definitely get what you pay for as far as how far up their product line you go. The Kayaks are really nice as far as prebuilt systems go, but they cost way too much.

BIAS ALERT: I am an employee of one of the said companies, but definitely do not speak for the company. I'm bored, I feel like being vague.

 

[Painman]

#1... Box built from scratch with quality off-the-shelf parts from proven manufacturers. (Hey... that sounds like my box.)

If I had to buy a whole fleet of systems they'd be Dells. My company went with Dell when it upgraded its entire nationwide computer infrastructure last year (probably over 2,000 machines), 150 or so of which went into my office. I think there have been like 2 hard disk, 1 motherboard and 1 monitor failures since then. That's pretty impressive.

-Pain

 

[Scifione]

If everyone jumped of a cliff, I think I would to. I might be the only one of the bunch wearing parachute but would do it. That might would be like tech support and ease of replacement. If you have not made your decision by now, I am going to have to jump on the bandwagon and say, "Dell!" "Why ask why? Try Bud Dry." *cut* *paste* "Whey as why? Try Dell." Dell makes a great computer for most uses, but remember that there are a great number of custom builder for game rigs if this is going to be a gaming PC.

Just a note: I built my 1st PC and have been hood ever since.