Compaq has nothing to do with Dell and neither does Gateway or Toshiba as my full post reads ???
My deal with Compaq has to do with the merger with HP and as you say HP does make a good all round deal however all their PC's are solid middle of the road kinda stuff. All PC companies lock up their Bios and mod restrict their motherboards but HP is using the Compaq name these days for the smaller or niche markets primarily with AMD chipsets and it restricts what you might want to do with the PC in the future such as clocking and upgrading due to a smaller number of specific type of units out on the market.
There was talk of the Compaq name going all together at the merge but HP seams to have found a use for it in the marketplace but I just cant recommend the brand that’s all. Thats not to say they are bad computers but the marketplace is more comfortable with the HP brand and it's Intel chipsets and I think Monster would be too.
Compaq has nothing to do with Dell and neither does Gateway or Toshiba as my full post reads :???:
My deal with Compaq has to do with the merger with HP and as you say HP does make a good all round deal however all their PC's are solid middle of the road kinda stuff. All PC companies lock up their Bios and mod restrict their motherboards but HP is using the Compaq name these days for the smaller or niche markets primarily with AMD chipsets and it restricts what you might want to do with the PC in the future such as clocking and upgrading due to a smaller number of specific type of units out on the market.
There was talk of the Compaq name going all together at the merge but HP seams to have found a use for it in the marketplace but I just cant recommend the brand that’s all. Thats not to say they are bad computers but the marketplace is more comfortable with the HP brand and it's Intel chipsets and I think Monster would be too.
Sorry.. I read your comment on compaq as one sentence in regards to Dell CS.. and I agree with your comments on Compaq.
There is a market for their computers, but for a little more, the HP brand is much better deal for the cost. Everytime I price up a computer for a customer I check out all the major players.. and everytime I end up back with HP for the best deal.
I haven't seen a Compaq in a few years but about 2-3 years ago, they were quite dreadful - all kinds of stuff breaking down on them and then the buyers getting stiffed with the warranty.
I buy about 40 -50 computers a year for my area and we get "sweetener" deals from the big manufacturers as we buy so many (probably 1-2 thousand a year). I inherited a policy of buying Gateway (which I had bought myself twice for home use) but switched to Dell after the first and second batch turned out to be less than satisfactory.
Dell systems have been very reliable in my experience - both laptops and desktops. My opposite numbers tend to buy cheap, small Dell boxes (the tiny Optiplexes) whereas I have always bought slightly higher and gone for Dimensions (usually 2000-3000 series).
Although the reliability is still good, the support from Dell has tailed off badly in the past year. I'm having to deal more and more with folks in India and it has been frustrating on occasions. I suppose I should be glad we don't have many things going wrong with the systems because it would be a major headache having to go through the same song and dance I had when a desktop case fascia was damaged in transit and needed replacing.
My detailed description of the part I needed obviously failed somewhere in the translation between here and Delhi (or wherever) as they sent me the tiny plastic ring that surrounds the power button, instead of the large plastic part that surrounds the front buttons and CD/DVD ROM drives. roll
Could be worse though - Apple just tell me to take stuff down to my local Apple Store and then take about 10 days to turn it around. Then again, my Apple systems have had even fewer problems than the Dells....
Well, I got the go ahead so I'm shopping. Fills me with dread rather than excitement, though -be very glad when it's all over and I'm compiling reports at swim class.......
Well after a little delay due to inertia on my part, I finally got one! Thanks for all your help. I got an HP with 512MB -AMD chip thingumybob. Looks groovy so far, but can't currently lay hands on Quickbooks disc, so the acid test is yet to come.....
It's way more than I need, with built-in wireless access, DVD burner and "widescreen" etc (why call it widescreen when it seems to be the minimum available ??? )
Anyhoo, got it for $850 when RRP is (allegedly) 1050-1100. I think I'm happy.
I really appreciated all your advice -I think for a couple of moments there, one or two of the sales bods really though I knew what I was talking about! lol
Hi Monster,
I'm not the most technical of people but I would never buy Dell again. I had a problem with one of the office laptops and needed some technical support..
I called the helpline - they ask you all sorts of sill questions by robot - you have to punch in a serial number - once you've done all that they say - the robot says our lines are busy and hang-up. I think I called them eight times and then gave up.
Of the batch of Dell Latitudes we bought 18 months ago - each one has had a problem - keyboards are packing up or bits falling off them.
I'm never going to buy Dell again. Just leetign you know - I think HP would be my choice next time.
Hi Monster,
I'm not the most technical of people but I would never buy Dell again. I had a problem with one of the office laptops and needed some technical support..
I called the helpline - they ask you all sorts of sill questions by robot - you have to punch in a serial number - once you've done all that they say - the robot says our lines are busy and hang-up. I think I called them eight times and then gave up.
Of the batch of Dell Latitudes we bought 18 months ago - each one has had a problem - keyboards are packing up or bits falling off them.
I'm never going to buy Dell again. Just leetign you know - I think HP would be my choice next time.
I have to agree. Dell support is horrible, but I now go onto the Dell forums, and got all the help I needed. I would call and wind up talking to someone who spoke very broken English from India (thats where all the tech support for Dell home is now).
I just got a new HP at school, and I really like it. We're looking into getting John his very own laptop. We don't like sharing the computer! :wink: