Quote from: BeakerDell own the laptop market?  odd that they are a definate 3rd in sales behind HP and Acer.  HP have a very solid lead when you look at the sales figures, with Acer the 2nd higest seller when you bring all their brands together, and Dell trailing in 3rd and being threatened by Tosh.  The Dells i was dealing with where all less than 12 months old, and this was up to 3 months ago when i changed jobs.  the HPs where most 2 or 3 years old, but then they started to get HP again because the fail rate ont he Dell machiens was too high.

If youd care to read my post again - when I said Dell own the laptop I said it in terms of hardware right now not who sells the most.  I do state that very clearly I believe.  They have better PCBs and using alienwares system architecture/patents.

I look at this stuff as which is the best machine.  Youre looking at it from sales numbers and how many old laptops you get put through customer service.  I have no point of reference for how many of this generation will fail in 2 years time but right now put a same price Dell and a same price HP next to one another and watch the Dell handle multicores and bandwidth better. = better performance = nicer user experience.

As for 12 months old Dells Im VERY suprised with your experience as thats after the upgrade in hardware components.  Almost every other manufacturer in the world is clammering to catch up with the IP Dell bought in the last 2 years which seems to have made their mobile systems rock solid.  I believe HP are playing catchup in hardware right now (spending indicates they are at least) so its odd that youve experienced the opposite.  Any chance youre supporting more heavy Dell users since your numbers seem wrong.

I must admit I regularly use a cheap Dell, a top end Dell, an HP and a Mac laptop and of those the only one that causes problems is the Apple.  The other 3 run flawlessly through video rendering, CAD, and general use.  The high end Dell does blitz the rest but only cause it costs £1-2k more than the others do - it also weighs a ton and gets very hot.  Theres no equivalent HP model to check against but at the £1000+ price bracket the Dells pull away with mutlicore handling, memory and graphics busses.

The only thing holding back Dells sales is its reputation on service. If they had of got that sorted sooner then their sales might be considerably higher than they are.

ATM though Dell lead and HP have been relegated to second place again, *AFAIK* but its well under one percent. So technically speaking Dell do own the laptop market, if you refer to the top place sales. However those sales are about seventeen to eighteen percent of the market. Take the top two together and you get about 35% of total laptop sales.

Think Lenovo, Toshiba and Acer make up the rest of the top five.

No, I didnt google, I just happened to have a technical news page open and it had an item  :mrgreen:

Quote from: SeriousDell = good products, sh*te service if something goes wrong.

Acer = not very good for some reason. Possibly because they are cheap?

IBM/Lenovo = good quality and usually service but more expensive. Excellent keyboards on average.

HP = seems adequate all round.

sh*te customer service for dell? Where exactly do you base that from?

Dell laptop develops fault, I call buisness number, I give Service Tag, I describe problem run through tests etc to confirm fault, Dell Engineer turns up next time and prearanged time, changes part suspected to be faulty.  End of.

That is the main reason we only buy and supply Dell machines desktop or laptop to all of our clients.  Other manufacturers cannot match that buisness service.

The only difference between Buisness and Domestic warranty is the turn over time for that process.

HP are the second best right now.

Quote from: CypherDell laptop develops fault, I call buisness number, I give Service Tag, I describe problem run through tests etc to confirm fault, Dell Engineer turns up next time and prearanged time, changes part suspected to be faulty.  End of.

Bingo, business customer with an account no doubt.  Been there, done that, the service was as good as HP or IBM.  Home users though they couldnt give a toss about.

to be fair.... most home users will be a total pita and will give unfair reviews

(not saying that about people here... just people in general!)

-Business: Oi, Dell Business Support, we got a laptop with a duff screen here.
-DBS: No prob. Ive just put a new screen in the post, dont worry about sending the old one back.


-Home user: Oi, Dell Home Support, my laptop is broken.
-DHS: So?



Like I said, for home use Id go for best keyboard, screen and touchpad combo - thats the stuff thatll make you tear your hair out if you pick a bad one.

Quote from: knightyto be fair.... most home users will be a total pita and will give unfair reviews

(not saying that about people here... just people in general!)

no really, they are as bad as people say for home users.  They MAKE you go through the flowchart even if you have done everything already.  I had a duff PSU in a Dell machine someone asked me to look at, i was sat there saying its not booting, weve tried multiple kettle leads, weve tried multiple sockets in the house and the machine wouldnt boot up.  He had be trying everything again, and a few other bits (Turn it off for an hour, then turn it back on was one suggestion).  They sent an engineer out in the end who just swapped the PSU with no argument.  For something like that I expect to spend ~20 minutes on the phone.  Took over an hour for them to book an engineer.  The dude had even paid for the extended support!

Compare that with the business support, its pretty much what sdp says.  They ask you what you have tried, you tell them, and they send you out the parts, or send an engineer.   That is only if you have an account though.  If you are an occasional customer then you are screwed, they once again couldnt care less.  They will fit rightin with Dixons/Currys/PCWorld when they start selling through them.

The people I know who have bought Dell are pretty much all SoHo users, all of whom have been through the same or worse than Beaker whenever something went wrong. Usually nothing does go wrong, its just an odd occasion and then they are a pain.