<p>I am finally getting a laptop (I know, I know.) All of my computers have been Dell ,and I’ve always been happy with them. However, they’ve now pushed back my order for the second time. If I do get it by the new date, it will be a month delay. This is seriously messing up my semester as I planned to use if for teaching.</p>
<p>It’s also unusual for Dell, I think. So my first question is–has any had or heard of recent problems with them?</p>
<p>And anyone had good experiences with other online companies and/or other PC brands I can buy instore?</p>
<p>Not looking for anything fancy, just a reliable PC laptop at a decent price.</p>
<p>we have purchased a number of computers from them, and never had a problem with them. But we have not ordered recently. </p>
<p>Have you contacted Dell aboutthe delay? Is it possible that only one component that you spec’ed is on back order, and changing that one component may speed up delivery?</p>
<p>Was this a special order (where you “built” your own laptop) or more of an “off the rack” kind of purchase? If it was the latter, I don’t understand the delay (unless they got swamped by back to school purchases?)</p>
<p>I wish I had a brand to recommend – I usually check out the reviews on the Best Buy site (whether I actually buy from that store or not). HP and Acer and Toshiba got good reviews last time I checked. My last PC was…my last. A SONY Vaio – and I’ve been using PCs forever. Just could not get out of its own way.</p>
<p>I bought my first Mac a few weeks ago – MacBookAir – couldn’t be happier. Light, beautiful, starts up quickly, connects to my wireless network in an instant (why I even have to mention that is beyond me - the SONY which was only 2 years old struggled to start up and climb on the Internet, gasping and wheezing, like an old hooker).</p>
<p>we did that with the last purchase, interested dad, and have been thrilled with the purchase and the price. Will do that again. We did have to wait for the “right” laptop to be listed.</p>
<p>Dell has always delivered to me ahead of schedule, which sometimes is a problem if you are expecting a delivery Wednesday but it comes Tuesday when nobody is home.</p>
<p>We bought a Lenovo laptop for my son from nearby Office Depot. Computer was well priced and works great.</p>
<p>Not really custom-some specific software but that’s it. Refurbs sounds interesting.</p>
<p>We haven’t had any network or other issues like you describe, Classof2015 with any PC, laptop or not. I’m not paying that kind of premium to have a light-up apple.</p>
<p>Edit: that was unnecessarily obnoxious on my part. Sorry. I’m not an Apple fan, but i appreciate your input.</p>
<p>I’ve been trying to get a new keyboard for the last month and every single day I get a message that the ship date has been pushed back. Very frustrated.</p>
<p>When we ordered a Dell laptop for S1 just before he started college 5 years ago, Dell kept pushing back the ship date, too. We ended up canceling the order and buying him an HP. I’ve ordered Dells from Costco recently and had a good experience with availability and shipment. (good pricing, too)</p>
<p>Hey garland – no problem – I was firmly in the “a PC’s good enough for me” camp for years. I couldn’t see paying for an Apple, especially because I was convinced most people didn’t use half the features – they just liked them because they were cool.</p>
<p>But after years of struggling with one PC or another (many of them Dell), I surrendered. I think the issues might be with my internet service provider or my connection or router. But the Mac has been so much less frustrating for me.</p>
<p>Garland, don’t hestitate to fire off an email to a corporate officer at Dell, if you can indentify one.</p>
<p>That being said, the numerous reports a couple of years ago of very poor customer service by Dell, and the subsequent lawsuit by one or two State Attorneys General, made me avoid Dell when I searched for a Windows laptop a while back. Just stay on top of them to get what you paid for.</p>
<p>I’ve heard about Dell delivery problems from other people lately. One friend cancelled his Dell order and bought his son a MacBook Pro at the college computer store. Son is very happy.</p>
<p>I’ve been a big fan of Dell over the years but they’ve certainly been hit by “race to the bottom” problems. My last Dell was in 2008 - an XPS (premium) laptop - very nice and we still use it as a spare when traveling.</p>
<p>The “race to the bottom” issue preceded 2008. There was a class action lawsuit against dell for a spate of desktops/laptops having a rash of failures much earlier than expected due to defective components. Ironically, the law firm representing Dell in the suit ran into the same issues with their own Dells. </p>
<p>It’s a reason why I recommend folks avoid the consumer line stuff totally and go for the mid-high corporate models like the latitude and Precision. Unfortunately, it seems even those dell corporate models have issues judging by him having serious issues with his own Precision and my receiving 2 latitudes that they were going to recycle because of frustration over overheating/crashing issues not being resolved despite having dell corporate support.</p>
<p>Thanks, BB. I will look into that! (I couldn’t find a good deal this morning, so I told my H we might as well tell Dell we’d go forward with the ordered one–he had to let them know if we wnated to continue–I wonder if we can take that back now.)</p>
<p>Dell has had its ups and downs over the last 12 years. We had a bunch of Pentium 4 models where Dell eventually had to replace three major components. They got better for a while and then they got worse. I don’t necessarily attribute the earlier problems to cost-cutting. I know when the cost cutting problems hit HPQ as I have friends that work there and I bought HPs over a period of a few years and saw the decline in quality. I think that the overall decline in Dell, that may not be reversible, started more recently.</p>
<p>I work near on of their Cloud R&D facilities and they were hiring like crazy two years ago. I go jogging by their building and offices once a week and it seems like that part of the business is doing well.</p>
<p>I would agree that they have problems in their business lines now too.</p>
<p>I think that I’d be fine buying one of the XPS models again though my next notebook will likely be a Retina MacBook Pro. I used to buy the cheapest notebooks refurbished but this was back when those were $1,000. Now I buy higher quality stuff and use it for a long time.</p>
<p>Dell quality started to decline sometime after 2002. There were already serious issues with Dell machines as early as 2003-5…especially with the low end inspirons and some low-end Latitudes. Latitudes/Precisions my friend had issues with were late '00s/early teens. </p>
<p>And it was due to cost-cutting…especially considering that was the period that other mass market PC manufacturers like HP/Compaq started to do the same. To some extent…every PC manufacturer with the exception of IBM/Lenovo were cutting costs/corners from 2002-late '00s. I’ve noticed build quality going down and complaints about hardware failures/defects rising across the board…especially on the consumer models and low-end corporate lines. </p>
<p>This was a factor in why so many people in my area ended up moving to Apple or IBM in that period.</p>
<p>We bought S1 a Latitude when he started college in 2004. It lasted over 5 years without too many issues. Given that history, we bought S2 a Latitude when he started college in 2008. He started having problems with it within 1 1/2 years. Fortunately, the issues were covered by the warranty, but there were some inopportune times when he was left with no computer while he waited for his to be repaired.</p>