Yep...I would recommend Apple over Dell especially if you are purchasing Apple products! Hope you enjoy your Ipod!

Jeff

yeah, i would usually go with apple, but the price was better with dell. that, plus free shipping and no tax.

http://www.suckmydell.com

:O)

Rather than say DELL sucks, I'll stick to the facts . . .

I've learned that the main thing about buying a computer is not to just consider
price or whether it is the utmost highest quality,
but whether the company will honor their warranties and provide
a product that was touted as a "Premium" "top-of-the-line"
"Rock-Solid" system with "Award Winning Customer Service".

When things go wrong, that may well be when the nightmare begins.

:(
I know not all DELLs are lemons, but in good conscience,
I could never recommend DELL based on
my experience with DELL and how they gave me the
royal-run-around on my DELL 8100 notebook (lemon)
and the 15 part failures in 19 months . . .
_______________________________________________
I purchased a DELL notebook that DELL touted as a "Rock-Solid" system backed by "Award Winning Service", but it is a lemon notebook.

My DELL notebook has had 15 part-failures/part-replacements in 19 months.

That's an appalling average of 1 failure every 38 days ( or 0.8 failures per month ).

I had video problems for over a year, and still have video problems.

The video LCD/back-light turned pink and then turned black 4 days after the 3-year-complete-care warranty expired ( and DELL refuses to repair it, despite the ongoing video problems that existed for over a year before the warranty expired 18-Oct-2003 ).

And, I won't even go into the DELL Technical Support problems yet. Let's just say it was "NightMare on DELL Street". I've requested repairs, replacements, and refund many times, but all requests for a refund were denied. DELL attempted many times (14) to repair the notebook, but was never able to completely resolve the problems (as you can see below by the repair history) . . .
_______________________________________________
SUMMARY of 15 FAILURES/REPAIRS in 19 months ( purchased for $4208 ):
Replaced 1 time: notebook (Service Tags: for i7500: 2H0440B, for i8100:93DH811) 05/30/2002;
Replaced 3 times: motherboard: 05/20/2002,06/06/2002,12/16/2002;
Replaced 3 times: CD/DVD drive: 03/22/2002,03/25/2002,05/21/2002;
Replaced 2 times: hard disk drive: 03/21/2002,05/22/2002;
Replaced 2 times: keyboard: 05/22/2002,05/24/2002;
Replaced 1 time: lid latch: 05/22/2002;
Replaced 2 times: video card: 1/10/2003,5/9/2003 ,
Missing: 2nd battery missing with 2nd notebook replacement despite two batteries were purchased and returned with 1st notebook;
Malfunction: repeated video problems and system lock-ups (since received); probably due to infamous infinite loop in nv4_disp.dll ( NVIDIA video card device driver ) since system was received May-2002 ; replaced NVIDIA GeForce2Go-16mb with ATI Radeon-7500-M7-64MB video card/driver: 5/9/2003
Malfunction: LCD back-light failed (22-Oct-2003) 4 days after 3-year-complete-care-warranty expired (18-Oct-2003)
_______________________________________________

Good customer service will become paramount when things go wrong.
I can't say my experience with DELL lived up to the level of the
"Award Winning Customer Service" DELL touts it to be
(in dealing with my lemon).

If you call DELL tech support, you most likely will get the
royal run-around. DELL will probably:
(1) tell you that other customers don't have the problem.
(2) give you some lengthy exercises to perform; and if the problem
takes a while to reproduce, all the better
(3) shift the blame to video card, disk drive, chip manufacturer, Microsoft, or you
(4) perhaps guess at a part to replace ( usually the wrong one )
(5) tell you to re-format the hard disk (this is their favorite), and
(6) re-install the operating system (this is their 2nd favorite....
.... hee hee hee .... that'll keep 'em busy for a while).
(7) remove and re-install device drivers
(8) disable various operating system features (lame)
(9) reduce performance settings and / or resolution / or power options
(e.g. disable auto Power-Down)
(10) download and try one of a dozen different driver versions
(11) and generally, wear you down ( especially with the
poor English of the Tech Support persons in India and Asia ), and
(12) hope you will become discouraged and go away

So, Buyer Beware. . .be sure to 1st check (I wish I had) the following customer feedback sites regarding customer service, because, if
you get a lemon, the integrity of the Customer Service will be the
major factor:

http://www.bbbonline.org/
http://www.consumerreports.org/
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/
http://www.planetfeedback.com/
http://www.epinions.com/
http://www.complaintbook.com/
http://www.ripoffreport.com/
http://www.thesqueakywheel.com/
http://www.uspeakout.com/
http://www.baddealings.com/
http://www.fightback.com/
http://www.ftc.gov/ftc/consumer.htm
_________________________________________________

TO HELL WITH DELL. I HATE THOSE LYING BASTARDS. I ORDERED A PC OVER THE PHONE IN AUGUST AND NEVER GOT IT. AFER THREE MONTHS I REQUESTED A REFUND THREE MONTHS HAVE PASSED NOW I HAVE NO PC NO MONEY JUST A HEADACHE. THESE PEOPLE ARE ARABIAN THEIVES JUST LIKE ALADDIN AND THEY SHOULD BE TAKEN TO JAIL AND PUT TO TRIAL!!

TO HELL WITH DELL BE EASY GET A HP.

Dell is a nightmare. Dealing with their employees is even worse. You need to know a second language just to understand these illiterate, minumum wage idiots. They read from scripts and when they are asked to do something not covered with their scripts, they transfer you around until you get annoyed and just hang up.

I ordered a 19" flat panel monitor on1/5/04. At the time the website did not say it was a 3 week lead time. Several days later when I checked the status using the website, it indicated a ship date of 1/23/04. Keep in mind, they charged my card almost immediately. So I called and after painfully navigating my way through their system, I got a real person and cancelled the order.

Just out of curiosity I checked a week later and the website did not indicate that my order had been cancelled. I called and my suspicions were correct, it had not been cancelled. By now I figure well I will just wait until it arrived, to painful dealing with the idiots on the phone.

Well 1/23 came and went and no monitor shipped. On 1/26/04 I contacted Dell via email through their site and requested they cancel it. In a response they apologized for the inconvenience but told me I had to call sales to cancel. The same dept. I called earlier in the month to cancel with no luck.

I called sales and again navigated my way through the painful system and reached a real person, poor english again, surprise surprise... I informed them that I wanted to cancel the order and right away the lady, Mandy, says one moment and I will transfer your call. I demanded that she stop what she was doing, and did not transfer me. I told her that the email promised me that contacting sales would work.

She said she would put in the work order and the order would be cancelled within 24 hrs and my cc would be credited. She would not provide me with a confirmation email or reference number though. I am only left to hope that it will be cancelled as promised.

Here are the names of all the people I have contacted over the course of the last month trying to get assistance. Not a single one of them proved useful in any way shape or form. If you call and get one of these morons, I suggest you buckle down, because they are not going to do what you want. Deric, Cardella, Jevy, Roxanne, Janice and Mandy. Again, each and everyone of them was no help at all.

Dell is the absolute worst. I switched to Apple several years back and have never had this problem. I only ordered a monitor through Dell this time because I saved 10% instantly and got free shipping. Well I have spent more than the $69.00 that I saved in time and energy.

Buyer beware. The things you read about Dell farming their work out is true. Nobody there knows what to do. Michael Dell is sitting on a beach somewhere laughing his ass off while his customers are left to deal with his overseas work force.

Just my .02 cents worth...

Dell sucks. Their producy sucks. Their customer service sucks. Order top of line PC and flat panel monitor was teribly grainy. Took two weeks of calling inclduing conversations with clueless rep in India and finally talked to US rep. Eventually got manufacturer's info confirming my suspicions of substandard product. Eventually was bale to egt retunr and refund and bouyght Samsung monitor from local reatiler. PC has (supposedly) lots of horsepower and I keep little on it but locks up regilarly requiring reboot. Next time I'll go back to Gateway (my ofrmer brand with no issues machine-wise or with support)or someone else. Fuck Michael Dell and the horse he rode in on. Never again.

I sure wish I had checked around a bit more before we bought this Dell laptop. I have been arguing with them for nearly a year now, and have gotten no satisfaction! The tech support is the biggest joke!! And "Customer Care" really doesn't give a shit!! Dell is wise to what they need to do, though! I have to give them that much credit! How many times can you talk to those tech idiots who do not even hear what you say? And, eventually you give up!! How many hours do any of us want to spend on the phone, (on hold), to no avail?
I am so tired of the Dell ads that we see on TV all the time!!!!!! How do they get away with that? It is, at the very least, false advertising! "Just tell Dell what you want to do with your computer!!??" Well, Dell, what I would like to do with this computer is shove it up your .....!!! Poor business people, poor product! I am wondering why people haven't gotten together to file a class action suit against them. From what I am seeing on the internet there are certainly enough unhappy customers out there!! Our computer would not work even after they tried and tried to fix it, and I was told, (by one of the techs), that Dell will not refund your money! Instead, they sent me a used laptop, (someone else's garbage), that is even worse than the first one, and now they will do nothing about it because it is a used machine and has no warantee!!
It does look like Dell is headed for trouble if they continue in this manner. There are so many "Dell Sucks" sites that I am surprised they are still selling!! Lots of nightmare stories out there!! At least I don't feel alone!
Penny

Dell support used to be tolerable and with careful prep and strategy you could actually get some help when required. But lately thier support is so poor that I would never go Dell again. The worst ever... the support team is going to kill off thier sales and any goodwill they have left. Buy something else even if it is more expensive. Not worth the pain

While everyone seems bent on critiquing the lousy tech support Dell provides....let's think for a minute... Dell is a multi-billion dollar corporation, and only 1.08% of the actual total purchased systems actually contact Dell technical support. That's pretty damn reliable for any type of product. Yes, tech support of any nature is going to be found "lacking" due to the fact that the market for FREE tech support is growing by leaps and bounds. There are not enough qualified "tech-heads" out there to staff the sites that popping up everywhere to answer the need for FREE tech support. Let's examine Dell's tech support, shall we? Yes, there are processes to go thru that may seem lengthy, why is that? It's because in the computer industry too many people want something for nothing ie. free internal parts, SW and HW upgrades, peripherals, etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum. Dell, has to make sure that when a part is being sent out it is by and far the right part for the symptom. Yes, sometimes it's not, but there's no tech onsite.... tech support is doing their utmost best to resolve your issue, and sometimes it is a lengthy process. As for the Formats and reinstalls...any REAL computer aficionado knows that a great deal of all the malfunctions lie, not in the Hardware failing, but in the failing of the operating system...or the user....who, by the way, is never wrong. Did you ever think that perhaps Dell's lengthy troubleshooting processes in the end save users time and prevents useless parts being sent out for issues that could actually be resolved with OS reinstalls. There are exceptions, and some people do suffer because of this, but by-and-large Dell is trying to do right by their customers. I am saddened by the fact that the only people who make noise about Dell are the ones who are dissatisfied...I for one will stand up and say "not me" I own 3 Dell systems, an 8200, a 2350, and a Latitude. I have never had any issues with my systems; however, I have contacted Dell support with questions of varying natures and have had them answered to my satisfaction.

Hey Chas,

Please stop posting the same exact comment on multiple blogs. Spammer.

http://users.wpi.edu/~elisab/MT/archives/000223.html

How do like this for a response from Customer Service?

"Good afternoon.
By mistake we send the wrong computer to you, the computer that you are going to receive is the one without the upgrade of the memory.

In that case which I recommend is if you don’t wanted returned and ask for a exchange for the memory.

The department that you need to get in contact is customer care, and the phone number in 800-624-9897 ext 74-66966

I'm sorry for this misunderstood."

What say you, India, China?

Ozzie

Want to know more about why Dell Sucks? See what they did to us. I posted about it in MY blog at http://www.darsys.net/2005/08/why-dell-sucks-and-blows-dont-buy-dell.html

For all dell haters,
Dell brags too much about their warranty.
We can make dell suffer by calling them (PRANK CALLS).
They dont have a way to control incoming calls.

Reason?
Dell pays a lot of money per call.
Even if it's just a prank call.
Call 18008228965 extension:7240444.
It's time to get even with dell!

I hear a rumor that they’re going to need a DELL SIZED BODY BAG, that Dell is receiving subpoenas of Record Production from the Justice Department related to, but not limited to:

a) Antitrust violating Advertising, Deceptive Selling, and Financing behavior, as well as consumer fraud, parts swapping, and unlawful combinations and tie ins.

b) The huge monetary transfers (around $22 Billion) to Mike Dell’s Foundation, and various offshore facilities hiding liability for taxes.

c) A nascent relationship between Dell and Chevron, Dell and Rockefeller Institute and the allegation that such may be a cutout between Dell and IBM, hiding a hidden, nefarious relationship between Dell and IBM.

d) Anticompetition including use of stealth representative companies to invade competing vendors business markets, hiring threatening personnel kept directly or indirectly through the activities of Impact Venture Capital, an alleged front company in NYC for Mike Dell, run by his brothers Adam and Frank Dell, and other activities. One person involved with Adam and Frank, Joe Firmage, financially arrnaged for criminal harassment of one computer company figure to such a degree that the individual has filed serious charges against Dell.

e) Hidden illegal influence peddling by Chevron, Rockefeller and IBM, to secure huge government contracts for Dell with various government agencies.

When it erupts like this during a downturn at a company like DELL, it usually spells the kind of disaster that collapses a company like Dell.

Some called Mike Dell a “visionary”, yet there were innumerable competitors who did NOT have Chevron/Rockefeller backing, who tried the very same formula as Dell and failed, for lack of the influence peddling behavior of the Oil Industry and IBM early on.

And, sadly, most of all, their products STINK, and they continue to try and CON THE PUBLIC into ignoring the 34,000 or so Better Business Complaints over the past four years, the vast number of public complainants around the internet and consumer fraud investigations, not to mention class action suit(s) and other indications that Dell may be the very WORST the computer industry has ever had to offer.

Given the “lazy E” that is eerily similar to the laid back “E” in Enron, one can not help but wonder how long before they’ll need to fold Dell Smell into that old Dell Sized Body Bag. Clearly, they make Enron look like amateur “creative accountants” when it comes to perpetration of illegal behavior.

Jimmy

The DELL NIGHTMARE of product and service seems to thrive no matter how consumers complain about the company. Every post I've read echoes to my experiences. Last week I called for two new ink cartridges for my A10 Printer A940 with using VISA. After the initial call I decided to call again asking when to expect cartridges as I needed them ASAP.They told me that my order was held aside and that I needed to call a number not providing any reason to hold my order as Visa had zero balance. When calling the second number the service rep told me that I had to ansswer several questions before order could be released.
1) Am I exporting cartridges outside USA?
2) What will be the end destination?
3) Who is the intended user?
4) What is the intended use?
5) What business am I in?
ENTERS THE PATRIOT ACT! DELL now has generic ink cartridges for certain printers, not others or I would have bought two at STAPLES. Had I known that replacements only can be bought through DELL well, you folks said it all. I am more than concerned with the additional loss of privacy now imposed upon consumers of DELL as the service reps tell me they MUST ask these questions. For two ink Cartridges...they can't even be used to load a revolver! This company is going down the tubes and maybe someone with lots of financial Wall Street savvy can make a hell of a profit by going short on the company. Here's one: Michael Dell jumps out of a twenty story window. At the tenth story he shouts out, "So far so good!" Need I say more? Hope someone tells him there's concrete coming up mighty fast.

On the 29th of November, ‘06, I helped my ex-wife and my ex-sister-in-law to buy a couple of Dell machines, a laptop and a desktop, one for each. After two days configuring machines at Dell website, in order to adjust the budget (which is cheap, so I had to make the most of it) I spent almost one hour with the sales guy on the phone (this is Colombia, and none of them had credit cards, so we went for cash in hand, instead). First surprise: the configuration tool at Dell’s website does not reflect the real world. You can add as many things you want, but the tool is not prepared to say “if you put this, you have to take that out”. Well, compatibility problems are not what you would expect in this kind of deal, otherwise Dell would not be such a huge company, I thought. I got a little upset, but then, no good would come from insulting the sales guy. I had to make the changes “on the fly” (thanks to 20 years assembling bloody computer parts) and I got a decent deal of machines, if not very upgradeable, because the parts that I threw away compromised future upgrades. The guy (Mr. Fabio Flores) said that he would send an e-mail to each one of them with instructions about how to make the payment. At that point, I left them because the bank was not my concern, assembling the machines according their needs and budget was my job, and a hell of a job well done. But there was something slightly surreal about the instructions: they should scan the bank receipt concerning the money transfer, and send by e-mail to him, so he could confirm that they had paid. They did everything as instructed, and that same day, the money was already on Dell’s hands. Mr. Flores (which I came to know later, was located at a Dell Call Center in Panama) said if there was a problem, he would let them know. On the 4th of December (5 days later), he sent an e-mail saying that he could not order the computers because “the bank receipt they sent is not proof of payment, what is needed is a letter from the bank indicating the transfer succeeded”. At their bank, the manager said he could try to get such letter, but could not give any guarantee that Dell’s bank received the money. He could only guarantee that the money left the accounts. It took 3 days to get the letter, and then, at Dell, they said they could not accept such letter. I was, then, aware of the situation, and I kept thinking: “this is bloody ridiculous, they are a computer company, they *MUST* have some sort of system that controls everything, from the manufacturing plants to the CEO coffee machine”. After 8 days, they had no money anymore, no computers, and no solution. And I was wrong. Dell is a crap company, I started searching with Google, and – voilà – there is an awful load of people that simply *HATE* Dell. My ex-wife is a hotheaded woman, and started calling Dell. I think they deserve her rage, and boy, they will suffer with her. They are a bunch of incompetents, they cannot communicate internally with each other (she said that after being transferred from desk to desk during the phone calls, she had to tell the bloody whole story again to each of them, she knows it by heart now), and they have no means to verify their own bank accounts and cross check the customer’s information. They kept giving excuses, like “this bank account is no good” (because they had 2 bank accounts listed in the e-mail they sent – why 2 banks if one of them is no god?), or “a money transfer is no good, should have been a deposit” (why would they instruct a money transfer in the e-mail if they cannot accept it? Would it be some kind of joke? “Ha, ha, we took your money, now piss off and do it right, your bloody poor 3rd world hispanic woman.”). After that, she decided to go to Dell’s bank, and explained the case to their manager. Even thought he *CANNOT* reveal information about the bank’s clients, after 2 days he decided to help and gave an official document saying the money had arrived at Dell’s account on the same 29th of November, detailed with sender, recipient, amount to the cent, time of the transfer, everything. But Dell likes things complicated, so now they are not receiving the scanned document by e-mail, but instead, they gave a fax number – which plainly *DOES NOT EXIST*!!! And absolutely no-one at Dell can explain either why they are not receiving the e-mail anymore or what the correct fax number is. It has been 2 weeks since Dell stole their money, 2 weeks since Dell has their money in the bank account, with all the rates of interest, and until now, there is no bloody computer, no purchase order, nothing. Tomorrow they will visit a lawyer, to see if they can sue Dell. I suspect Dell is not a company at all, but an intergalactic mistake. Some alien race, after hiding for some time on Earth in order to avoid the paparazzi due to an embarrassing freak accident whit an anteater, left behind a portable black hole, which was discovered by the U.S. military. They built a factory to conceal it, and now they experiment with it, searching for new and bizarre weapons, like the one that forces the enemies to call a Customer Center and put them on hold forever, while the power of the black hole sucks their brains through the phone cord and drives them mad. It is the only explanation. Behold, the truth is out there, somewhere, but the Big Brother is always watching it. Abandon all your hopes.

Dell will never get another penny from me.

The DELL NIGHTMARE of product and service seems to thrive no matter how consumers complain about the company. Every post I've read echoes to my experiences. Last week I called for two new ink cartridges for my A10 Printer A940 with using VISA. After the initial call I decided to call again asking when to expect cartridges as I needed them ASAP.They told me that my order was held aside and that I needed to call a number not providing any reason to hold my order as Visa had zero balance. When calling the second number the service rep told me that I had to ansswer several questions before order could be released.
1) Am I exporting cartridges outside USA?
2) What will be the end destination?
3) Who is the intended user?
4) What is the intended use?
5) What business am I in?
ENTERS THE PATRIOT ACT! DELL now has generic ink cartridges for certain printers, not others or I would have bought two at STAPLES. Had I known that replacements only can be bought through DELL well, you folks said it all. I am more than concerned with the additional loss of privacy now imposed upon consumers of DELL as the service reps tell me they MUST ask these questions. For two ink Cartridges...they can't even be used to load a revolver! This company is going down the tubes and maybe someone with lots of financial Wall Street savvy can make a hell of a profit by going short on the company. Here's one: Michael Dell jumps out of a twenty story window. At the tenth story he shouts out, "So far so good!" Need I say more? Hope someone tells him there's concrete coming up mighty fast.

as for this questions, this is actually a Export Compliance law of US. This is to prevent the product for used in terrorism activities.