A Technophobe's Guide (dell.co.uk)

Member Name: luckyarchers

Product:	dell.co.uk
Date:	11/11/05 (960 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good value computers made to your requirements.

Disadvantages: On line sales may put technophobes off. There is no physical shop to visit

UPDATE 13 MAY 2009
My family is still using the Dell computer that we bought in 2004. As we have had no other problems to report other than in the original review, we consider that it was a good buy at the time of purchase.

The only other relevant fact that I know of is that Dell computers can now be bought on the high street as well as on-line. When we bought our computer it was for sale on-line only.

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This guide is written by a technophobe primarily for other technophobes.

My husband makes the final decision about any technical purchase for our house, because he knows most about the subject. He is our household's most knowledgeable member on hardware, with my daughter being the most knowledgeable on software, but as I am the one who uses the home PC the most, I have a lot of influence over what is bought. My husband and daughter both use computers at work.

Dell tailor make computers, accessories, and other technical goods for a wide range of customers, and they are the choice of laptop made by my daughter's employer for the staff they consider need it for business reasons. I am going to give you my personal experience of using Dell, compared to other computer brands.


MY HOUSEHOLD'S PERSONAL COMPUTER HISTORY


* Hewlett Packard *

Bought in 1997 from high street, and was installed by husband the same day.

Faults: One minor. The CD ROM drive stopped working. The engineer came to our home and replaced it the next day, while it was still under the first year's guarantee. As it was a minor fault, we could still use the rest of the computer during the short wait for it to be repaired. We had no other problems during the five years we owned this computer.

Reason for Replacing: After 5 years we wanted so much upgraded that it was cheaper to buy a new computer.

Would we consider buying again? Yes. It came in second choice after Dell in 2004.


* Tiny *

Bought 2002. This company made the computer to our specifications, so it had to be ordered.

Complaints. It arrived long after the promised date, and had numerous faults. Owning this was a nightmare, and in 2004 we decided we couldn't live with it any more!


* Dell Dimension 4600 3.06GHz *

Bought 2004. Dell makes computers to your own specifications, so it had to be ordered. It was delivered in the promised timescale, and my husband and daughter, who don't want me touching anything technical until one or both of them has set it up, tell me the set up was easy, following the instructions provided.

The Buying Process. My husband bought our computer after looking at the Dell website and discussing with my daughter and me what we wanted it to do, so that he could order the relevant hardware.

By January 2004 the floppy disc drive was no longer incorporated as standard, so we paid an extra £15 for this. As the price for a larger memory than standard was modest, he also decided to pay extra for that to try to make the computer as "future prove" as possible. (After our experience with the Hewlett Packard above, he was hoping for another 5 years trouble free computing, before having to upgrade the whole computer.)

The total cost for the package including tower, flat screen monitor and keyboard was £1172. More details of exactly what we got are below. THE PRICE of technological advances GOES DOWN QUICKLY, as they are OVERTAKEN with new updates, but at the time of buying, Dell was considered by my husband better value for money than the big names on the high street.

As the outgoing Tiny computer was just about useable, we decided it was better to wait for Dell to make one to our specifications, than to just pick a computer up in the high street and bring it home. Had the need been urgent, we would have bought Hewlett Packard again, straight off the shelf. But even with the 10% staff discount we could have got on the Hewlett Packard from a family member, buying from Dell still seemed better value for money.

After it was set up I soon got used to the new hardware, and software. I thought everything about it was great except for the speakers. My family agreed with me that the one good thing about the Tiny computer was the quality of the speakers, so they connected those, and I got the quality of sound I was used to. Had I not been used to better quality speakers, I probably would have been perfectly happy with the ones Dell supplied.

As I suspect some people reading this may want technical details, I will have a go at copying what I think are the most relevant bits from the order form.

Midnight Grey Mini-Tower with 8 USB 2.0 ports, 3 PCI slots and AGP 8 x slot
Hard Drive 120 GB (7200rpm) IDE hard Drive with 8 MB DataBurst cache
17" Flat Panel Monitor
Intel Processor 4
Video Card 128 MB
Sound Card
Speakers
48 x CD-Rom & 8 x DVD+R+RW
Floppy Disc Drive
Windows XP
Microsoft Works 7.0
3 year on site next business day service support


Faults and Technical Help

After 13 months, I tried to turn it on one morning and nothing happened. There was no warning that a fault was developing. As this happened on a Sunday morning and neither the maintenance engineers or their admin staff work at the weekend, we had to wait until Monday to report the fault.

My husband usually leaves for work at 8.00am, but as that was the first time the maintenance people would be likely to answer the phone, he decided he would try to phone them before he left, and risk being a little late for work. He thought about leaving the phone call to me, but as he couldn't predict what questions they would ask, he thought it might be better if he made the phone call, as he is the most knowledgeable member of our household on hardware.

We expected them to be busy on a Monday morning, with a weekend's worth of faults being reported, but the phone was answered straight away at 8.00am. After he told them he had done the obvious checks on cables, fuses and electrical sockets, much to his surprise, they asked him to undo some screws on the tower. He said that he didn't keep his screwdrivers near the telephone, but if they really wanted him to, he could quickly get them. It never occurred to him that they might want him to dismantle the tower, as he thought that would invalidate the warranty, but they repeated that they did, giving him precise instructions on what to do. At each stage of the dismantlement he was asked what lights, if any, he could see lit. This is something else that surprised him. He was using a special electrical screwdriver, which is a lot safer than normal, but was still surprised that they asked an ordinary customer to do this.

If my husband had left the reporting of the fault to me, I would have said that I didn't have any screwdrivers, and would have added, tongue in cheek, that I didn't realise that was a condition of the guarantee! My husband did as they asked in the hope that it would speed up the repair. This all took 45 mins on the phone, and made him a lot later for work than he expected.

After following their instructions and giving feedback, they concluded that the motherboard probably needed replacing.

We had paid extra for a guaranteed next working day visit from an engineer to be included in the guarantee, which was honoured. My husband took the day off of work for this. The engineer came early the next day, and was left to strip down the tower.

Before long he came looking for my husband to say that he had a problem undoing one of the screws. It was nothing to do with what my husband had done the previous day, under the instructions of Dell, as the engineer had attempted to take a lot more of the tower apart. The engineer said unless the screw could be undone in our home, the tower would have to go away to workshops, who would probably return it 6 working days after being picked up.

When my husband looked at the screw, he saw that the head had been broken, so did not take the engineer up on his offer to allow him to try to undo it. We can only guess as to why the screw head was broken, as the engineer was left to work on his own, but trouble with that one screw caused us to be without a computer a lot longer than we had hoped, as the engineer had brought the parts to repair the computer in our home with him.

I then waited in for the Dell courier to come to collect the tower the next day. By this time it is Wednesday. (The fault first appeared on Sunday.) The courier brought moulded packaging with him to keep it as safe as possible during transit.

Six working days later, the courier brought the repaired tower back, and we have had no trouble with it since.

However, if it is necessary for a Dell engineer to visit our home again, I suspect my husband will do his best to be available to watch him undo any screws, and have his own set of screwdrivers ready to lend to him, if he thinks the ones he is likely to use are unsuitable!

One small broken screw head has stopped me from giving Dell a five star review, which is a shame for them, as well as the inconvenience it caused to my family, which proves that the little things are of equal importance to the more complicated ones.

Several months after that, the keyboard suddenly stopped working. My hubby told me to try to sort it out with Dell over the phone, but not to do anything technical that I didn't feel confident about.

Dell technical support asked me lots of questions, some of which I could answer, and some I couldn't. I obviously gave enough of the "right" answers, because a new keyboard was delivered to me the next day.

After experiencing the difference in the way Dell staff talked to a technophobe (me), and someone who had a good basic general knowledge of computers (my husband), I would advise anyone contacting them about problems not to admit to knowing too much. I feel the attitude of the technical services assistant was much better towards me, as she was a lot more patient. I think that is because she realised that she had to be, to get anywhere near solving the problem.


POSSIBLE FUTURE PURCHASES

We don't know of any reason why we should replace our PC in the near future, as we are very happy with it. We would consider buying from Dell again, even though we have a family member who can get 10% staff discount off Hewlett Packard. If we had to make that decision tomorrow it would be a close call. (Our printer/scanner/copier that we use with it is a HP.)

With laptops the engineers don't usually come to your home for repairs. As they are portable, they expect you to take it to an appointed place. Because of the family connections, our daughter recently decided to buy a laptop from Hewlett Packard, but she would probably have bought a Dell instead, if there were no family advantages from buying a HP.


CONCLUSION

If your want a new computer urgently, you probably won't want to wait for a Dell, as other brands can be bought "off the shelf". My family feel they made the right choice of brand, at the time we bought a Dell, and would consider buying a PC from them again.

Summary: My family would consider buying from them again.