A great place to buy your ideal computer (dell.co.uk)

Member Name: stuff10

Product:	dell.co.uk
Date:	23/07/09 (36 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Excellent customisation, quick delivery, decent prices

Disadvantages: Non-English staff, frequently-changing offers

I've just ordered my 3rd laptop from Dell (over a period of a few years - I'm not rich!), and I really am impressed with everything about them. Their website, prices, delivery and machines are excellent - which is the reason I keep going back there for new machines.

Plenty of online and high street stores sell laptops now, but I always go back to Dell. Why? Simple really, with Dell you can customise your machine and get exactly what you want. Simply browse the website for a machine you like the look of and click the Personalise button. You'll now be presented with a whole array of options you can use to customise the look and performance of your laptop. You can choose the colour, processor, hard drive, RAM, graphics card, battery, webcam and just about anything else you'd have on a laptop!

Dell make recommendations about which components to upgrade and what to upgrade them to. However, if you're not careful you can quickly make your computer a lot more expensive by upgrading to all of Dell's recommendations! A couple of things to look out for are Dell's hardware support and warranty, both of which you can pay extra for but neither of which you should really need.

When you've souped-up your machine, Dell will offer you another array of optional extras from related software and wireless routers to digital cameras and external hard drives. I didn't really pay much attention to these, so I can't really comment on how good they are.

After adding the item to your basket, you are free to shop for other accessories or continue to pay through their secure checkout. Once you've paid you'll receive an order confirmation email and an estimated delivery date. In my experience they're always over-cautious with their expected dates and all of my machines have arrived 2-3 days earlier than expected!

Delivery is usually within 2 weeks of ordering and you'll actually be called the day before to arrange a suitable time (morning or afternoon). This is an automated call where you press 1 for a morning delivery or 2 for the afternoon. It's then just a case of waiting for the courier. Some couriers will leave it with a neighbour if you're out, whereas others will make you arrange re-delivery or a collection - I think it just depends on your area.

All the laptops I've received so far have been of excellent quality and I really can't fault them.

There are a couple of disadvantages though...

Firstly, all of Dell's staff (or at least the ones I've spoken to) seem to be foreign and don't speak great English and so getting a straight answer to a question can sometimes be a bit difficult!

Secondly, Dell always have special offers on their machines whether it be free upgrades to certain components, free shipping or money off a particular model. However, these offers change on a fairly regular basis and so it can be difficult to judge when is the best time to order... Is today's offer going to be better or worse than tomorrow's?

These are only minor complaints though. I'm very impressed with Dell and won't look anywhere else next time I need a new machine. Oh, and another plus point: they're on Quidco and Top Cashback where you can get upto 6% back on your purchase! :)

Summary: The best place to buy a laptop from