HP or Dell?

[smirkymonkey]

Which is better? Computer, that is.

I am pricing new systems for my office, but have no clue about quality. Thanks in advance for your opinion.

[afraid_of_the_dark]

1. Neither.

Dell's used to be good, but they've really gone down the toilet. I've had good luck with Compaqs, but I haven't had one since they merged with HP (and I'm afraid to see what they've done to them). Steer clear of Gateways too.

[physioex]

3. Agreed.....

http://www.newsmeat.com/fec/bystate_detail.php?st=TX&last=Dell&first=Michael

[smirkymonkey]

20. Well, after seeing that...

DEFINATELY not a Dell! Thanks!

[Deja Q]

15. When was Dell ever good?

8 years ago I dealt with Dell for a client of mine. The thickheads ignored my complaint about the hard drive showing obvious signs of imminent breakdown. Glad I saved the data because, 2 days later, POOF. Hard drive crashed.

[Salviati]

22. Compaqs are pretty crappy too, at least the low end ones...

My parents have had two of them, and they'll never buy another one.

(on edit: )
At least the desktops are, in my experiance, I have heard good things about compaq notebooks though...

[BlackVelvetElvis]

35. I have a Compac Presario 1610 running Windows 95

Still going strong!

[AndyP]

2. dell

from what I've seen the dells are better and seem to have better deals. A good tip is to ask about refurbished machines when you order, sometimes they give out fantastic deals on them and they still get the same warrenty.

[Deja Q]

4. Homebuilt or IBM - avoid HP especially

Dells suck, their service suckier.

HPs suck royally, crap quality, and not to forget about that cretin Carly Fiorina's atttitude toward American workers...

[BlueJazz]

11. Amen...brother....I have to fix HP's (compaq's)

on a daily basis and I truly see how shitty they're built.
Also...the new "thing" about puting the operating system "fix"
on the hard drive instead of giving the customer the xp disk (or whatever)
makes repairman pull their hair out!
Last week I had to search all over the internet to find a customers drivers because the customers hard-drive was fried and she never got the disk (s) from the manufacture.. AAAGGG!

[CrownPrinceBandar]

5. ABS

http://www.buyabs.com/

Good compys and good tech support.

[billbuckhead]

6. Apple has the highest quality computers and software

Now days it's a lot more compatable with Windows and Linux enviroments if you even need that. Many serious computer users say Mac OS X even runs Microsoft Office better. If you have to a certain program every now and then, Microsoft make various programs called "Virtual P.C." that can allow you to run Windows on a Mac and these programs are competitive pricewise with upgrading from Windows Xp to Windows xp Pro.

[afraid_of_the_dark]

8. Problem is, they're not compatible with anything.

And they've got less of the market share than any Linux-based OS (it just recently surpassed Macs), so there isn't much motivation to create programs for it.

[Deja Q]

13. They also cost more... and Linux has one other charming advantage:

Dual-CPU aside, I could build a $700 PC and get MUCH more RAM, a more powerful video card, and a larger capacity hard drive. Or spend an extra $400 or so and make a dual-Athlon XP 3000 system. ($700 PC would have a Radeon 9800Pro card and 1GB of RAM and 200GB HD whereas your $3000 Mac model has a 9600 card and 512MB RAM... 120GB HD as well, as I recall. Besides, nvidia makes a better product. ATi is well known for being Windows-centric, I hope Apple's made strong drivers for ATi cards...)

Macs are very overpriced and overrated. Indeed, has the customer seen any trickle-down from Apple using a modified form of FreeBSD (It's not based off of Linux, sad to say...)

Good to know Linux surprassed Macs. As I suspected, people would much rather use their same hardware with a better platform. It's eminently less expensive to migrate to. Linux allows people to use their existing hardware. A Mac is a whole new, expensive, entity. And you're more likely able to run Windows software without the need to purchase an emulator. Windows emulators can be had for both Macs and Linux. Win4Lin v5 runs Win9x apps as fast or faster than on a native WIn9x box. VMWare, under Kernel 2.6, runs Win apps at almost native speed.

[billbuckhead]

21. An Apple EMac is only $799

cheaper than almost any Pentium computer running Windows XP pro and in many areas, one can go down to the store a buy one and have it on the internet in 15 minutes.

[HuckleB]

23. Sorry, but Macs are far cheaper in the long run.

Every Mac I've had, I've been able to utilize for a much longer period of time than folks around me, with their pc's, who constantly must add on or trade up.

Linux is great, but the problem there is still the hardware. Mac is a much cheaper way to go.

[annak110]

25. Macs have always been cheaper for the reasons you've listed

plus the fact that, to begin with, everything was "there" in the Mac but if you bought a PC you had to buy a sound card, a video card, etc., etc., and, instead of working out of the box and operating on the idea of peripheral "plug and play" like the Mac has always had, it was "plug and pray" for the P.C.

Linux works on the Mac (Yellow Dog Linux) as I said before but now you can work with the leading Unix kernal with OSX.

[emulatorloo]

30. Total Cost Of Ownership

is something worth reasearching before saying "Macs are very overpriced and overrated."

[HuckleB]

24. I've never had a problem finding great software for a Mac.

This is an old argument that doesn't wash in the real world. Yeah, there's a lot more software for PCs -- most of it redundant, most of it poor quality.

[emulatorloo]

29. Don't confuse marketshare with installed base. Conventional Wisdom is Not

Always the best kind of Wisdom.

Marketshare is how many sell in a quarter.

Installed base is how many are out there still in use.

An equiv Mac has a longer lifespan than the equiv pc (personally I replaced my PC twice before I replaced my mac - so two pcs bought in space of one mac)

Secondly, don't confuse quantity of software with quality. . .yes their are more programs for pc than mac. But does that mean that the applications are better? No, of course not.

Now tell me about the productivity software that you must have and use daily that cannot be used on the mac. . .MS Office? Sorry I hear it is better in Mac Version. Adobe Photoshop? Was Born on The Mac.

As to "lack of motivation to create software," why as a developer would I not want to create software for a platform with significantly less support issues? I will have to pay less for tech support. (There are many innovative titles that are Mac only BTW). Apparently also, Mac users are more likely to actually PAY for their software than windows users. Sounds motivating to me!

That being said, buy IBM for your office because that is what you will be happy with - they make great machines and are quite reliable.

[annak110]

18. Absolutely, Apple Rules! and every computer company copies

Apple which is one way you can tell it is the best. You can, BTW, run Linux (Yellow Dog Linux) on a Mac but why? All the components of what now passes for Microsoft Office were first written for the Mac because they all required a GUI and the Intel chip was too rigid addresswise to provide for GUI apps. Finally, when the 80386 came along PC users were able to crawl out of the Microsoft Disk Operating System (now known as "DOS" the only one of its ilk to survive early days) and into MS Windows which itself didn't work until version 3.1 and then did it work? I never thought so. It has always been a poor attempt at copying the Mac system but back in those days it was a shell based on MS DOS which is why PC users had to have "C Drive" "D Drive" "A Drive" "My Computer" etc. Mac users never had to do this because the beautiful Mac operating system was not a shell until it moved to the Unix kernel in OSX but it was and is a great system either way. You could name your hard drive "puddin tane" if you wished.

Apple Rules and always has.

[smirkymonkey]

7. Thanks all for the input!

trying to keep costs low, but know I am sacrificing quality.

[afraid_of_the_dark]

10. Compaq usually offers some good deals.

That's what convinced me to buy one in the first place. :)

[NewHampshireDem]

9. Owned both HP's and Compaqs ... like both

Both machines have stood up to sturdy use. My Compaq is a 3 year-old desktop system and still works great. Bought it as an "open box" special at Best Buy, though it was missing copies of the system disks. I called Compaq tech support and they sent it to me by courier, gratis, so I had it about 12 hours later. :)

My laptop is an HP, which I lug from classroom to classroom, so it goes into hibernation mode about a half dozen times a day and gets jostled quite a bit. After nine months of that use, I have yet to have a single problem with it.

All I can say about Dell (and Gateway) is that my school district has purchased several of each and our tech folks haven't been really happy with either.

[BlueJazz]

14. If you bought your Computer 3 years ago...

.you got one of the last good ones. (see my post #11)
unfortunately the quality has gone south...oh..well :)

[Ratty]

12. I went with Dell. I'm about to do it again

Bought my home, top-of-the-line gaming PC from Dell 4 years ago. I never had a single problem with it, it was everything I wanted it to be (and I used to build computers back when I had the inclination, the time, the tools, and the space). In about a month when the new video cards come out I'm going to go with Dell again.

I don't know anything about HP but I'm sure if you went with Dell you wouldn't regret it.

[Servo300]

16. I've heard that Dell's customer service

has gone to hell in a handbasket.

[madrchsod]

17. this that what they call india

now-hell in a handbasket....

[madrchsod]

19. have someone build one for you

there must be a local computer store that builds and services computer systems for small offices. it may cost abit more but they will be at your office before the idiot in india answers your questions...

[gula]

27. Also you can choose the best quality for all the different parts.

I will never again buy a computer off the shelf. It may be cheaper at first but not for long.

[theshadow]

26. I've Had Both...

...and recommend Dell. I was a loyal Macintosh user from the very first model, but switched to the PC several years ago. The first was an HP, and it was a disaster. Any PC can have problems but this one was a lemon and HP's tech support wouldn't listen to me when I tried to explain what was happening. I switched to a Dell, and just bought a new one in January. Again, good tech support and few problems.

[Blue Gardener]

28. My new Dell seems to be working good

So far anyway, I've only had it about a month.

[emulatorloo]

31. Another Vote for IBM - EOM

[billbuckhead]

32. Are you going to use it as a server?

3 months ago I bought a small form factor hyperthreaded Pentium4 Gateway with XP professional for about $800 bucks and we use it for server a for a small network. It does OK and I've never needed any support, so far. It has a nice restore feature that allows you to turn the clock back to before the glitch you need to fix screwed things up.
However, buying it was a disaster. It was a $100 cheaper than Dell, $300 cheaper than ordering an IBM or HP, $500 cheaper than buying a Sony or HP in a store and figured how could I go wrong. It took 3 three weeks to get after being promised in 1 week. It was constantly being cancelled. Every 2 days was a different story. I did end up with a faster chip and free shipping. I noticed IBM and HP have came down some on their prices in the last month or so on something similar and Gateway's seemingly has went up.

[newyawker99]

33. I have a Dell and I love it!

:-)

[Maestro]

34. Has has been said, neither

unless you are buying a very large amount and you need the technical support. The problem with these guys isn't necessarily what you get for quality but the propietary nature of their hardware.

I would recommend looking at this place if you can't build the systems yourself.

http://www.monarchcomputer.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv

[HuckleB]

36. Michael Dell personally gave $250,000 to the RNC.

He gave the $2,000 max directly to the Bush campaign and another $266,000 to GOP candidates (none to Dems). No way could I support Dell at this point in time. It would be like aiding and abetting the decline of the nation. Meanwhile, Steven Jobs (Apple) is a Kerry advisor.

[Roaming]

37. Dell. I have one, and I have recommended to three other people

when they asked me what's good--all four of us are happy, computers work great. (Which is good because I hate talking to India -- that happened only once--if they could stop the darn Indian customer service they'd be perfect. Can't understand every third word out of their mouths.)