181–190 of 252 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you have some suggestions on companies whose priorities are better? It would be good to know.
Apple has been rock solid for me for a decade. Their priorities aren’t fully aligned with mine, but they’re as close as any company I know of. I really want to try a System76 or Framework as my next machine.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We have had terrible problems with the Precision 3000 series overheating/blue-screening on our engineers while using SolidWorks and AutoCAD, and Dell’s response to us was that they couldn’t recommend that series for that purpose, after their rep had done exactly that. Also their WD19TB docks have been terrible. The display ports randomly crap out, the power supply randomly craps out, the ethernet ports randomly crap…
Those docks are a mess. USB-C/Thunderbolt is an AWFUL connector for a dock. The strain on the cables (docks are always shoved in weird corners with tight turns and pressure on the cable) and the ports get worn out very fast with the stress. HPs slimline docks with the retractable plug on the side was probably the best/most reliable dock I've ever seen in production. And the Precisions have bad heat management. All it…
The Dell Precision 7xxx have excellent heat management. I have a 6-year old Dell Precision 7510 mobile workstation, in which the CPU can dissipate in the steady state 60 W for hours (even if its nominal TDP is only 45 W), while the NVIDIA Quadro GPU also dissipates around 100 W at the same time, and this without overheating and without excessive noise.
Obviously, this is a rather thick and heavy laptop, not an ultrabook.
Dell is the Walmart of desktops/laptops. Somehow their server line has remained high quality. Lenovo is my laptop manufacturer of choice, but only the T, X and P Thinkpads. They are doing their best to water down and trash the lineup. Along with the Thinkpad, there's the Thinkbook, Ideapad, Yoga, Legion, Lenovo Slim, and just the plain Lenovo. But buying a 'Thinkpad' isn't a guarantee of quality. It used to be the T…
This is not the first time I've had this experience with Lenovo.
I have never bought a Mac before, but my next computer purchase will be one unless Framework fixes their battery issues first.
I worked in one of Dell's outsourcing partners' call centres (admittedly I left almost 15 years ago), and back then it was the same people manning both consumer and business support lines. Towards the end of 2007 Dell started separating the two segments and that's where the problems started (edit: not sure about the exact date -- processes like that tend to take a while to plan) : * Dell European consumer division wa…
I worked for a Dell outsourced tech support center in America (Sitel, then ClientLogic). We only handled "busines" lines. In reality, it's a mix of business and consumers who used an employee purchase program. Systems are given a company number (might not be the correct name). The company number determines if a support queue handles that system. If it's not your numbers, transfer. This was circa 2005-2007. I was in t…
Call centres taking contracts with the lowest bid is definitely a part of the overall problem.
> Second tier escalations were handled in house.
We even had a third in-house. Dell had an in-house team handling things like replacing entire systems due to legal requirements (usually due to on-site techs being unable to solve issues despite multiple visits).
> Crus wouldn't get on site service.
One of the chief complaints back in the day. Sure, you and I can replace a faulty stick of RAM, but many customers didn't agree.
> Consumer systems are not as good as business grade.
Earler Inspirons were really good systems. They were pretty much identical to Latitudes and Precisions, but with lower specs. The Build quality was on par with the higer end systems.
Dells are like Toyotas. You can take one to almost any repair shop because components are replaceable/upgradeable, and the service manuals are available online. Apple by comparison is like a Tesla. Nothing is upgrade-able and they do their best to prevent you from serving it anywhere other than their own service centers.
So we did fix it (with no warranty coverage), but it was a painful and unnecessary experience. So count us in the 'Dell is junk' column. We've never had a problem like that with an Apple product (and I've been using Apple products since 1979).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They used to be fast booting before switching to the UEFI monster they have now.
I need to time one of the latest ones we have, but as far as I remember, even they are faster than a certain company's servers, and Intel's reference/development servers. Both were booting in 5+ minutes under normal circumstances.
Well how am I gonna know if I'm getting a good computer or not?
Kidding, obviously. HP's gone a similar route. I don't think I'll be purchasing a Dell or HP again in the future if simply for the decline in build quality.