I know dell dont always have a great rep but the spec on the 430 XPS is close to what im after for the money.

Any comments on them whether to avoid like the plague or recommendations for alternatives.

Oh and are they Nazi’s?

Dell are great- I’ve had nothing but great service from them. I’ve had two (on my second), which is a Precision Mobile Workstation. It’s very well built, very solid and hugely reliable. as have the other 4 Dells in the family…

The XPS machines have a great reputation from what i’ve heard.

oh, and we supply Dells with machines we sell at work – I can’t remember ever having a hardware problem.

And use Dells throughout the office which are fine, except on the CAD/design workstations which are HP… and mine has gremlins 🙁

Of the PC’s in the office the ones that don’t break down are the Dells

Dell seem to try and claw back money to consumers via horrendous delivery charges, but the hardware is usually pretty good.

I’ve supported Dell desktops, laptops and servers for the past ten years and the quality of the products and the support has improved massively over that time.

I’d recommend them, but shop around as they also sell through retailers like PC World these days.

got no issues with mine. I’d buy from them again

Always phone Dell once you have configured what you want on the web. We’ve bought quite a few in the past and they have always been willing to reduce the stupid delivery charges when we call. We don’t have an account with them and have often just bought single machines. We also transport them all over the world and they get handled by exhibition builders and loaders and I don’t think we have ever had one fail.

After going on here:- http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/ i think im going to seriously consider a dell.

Another thumbs up for Dell here. I’ve recently bought a Studio laptop an am very happy with it, the XPS was just out of my price range.

As Avdave2 said, give them a call once you’ve got it spec’d up on their website, they will haggle a bit. I got a few ££s knocked off mine.

Also check this place out – they show all of the current specials on offer from Dell direct.

It must be really hit and miss with what you get from Dell. Ive been a long time fan of their stuff, still got a 5 year old desktop from Dell that does its job.

I`ve seriously changed my mind now though after I bought a Studio laptop a few months ago which was truly awful even after 2 visits from a “service engineer”. However after a bit of an argument with some Indian bloke, they agreed to take it back and give me a refund.

Like I say, it must be hit and miss, freddyg above is happy with his studio laptop- i got an absolute lemon…

So far as the desktops go, we have Dell XPS computers at Uni and they seem ok. My advice would be to get it, kick the arse out of it for a week to find any potential problems and if your unhappy send it back. Nothing to lose at all.

We have an office full of them, they have hardwear problems like any machines, particularly with hard disks failing, but these will be the same hard disks you’d find in any PC so you can’t hold that against them.

dell are one of the best IMO bought servers, PC’s laptops over the years and had no problems, its all the marketing “buy insurance crap” that comes afterwards that winds me up.

mind you thats on a business account

My gf had a nightmare dealing with their customer services department after her laptop got nicked and she was checking out the insurance replacement specs. They seemed to get confused between weight and price!

The laptops themselves were fine though.

No problems here and I have two in the office plus a monitor.

Got one at home, nae problems. Plenty in office too, they all seem to work.

We’ve a couple of hundred Dell desktops at work, and they seem to work brilliantly. I’ve a Dell laptop that I’ve been using pretty heavily for a couple of years now, with no problems.

Same as above. Dell or HP and you cant go wrong.

I buy the professional range (Optiplex, Precision, Poweredge and Latitudes) for work. Don’t usually have any problems with them and this is with kit thats been in use for 7 yrs+ continuously ( as we havn’t upgraded to Vista). Got about 100+ PC’s/laptops around here.
When there has been an issue the technical support line has been very good.

Havn’t had too many dealings with the home editions such as Dimensions, Inspirons and XPS’s but when I have had to contact them for repairing two XPS’s they have done the repair foc as the warranty had recently expired.

Good thing about the pro range is the support. Not just getting on site repairs but the drivers are usually available for various operating systems, not just the one that was shipped with.

If you are getting a laptop always get a 3yr warranty due to the way they get used. The parts are proprietary and usually involve a manfacturer repair.

I use a dell – a refurbed one through mcscom.co.uk – cant recommend them enough. Got my inspiron and my parents inspiron through them. I had a fault with the dvd drive on mine and they replaced it no questions.

Obvisouly you dont get the support or preinstalled software (or even OS) that Dell offer but if you’re happy providing and installing all the software etc..
..Bargainalicious. Only minor scrapes to the case of mine – parents was as new.

They’re in Fordingbridge in the New Forest but deliver also i believe.

Dell just fine this one is working. Have heard a rumour that one of there workers once went to a party dressed as Himmler, so best think on it.

a few Dell discounts seem to be available for the XPS430 you’re after- drops the price quite dramatically -see here.

Bought a Studio 15 from these resellers
http://www.mcscom.co.uk/index.php
Dell refurbished with 3 yr onsite warranty for about 150 sniffs less than Dell outlet price.
Had 1 problem with screen but was sorted out within 24hrs by engineer visit.
Bloody brilliant and will go straight back there for next one

Agree with above posts – good value for money and as reliable as any PC these days. All made of the same bits now.

Only one thing to note. Sometimes Dell apply their own shapes and styles to otherwise ‘vanilla’ PC components. For example, only dell mainboards and PSU’s will fit in some Dell cases, or standard sized video cards won’t fit in etc. Dell charge a fortune for spares. As such, a simple fault on a 2yr old Dell could potentially write the whole unit off, wheras if you had bought a more generic machine, you could fix it by spending £40 on ebuyer or Dabs.

Dell kit is fine it’s just a shame the phone support is out of India on home/small business kit. Mind you some of the high-end support seems to be out of Eastern Europe which is no easier to deal with when trying to describe technical problems. Def check out the factory outlet systems and as someone else said, once you’ve priced it up on the web then call them and they’ll usually discount more if you’re willing to buy there and then.

Got a Dell XPS M1330 – it’s a fantastic machine. Reliable as the day is long.

Dell kit is fine it’s just a shame the phone support is out of India on home/small business kit. Mind you some of the high-end support seems to be out of Eastern Europe which is no easier to deal with when trying to describe technical problems. Def check out the factory outlet systems and as someone else said, once you’ve priced it up on the web then call them and they’ll usually discount more if you’re willing to buy there and then

I work for Dell supporting systems in the UK… 😉

Dell have good headlines in their specs, but often everythign else is rubbish.

Mine had (at the time) a super quick processor, and everything else looked good. But the hardrive is dog slow, the RAM is slower than even the cheepest aftermarket stuff i can find, the MOBO is a funny shape so when it packed in after 13 months it needed a new case, PSU and MOBO, ditto if the PSU or cooling fan had gone. The PSU was also too small to run a graphics card! Hardrive is on its way out now after 2 years.

Would i get another one? Probably not, for the money there’s custom builders out there that for similar money cans set you up with much better components that are easily replaceable and don’t have big holes in the spec.

And the on-board graphics were a joke, I’ve never actualy had a computer that struggled to render MS Word!

I bought a laptop from Dell. Like others have said, when I ordered it I was speaking to someone in India, which led to a few comedy moments, but in the end I got a better spec for less money than advertised in the paper. Would I buy from them again? Probably.

Got a Dell XPS M1330 – it’s a fantastic machine. Reliable as the day is long.

What happens in winter?

Got 2 at home. No problems at all.

The only issue I had was getting them to deliver to my work address rather than the credit card billing address. Got there in the end but there was some faffing. This was a couple of years ago so it may be different now.

it still needs to go to cc registered address, as with most online ‘big’ purchases. you may be able to get around it by providing various proof of address documents.

best to check with dell if that’s the case..