HP or Dell?

[Daahan]

So the computer I currently have is a Dell. It's several years old and has begun to crap out on me almost every day, despite several reformattings in the past.

In the past, I've ordered computers from private dealers or people who have built them, and tbh they have sucked more than my Dell, so I don't really trust private dealers that much.

So I was going to order another Dell until Epical told me I should order an HP instead. I really don't know much about the quality of computers that come from Dell or HP, so if anyone who knows about the mechanics of computers and recommend either HP, Dell, or some other online dealer I can order from, I'd appreciate it.

Make your pope proud.

What do you guys think

[Chips]

In my experience, anything is better than a Dell. >.>

[evilbau]

dell is fine

they are quiet and you can get them cheap. just make sure it has the expansions you need and add your own quality parts

[arlania]

Hp > Dell but seriously, save yourself the money and suck of both and build yourself one. Go get parts from Newegg.com and fix up a PC. You can save a ton of money and get a lot more for your dollar this way and it's not hard at all.

[evilbau]

Hp > Dell but seriously, save yourself the money and suck of both and build yourself one. Go get parts from Newegg.com and fix up a PC. You can save a ton of money and get a lot more for your dollar this way and it's not hard at all.

you cannot get cheaper than a dell by building your own if you know how to work it. full system will be in the 400-500 range

[Ksandra]

Depends on how "comp-savy" you are. I have a dell and I <3 it. The thing that pushes a Dell for me over an HP (my dad has one) is the customer service. Dell has the best hands down, and if you keep extending the warrenty you're set for a long time. They are the first computer company I've had where if something went wrong and I called them, the person actually knew how to fix it versus connecting me to 20 different people who say 20 different things and in the end say "we can't help you."

Of course this is probably moot if you know what you're doing when it comes to computer errors. I admit I'm a ditz when it comes to comps even though I use them all day in some form of another, so it's always Dell for me unless another company rises with their customer service.

[Devek]

Why not just build your own?

You could reuse the case, hard drive, power supply(maybe), ram (maybe). windows license key.. and save a ton.

My computer today is fucking omgwtfbbq awesome compared to anything dell or hp will offer you and the total cost was maybe $1000 spread out over a few years worth of purchases..

[Shuemue]

If you're interested in good customer service, and a reasonably decent price, as much as it pains me to say this, Dell are ok now.

[Daahan]

The problem with building my own is I wouldn't have a clue how to do it.

Nor do I have the time honestly. Money is not an issue for me at the moment. The range I'm looking for is $1000-$1500.

I want a computer that's good and will not give me major problems for a long time.

[arlania]

Hp > Dell but seriously, save yourself the money and suck of both and build yourself one. Go get parts from Newegg.com and fix up a PC. You can save a ton of money and get a lot more for your dollar this way and it's not hard at all.

you cannot get cheaper than a dell by building your own if you know how to work it. full system will be in the 400-500 range

I see 359 as the base price for a Dell computer on their site. That's

512MB Single Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz
80GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache
16X DVD-ROM Drive
No Monitor
NVIDIA GeForce 6150 LE Integrated Graphics GPU

Upgrade any of those to a fairly good lvl and the price jumps to $619 dollars. ( I didnt even update the video card yet). Now looking at newegg I can find.


Computer Case - $60
Motherboard - $120
1gig of memory - $60ish
HD - $80 (80gig HD or more)
256mb video card = $100
Core 2 duo - $170-200+


620 dollars right there.


Also Dell apparently doesnt make any of their parts, as in they just buy the cheapest crap they can and shovel it out to you. When I bought my dell they forgot to install a DVD-RW and never gave me a copy of windows XP. I had to call them a few times to get my money back that I paid for the DVD-RW and never got a copy of windows-xp. If you arnt building your own PC, go with a HP.

The problem with building my own is I wouldn't have a clue how to do it.

Nor do I have the time honestly. Money is not an issue for me at the moment. The range I'm looking for is $1000-$1500.

I want a computer that's good and will not give me major problems for a long time.

For 1500 dollars you can build one hell of a machine. It doesnt take long to put a computer together and there are a ton of guides on how to do it. It's really not as hard as people make it out to be.

http://www.sharkyextreme.com/hardware/g ... _computer/

[Epical]

HPs are great machines... it's the Compaqs that suck anus (who are coincidentally owned by HP). The thing is, not everyone can just build a computer... a lot of risk is involved and, if anything goes wrong, there's no general warranty to back you up (yeah, you got warranty on each part, but not overall labor). However, I just looked on HP's site, and they have decent deals, but Vista only. What I'm trying to do now is find a site that sells the individual parts and builds it for him, then sends it to his house.

I have a site in my head, I just forget the name... it's like IBuildPC or something... supposed to be pretty cheap.

EDIT: Found this.

[Devek]

Building a computer isn't hard..

It isn't like you can stick a power cord in the wrong way these days like the old AT style ones.

Guess it depends on your income level.

Lets say you ONLY save $100 doing it yourself..

If you make $10 an hour than you saved 10 hours of your time building it yourself. 10 hours is plenty of time to figure out how to put a few parts together and when its over you'll be smarter and better informed on the world around you.

If you make $20 hour than you saved 5 hours of time building it yourself. If you're really clueless you run the risk of taking longer than 5 hours and costing yourself, but the offset of the knowledge gained (and lets face it, if it takes you 5 hours to put a PC together you learned something) might make up the difference.

If you make more than $30 an hour.. HP and Dell don't sell nice enough computers for you anyway. Get a nice fancy prefab from alienware or one of those other companies like that.

If you are in the situation where.. your parents are giving you the money but they won't give you a lot to spend. You should learn to respect their money and follow the rules above.

[Zigma]

Dell man, you save so much money and get good customer support. Anyone who says they can build a computer cheaper than dell and provide the same support/quality is smoking crack out a donkeys ass. If you're a certified dell reseller, you're going to see what they offer EVERY FKIN HOUR on their site. It's crazy what you get for the price they ask for. Much lower that the actual site itself.


Dell loses a truckload of money when it comes to selling PCs to non business user like you and me. They are forced to do this to keep that % that they have on the market on lock, and they do a good job at it.

Their business side however is very profitable (servers etc) and they just write off the loss.


I'd go with dell. It's just Smart.

[Epical]

Dell has all proprietary parts, so if you want to do expansion/replacement/system-based things, it's all through them... you're boxed in.

[Isiolia]

Whether you build or buy from an OEM, really, it comes down to the components used. Good stuff from either will last. If your coming from the standpoint of just wanting one number to call for support/warranty and such, then it's understandable to want to go with an OEM.

Dells are fine. Like mentioned, they're generally very quiet, and pretty easy to work on to the point that they were designed to be expanded (usually not a whole lot). You can also usually get a good deal if you watch for it.

Both Dell and HP make some very solid systems. I'm not a fan of the low-low end offerings, but with a gaming system you'd probably not be looking at those anyway.

The main difference you'll probably find on the core level is that Dell tends to use their own designed motherboards, whereas HPs that I've seen use OEM versions of ASUS boards or something similar.
I think this extends to other devices in the system as well, such as the video card. I've had OEM cards that couldn't use the standards drivers, which for a gaming card is kind of a pain. I would consider buying a card separately if they don't specify a brand.

Another consideration will be software. Either will probably require an extra $10 or so to get a restore DVD, and both will definitely have a load of crap to uninstall from their default installations. Apparently Dell has been getting better...but I'd still expect it. HardOCP has had a few XPS system reviews showing some progress in that regard.
Personally, I mainly deal with the corporate Dell systems at work...Precisions and Optiplexes...and I put a custom disk image on myself when they come in the door. So meh.

Probably the better thing would be to put the general price range you're looking to buy in. Dell IMO is good if you're buying at the price point of their special deals. You can quickly config your way out of it being a good deal.

Support...will depend. If you don't buy a little extra on that end, you're probably going to be talking to someone reading from a script in India.
Lately I've been directed to Canada for my educational support at least, those are some friendly help desk people >_>

[theo]

Its possible to build your own PC without really building all of it... What I mean is often times you can purchase cases that already have a lot of stuff installed (motherboard, power source, heat sink, etc). You could call it cheating and not really "doing it yourself," but its still a good deal imo.

I recently bought an XPC Shuttle box. Other than that, the only necessary parts for me to buy were HD, Processor, RAM, Graphics Card, and Optical Drive. The instructions that came with the box were so painfully simple, I had no problems whatsoever getting it all together in working order. Another good brand for this is ASUS.

Going that route saved me a lot of money compared to buying name brand pre-build PC's. Although a large portion of the money I saved was in the fact that I got a legit copy of windows XP for like 10 dollars as provided from my school at student discount. Then again, if you can pirate a copy of windows than its a moot point.

And if I absolutely had to choose Dell or HP, I'd choose Dell. Reason being that it seems like whenever I use a brand new HP computer, it seems like its completely overflowing with pre-loaded garbage. Trial versions of programs, HP media programs, and whatever-the-fuck else they can cram in there with hopes you'll end up paying for the full version. It annoys the crap out of me lol.

[Zigma]

Dell has all proprietary parts, so if you want to do expansion/replacement/system-based things, it's all through them... you're boxed in.

No, you just won't get support for that specific part that you order. If you buy a video card from newegg for your dell PC, you can't call dell and tell them, hey, I got this video card off newegg and it's not working with the pc I purchased off you guys. They will tell you that they can't help you, but it doesn't void our warranty.

Over the years they've made their cases a lot more flexible for the average user to open it up and do light upgrades. They've gotten a lot of criticism over the past few years for their business practices before and have taken all of that and imho have shapen up.

[Epical]

I just built myself a middle of the line gaming machine on Dell's site with the things that matched my current custom-built on the closest. I spent CDN$2000 on mine, and the one on Dell's site came out to USD$2000. I then went down to the lowest end one and did the same thing, and while it came out USD$1130, it comes with lackluster things (no E6600, 7350LE, etc), and forces you to get a monitor/speakers.

My point is, I saved $300 by building it myself rather than letting Dell do it for me and use their stuff (and getting a better machine in the end too... for instance, Dell only offered a lol7900GS for their $2000 system).

[finale23]

i used to help maintain a friend's 3 year old HP pc, and it was an absolutely horrible experience. dell on the other hand, has trashy computers on an acceptable level. i guess you are getting what you are willing to pay for.

[Kuai]

dude ur getting a dell.



PS dell took 3 months to ship my fucking computer they are faggots when it comes to that