Rumored Computer Deal this Thursday

[wabmester]

If you were thinking about a new computer, wait till Thursday. * Dell is rumored to have a blow-out sale planned for that day. * Their last blow-out offered some pretty good deals (roughly 50% off).

All of the stars are aligned. * Dell's fiscal quarter ends this month. * Retailers are reporting soft xmas sales. * And their entire laptop lineup is about to be refreshed with new Intel goodies that are mostly fluff -- I'd stick with the good cheap stuff.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Indeed...theres a good chance this is going to happen.

On the other hand, theres a nice dell desktop to be had for ~$350 right now, and a very nice little laptop for under $500.

[Spanky]

Dell only sells PCs based on Intel CPUs. I am considering an HP notebook based on AMD-64 CPU. It costs about $1,100 currently. I am hoping that the price will come down in about 4 months.

Spanky

[wabmester]

AMD chips are fine. * But take a look at the latest gen of Pentium-M's. * Besides, unless you're running weather simulations, you are not CPU bound. * *I recently bought a Dell Inspiron 9200 for under $1000. * I love it. * I also love the Inspiron 700m I picked up for $650 or so. * Dell doesn't actually make any of this stuff -- it's all from high quality Taiwanese OEMs, and they're much better than the older plastic Dells you may be used to.

My Dell Inspiron 4000 has been flakey since I bought it (once, it even had smoke comming out of the fan vent). It's been freezing since the warrantee expired. I ended up fixing the problem myself. I replaced the 1GHz CPU with a 900MHz and now it runs better. Cooler too. I know that many people like the Dell laptops, but when I log into their consumer board, lots of other people have similiar problems. It's a very difficult engineering task to pack all that technology into as small a case as possible, and dissipate all the heat that's generated.

I bought a replacement last year. I looked at Dells, Thinkpads, and Chinese brands. The quality of the Chinese brands seemed fine, and the price was even less than Dell. If I were buying a laptop today, I'd go direct to the companies that are building them, and skip over Dell.

I ended up buying a used Desktop with AMD Athlon XP 2800. It's been running flawlessly. I took the money I saved and bought a nice 19" LCD.

[Adventuregirl]

Wouldn't you know, I finally broke down and bought a refurb from Dell ....I wonder if it has not been shipped tomorrow if I can change my order if a better deal comes up :-/....anyone had any experience with this?

Thanks!
Adventuregirl

[wabmester]

I wonder if it has not been shipped tomorrow if I can change my order

Refurbs ship pretty quickly, but you can cancel the order anytime before it ships, and you have until 14 days after it ships to return it for any reason (21 days for new ones).

[Jay_Gatsby]

Although I've taken a look at the Dell website, I'm having a tough time picking one a lightweight laptop to buy. Anyone have suggestions? Configuration suggestions as well?

[wabmester]

I'm having a tough time picking one a lightweight laptop to buy.

Dell makes two lightweight laptops -- the Inspiron 700m and the Latitude X300. You can remove the media base to get the X300 around 3lbs, but the 700m with a built-in media bay is lovely at around 4lbs. The rumored sale will probably only apply to the Inspiron line, so I'd go with a 700m and the 8-cell battery. CPU speed doesn't really matter. RAM is usually cheaper aftermarket.

If you want a nice BIG multimedia laptop, check out the Inspiron 9200 with 17" WUXGA display. Add a 7200 RPM drive, and the beast can handle any app/game/movie/whatever with grace and beauty.

[wabmester]

Very odd. * This deal was rumored to be the biggest since October, but the coupon is miniscule. * Who knows -- maybe they'll be dropping prices on the site tomorrow morning, and it'll live up to the hype. * Anyway, here's the coupon:

Limited time offer beginning 1/06/05 6:00am CST. ONLINE ONLY: Save 10% on
select Inspiron notebook purchases $999 or more (before tax and shipping)!
May not be combinable with Deals of the Week, Outrageous Deals, Inspiron
1000's, dollars off, percentages off or select other promotions. View
Details in My Cart. Only one coupon may be applied per cart at checkout.
Coupon code expires after first 4000 uses, or earlier if offer is
terminated earlier. Enter coupon code at checkout to receive this offer.
Coupon Code: 6X?52ZQLLFTJFH

[Michael]

I don't know anything about current deals, but I own a Dell and am quite happy with it. They make good products.

I am not a "bytehead". (actually I'm almost a Luddite)
Anyway, when I first got "on-line" I had an old
used
cobbled together system with Windows 95. I actually
had to lift it up and bounce it off my desk to make
it turn on (no kidding). I don't understand the
attraction of Dell. The advertised prices always seem
higher than sveeral other brands and I can't see you
are getting anything for the extra money.

JG

[Jay_Gatsby]

Very odd. * This deal was rumored to be the biggest since October, but the coupon is miniscule. * Who knows -- maybe they'll be dropping prices on the site tomorrow morning, and it'll live up to the hype.

Yeah, I noticed that as well when I checked the Dell site this morning. Oh well.

[wabmester]

I don't understand the
attraction of Dell. *The advertised prices always seem
higher than sveeral other brands and I can't see you
are getting anything for the extra money.

JG, the attraction to Dell is that one never pays the advertised price. They are masters of two realms: cost cutting and marketing to price-sensitive internet shoppers. They offer various combinations of online coupons, rebates, and specials, and they practically dare you to find the secret combination that will reveal their best deal.

Anyway, it turns out I'm a sucker for that ploy

[Michael]

I can't see you are getting anything for the extra money.

It does the one thing that makes me happy with gadgets. It is reliable.

[wabmester]

Speaking of reliable, a lot of people seem to opt for Dell's "complete care" coverage. FWIW, I recently verified with my insurance company that they'll offer the same sort of coverage for $2 per $100 value. No deductible for any accident or theft loss. For me, that turns out to be a better value than Dell's coverage (and I dread dealing with Dell's outsourced customer service).

[cute fuzzy bunny]

What you're getting is generally a higher quality power supply, which reduces the noise the system makes (quieter fans), and also can provide improved reliability and system life. Most cheapo machines have an offbrand power supply that in many cases can cause system hangs or crashes. Those of course are promptly blamed on Windows.

You also get a higher quality motherboard, with about the same improvements in stability as a better power supply.

A nicer case thats easy to open and work on.

Probably higher quality memory and a brand name video card instead of some 3rd tier memory stick and a no-name OEM video supplier.

An actual rated processor and not something overclocked (although that happens less and less these days).

Top 3 service level for problems (dell is usually #1 or #2).

Brand name disk drive from one of the top tier players, not some off brand.

In other words, more or less better parts, which should lead to longer life, fewer problems, easier maintenance, better service, etc. Not bad for a hundred bucks or so.

But some people have had great luck with the lower tier manufacturers. Or by building their own from scratch, which I do.

When my brother in law and mother in law wanted a computer, I sent them to Dell. I know they'll have the least problems and will get some level of problem resolution from them thats reasonable.

While I'm too dumb to not avoid becoming the computer teacher, I'm smart enough not to become primary hardware customer support for a potentially problematic machine.

[wabmester]

Pffft. That's the first time I've heard Dell's proprietary power supplies described in positive terms, or their fans described as quiet. While my experience has been good with my 8300, earlier models had a bad reputation for underpowered supplies combined with power-thirsty graphics cards. And the fan noise of more recent models has been compared to jets taking off

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Huh, I hadnt heard that they were still using the proprietary supplies in the consumer lines, I thought they quit doing that a couple of years ago.

The 2400's are pretty quiet. I heard the 3000's and the small business server boxes are a little louder.

[IDunno]

And the fan noise of more recent models has been compared to jets taking off *

FWIW, I bought several Dell's for my business (I believe all under $300). Two have fans that are extremely loud (I shut them off when I'm not using them, they are that loud). Another, though, is almost completely silent. They are different models (600SC being loud, 500SC being quiet), so they were probably designed that way.
-Scott