Computer Brand Preference

[Dean Humphrey]

I don't want to bash any particular brand of computer, just a sort of user poll. Of the Major Brands, HP, Dell, and Gateway, which would be rated highest for Customer Service, Price, and Dependability/Build Quality.

Your Input appreciated.
Thanks

[85lesabre]

Apple.

[RandyMN]

Apple is great for professional graphics people as well as photographers. This is only with the component models as I have no experience with the all-in-one monitor/computer. I hate the idea of that anyway but my sister just ordered that concept in a differnt brand so it must be catching on.

Sony is great for music and home use but overpriced.

Dell is great for bargians and getting a great computer if you shop smart.

HP/Compaq can be good or bad, depending... But I have one I am using now and the price was great and it's working great!

Laptops suck from almost every brand I have tried since power cord connections seem to bend, break and stop working. The mother board needs replacing when this happens.

My experience with laptops has been worst with HP.

Gateway I have not tried but I believe they compare well with Dell.

[Dean Humphrey]

Apple.

please Exclude Apple from this discussion.

[MaxxuM]

According to Consumer Reports (about the only unbiased reviewer I know) these are the standings:

Support:
1. *excluded
2. Dell
3. Gateway

Free Help (before/after warranty)
1. *excluded
2. Lenovo
3. Dell

Overall Customer Satisfaction/Brand Reliabilty
1. *excluded
2. Dell
3. eMachines
4. Dell & HP (tie)

Overall, each manufacturer had at least one failing (usually customer support) and all were a good distance behind the excluded brand. You may not like or want an Apple (sorry), but at the very least you can use the brand as a guide when picking a brand to go with.

[tim]

Dell and HP are the biggest in the PC world. Personally if I was going to buy a premade PC i'd probably go for a Dell mini tower, for expandability. I build my own usually.

[Dean Humphrey]

According to Consumer Reports (about the only unbiased reviewer I know) these are the standings:

Support:
1. *excluded
2. Dell
3. Gateway

Free Help (before/after warranty)
1. *excluded
2. Lenovo
3. Dell

Overall Customer Satisfaction/Brand Reliabilty
1. *excluded
2. Dell
3. eMachines
4. Dell & HP (tie)

Overall, each manufacturer had at least one failing (usually customer support) and all were a good distance behind the excluded brand. You may not like or want an Apple (sorry), but at the very least you can use the brand as a guide when picking a brand to go with.

Good stuff, I knew Apple would be tops, I have one, for another project I'm trying to figure the best top made and supported PC. I'm a little surprised HP did not score better in Support and Reliability.

[DL.Photography]

I used to build my own when I had nothing better to do. My desktop recently stopped working so I just decided to go with a Dell.

Lets talk price. I jumped on an amazing Dell Small business deal.. I don't actually have a small business LOL..I just ordered it and it went through...)

$373.18 shipped for:
Vostro 220 Slim Tower
Core2Duo 2.8ghz
3GB ram
250GB HDD
DVDRW
Vista Basic
Standard everything else (graphic card, sound, network etc.)
23" Samsung Widescreen LCD, Keyboard, Mouse

The only other Dell product I own is a Inspiron 700m (like 4-5 years old...so there's no question about durability). I never had to call customer service so I cant say anything about that.

[MaxxuM]

Good stuff, I knew Apple would be tops, I have one, for another project I'm trying to figure the best top made and supported PC. I'm a little surprised HP did not score better in Support and Reliability.

Not too long ago HP was actually at the bottom of the pile. When they acquired Compaq and changed up management things started to get much better. I have an HP at home and about 20 more at work and customer support is pretty hit or miss. Dell and Lenovo are very easy to deal with, but that may be because I'm a Dell Certified Tech so I can bypass phone support and just directly order parts when needed. At work we have around 10,000 Dell's of multiple designs as well as 100+ PowerEdge servers. For laptops I would go with Lenovo and for desktops Dell.

[ChasP505]

According to Consumer Reports (about the only unbiased reviewer I know)

I worked next door to the original CR building for nearly a decade and I had close personal friends and family working for CR. If you knew more about their testing and procurement methods, you'd know why they are NOT an organization I'd use as a reference.

I DO agree with Tim.

[Bob_A]

I've bought several Dell towers and laptops and have used Dell at work for the past 10+ years. Only had problems with two:

One was due to a poor case design (too compact with poor ventilation). The thing packed it in after two years of abuse by way of overheating.

The other had a video card that packed it in after one month of use. The card replacement process went ten times smoother than expected and the only thing that annoyed me is that Dell called me at least five times afterwards to double check that I was completely happy and to ask if there was anything else they could do.

[scottoliver]

All three Dells my family has purchased have had issues. Two laptops and a desktop. The desktop had a hard drive crash not long after purchase. My laptop had a hard drive crash within a week of purchase; later the motherboard needed replacing. My sister's laptop also had issues but I can't recall what they were at the moment; she sent back the laptop and had them send another one. However, they have the best customization and good prices.

My dad's Toshiba has run well. I've custom-built and rebuilt my desktop for years. If you have the time and interest, I'd suggest that. You get the components you want and learn about what you're doing.

My office uses Lenovo (formerly IBM) laptops. If I were to buy a laptop today, it would probably be a Lenovo.

[MaxxuM]

I worked next door to the original CR building for nearly a decade and I had close personal friends and family working for CR. If you knew more about their testing and procurement methods, you'd know why they are NOT an organization I'd use as a reference.

Can you elaborate? Are you saying they are bias then? I used them for a recent car purchase as well as a washer and dryer - if there is something concrete about their practices I would really like to hear it.

I DO agree with Tim.

When you spend more than a million with Dell or Apple you get certain perks, like paid visits to their facilities. I have friends that work for Dell (in management) who keep trying to get me to work there... Anyway, as a IT professional who has visited multiple vendor's I would have to say that of all of them Apple was the most impressive. Silicon Valley aside, their business model was totally geared toward aesthetics, creativity and ingenuity. Thinking out of the box basically. Dell on the other hand focused on money. When you enter their Round Rock campus the first thing you see are a wall of patents (glass). Though they do have the casual Friday's where you can basically wear whatever you want, they award people based on what you 'save' the company and categorize them by color - black being the top award (save Dell over a million $). Apple on the other hand rewards on innovation and new ideas. They were also a much smaller 'footprint' than MS or Dell. Anyway, I'm not saying Dell is bad - just 'different'. If you want to save money Dell is usually the way to go.

[Titus213]

It has been my understanding that the type of customer satisfaction info published by CR is from surveys of their member's results rather than direct testing. Now testing products might be another story I would suspect, but customer satisfaction?

[ChasP505]

Can you elaborate? Are you saying they are bias then? I used them for a recent car purchase as well as a washer and dryer - if there is something concrete about their practices I would really like to hear it.

I don't want to spin this off on an irrelevant tangent, but here's a specific example. Before moving to New Mexico and getting into real estate marketing, I worked within the bicycle industry for nearly 2 decades, including importing custom racing bikes from Italy, representing an Asian manufacturer and distributor, and operating a pro racing shop in NY.

CR ran a bicycle survey/comparison of mid-priced lightweight road bicycles. They sent their anonymous buyers out to local shops in the lower Westchester County area of New York and assembled a haphazard collection of bikes of different model years and non-comparable specifications. Their testing measured parameters that have no application in the real world for measuring a bike's quality of manufacture, riding performance, or safety. Their results and recommendations were ludicrous and included a model which had been out of distribution for about 3 years. (For about 2 years afterwards, the local shops had to deal with "smart consumers" carrying printouts of this survey and demanding to buy the non-existant bicycle CR recommended.)

This is but one isolated example, which is within my personal sphere of expertise. Perhaps they've gotten more sophisticated in the last 20 years since I left NY, but I still won't use them when making a purchasing decision. To quote Forest Gump, "And that's all I have to say about that!".

[plumers]

I had HP laptop and it last me for only 2 years. Poor hinge design, overheating problem (I had to put a fan next to the fan to keep it cool), leaking battery, crashing problem (probably motherboard is shot), and many more things. The computer really impressed me better at first sight, but wears off overtime. I have a 6 years old Sony Vaio laptop and it still works like new, very solid computer, but a bit overpriced, IMO.

Dell is actually pretty nice, I just bought Dell XPS desktop and haven't had complaints other than numerous of bloatware that comes with it. Solved it by formatting the computer by installing Vista Ultimate (it comes with Vista Premium), it's all good now.

Laptop I've been very impressed with Macbook Pro. I have the previous generation ones with matte screen. I love it. The size is just decent, not too big, not to small, balance weight, and very simple for travelling. No complaints whatsoever. I was thinking to get a desktop but I can't afford Mac Pro, so I went with Dell XPS, lol.

Bottom line, I prefer the following order:
(omitted) > Sony > Dell > HP

[MaxxuM]

It has been my understanding that the type of customer satisfaction info published by CR is from surveys of their member's results rather than direct testing. Now testing products might be another story I would suspect, but customer satisfaction?

It's a combination of tests from what I have read. Customer satisfaction and tech support are obviously done with surveys while hardware failures and general quality were a combination of surveys, corporate releases (to stock holders for instance) and annual reports from other sources that monitor consumer activity (private contractors).

I don't want to spin this off on an irrelevant tangent, but here's a specific example. Before moving to New Mexico and getting into real estate marketing, I worked within the bicycle industry for nearly 2 decades, including importing custom racing bikes from Italy, representing an Asian manufacturer and distributor, and operating a pro racing shop in NY.

CR ran a bicycle survey/comparison of mid-priced lightweight road bicycles. They sent their anonymous buyers out to local shops in the lower Westchester County area of New York and assembled a haphazard collection of bikes of different model years and non-comparable specifications. Their testing measured parameters that have no application in the real world for measuring a bike's quality of manufacture, riding performance, or safety. Their results and recommendations were ludicrous and included a model which had been out of distribution for about 3 years. (For about 2 years afterwards, the local shops had to deal with "smart consumers" carrying printouts of this survey and demanding to buy the non-existant bicycle CR recommended.)

This is but one isolated example, which is within my personal sphere of expertise. Perhaps they've gotten more sophisticated in the last 20 years since I left NY, but I still won't use them when making a purchasing decision. To quote Forest Gump, "And that's all I have to say about that!".

A lot can happen in 20yrs - but yes, I've seen this happen in some reviews. However, very few companies would have even done that much to compare products. It may be anecdotal, but it is far less so than conducting a survey on PotN. The OP wanted opinions and CR does survey more than 40,000 users, far more than will ever respond to this thread and in addition, do provide more details than the average user here.

I'm not saying that CR should be the end all of your research, but more like a stepping stone to your final purchase. CR is a tool and as any tool, when used properly, can enhance your end goals.

[ChasP505]

I'm not saying that CR should be the end all of your research, but more like a stepping stone to your final purchase. CR is a tool and as any tool, when used properly, can enhance your end goals.

Agreed... But I choose to base most of my computer purchasing/configuration decisions on input and advice from 3 key people: my son (mechanical engineer, CAD expert), my son-in-law (computer engineer), and mostly my nephew, CIO and IT Manager for a huge NYC based research firm and co-owner of a computer/networking company in NY.

What do they use? Son - custom built desktop PCs, Dell laptop(s). Son-in-law - Custom built desktop PCs running Linux and Windows, "*excluded" laptops with "*excluded" OS and Linux. Nephew - "*excluded" laptops and desktop for personal use including photo editing; corporate hardware is mostly Dell equipment (1,000s of workstations, laptops, servers, etc.).

Based on their input and my extremely limited budget, I continue to go with a modest custom built PC (soon to be running Windows 7) and an older Dell Laptop running Linux (used like a netbook).

[slappy sam]

I'm building my own. I specced out the computer I'm building ($1000) on dell's site and it was $2500.

But, I've had a dell for 5 years now and really, no hiccups with it. The hard drive failed, but I had backups... popped a new drive in and we are good to go. Oh, and one of the disc drives doesn't work anymore, but I've got two so no big deal.

I don't think that an apple computer will be able to touch the system I'm building. Maybe a $3000+ system. But seriously, the new i7 procs are pretty kick ass and I can pick up 12gb of 1866mhz (ridiculously fast) RAM for $140. Insane.

I think dell is an okay company, I would check out the website www.slickdeals.com and wait for a dell system to pop up on there. I would NOT pay retail. I saw a system go for $900 the other day that normally retails for ~$1600 on their site. Sometimes they just have sweet deals. But I am building my own system because I really don't like having a dell anymore. However, HP and Gateway are worse.

I do like apple as a company and wouldn't hesitate to recommend them but they aren't the best for value.