Least awful vomit box

[Mercutio]

No particular reason for this, just taking a poll:

What, in your opinion, are generally the least offensive vomit boxes among all vomit box brands?

Is there anyone willing to stand up and champion an HP or a Dell?

Sometimes someone will ask me to recommend one and I cannot bring myself to do it.

 

[Buck]

After comparing my base Office system with a Dell equivalent, and after beating their price (Dimension E521) by $300.00, I could not see recommending any vomit box.

 

[Mercutio]

Well, yeah.

But the point here is, if someone held a gun to your head and said "Recommend a $400 - $700 PC from a multinational name brand", what would you pick?

I run into that situation a lot, actually. No guns, but people looking to buy something for a kid away at college or their aunt in Arizona or whatever, when it's very hard to offer any sort of white box as an option.

I disqualify Dell for three major reasons:
1. They still use some proprietary parts. Some of their power supplies. STILL.
2. The Dell shovelware experience. Particularly the "30 days of Firewall and then you have to pay or be smart enough to know why your internet connection stopped working." bit.
3. The staggering frustration of Dell's tech support.

 

[Bozo]

Gateway??

Bozo :joker:

 

[Buck]

But the question is about a vomit box. I even tell them that we refer to them as such and explain why. Then they'll point to one, asking, "What about this?" I'll see the specs and comment, "It could work, but it will be slow". Then they usually ask if I can help set it up when it arrives. Sure, for a small fee. Okay, they buy it and then I make more on labor helping them with the setup then if I had built a $400.00 paper weight. : ) The reason I don't make outright vomit box recommendations is that they eventually have problems and say that I recommended the system. Now, if a gun is involved I would recommend Redhill or Laker computers.

 

[ddrueding]

I recommend Dell a lot. Of all the vomit boxen, I consider them the least vommit-ish. They are particularly nice if you format and re-install the OS only, then get the latest drivers from the website.

I do this for all the clients that I don't actually want to support; either they are far away, a known pain in the ass, or penny-pinchers. Building a computer for less than $1500 isn't worth my time, and as Buck said, the hour of re-installing the OS and drivers is pure profit.


And to steal an old line: "You can't get fired for buying Dell."

 

[P5-133XL]

What I try to do when people ask me for a recomendation of where to buy is to tell them that computers are a comodity where there is no definative company that always produces high quality at a fair price. Rather, all the companies, produce a range from the inexpensive and poor quality and the expensive and high quality. Thusly, brand doesn't really matter much.

Rather, what they need is a set of minimum specifications (to avoid the junk) which I supply and then buy from whomever can meet those specifications at the least cost.

Now I do qualifiy the above by saying that there will be issues with some companies that can't easily be delt with by specifications like crapification, proprietarism, quality tech support ...

For those that can't or won't deal with specifications I direct them to a local custom builder and tell them to simply have them build a machine to the specifications supplied.

 

[ddrueding]

Mark brings up another point (I don't mean to derail too much); are there any small system builders in your areas that you would recommend? All the "small shop" machines I run across have PC-Chips motherboards in them or mega-flimsy plastic cases with windows and multi-colored lights.

 

[Buck]

Yes, there is one system builder in my area that I would recommend outside of HLM Company.

 

[Mercutio]

Literally the *only* thing I see from local screwdriver shops is PC Chips. If I'm lucky, their $1500+ systems will have an Asus or perhaps Abit board, but those systems are about as common as hen's teeth.

 

[timwhit]

When I worked at a screwdriver shop about 8 years ago we used almost all Gigabyte boards and mostly AMD K6 CPUs. The cases that they used weren't the greatest, just standard steel beige cases. No idea what they use nowadays though. Was Gigabyte any good 8 years ago?

 

[Clocker]

When you take into account the cost of including legit software (i.e. Office etc.) , how to your systems compare with the Dells and HPs? I really don't know. I'm just curious as I have some family member's who may be needing PCs in the near future and I will have to choose between building them something or directing them to an OEM.

 

[ddrueding]

OEM software copies are available, and for about the same as the retailers charge; one way or another it isn't a significant difference.

If you like your family and are able to support them, you should build them yourself. If they are too far for house calls, send them to Dell.

 

[Buck]

When you take into account the cost of including legit software (i.e. Office etc.) , how to your systems compare with the Dells and HPs? I really don't know. I'm just curious as I have some family member's who may be needing PCs in the near future and I will have to choose between building them something or directing them to an OEM.

Clocker, here is a comparison for a nice Office type system. Interestingly, that Dell Dimension E521 started at $449.00. Once you add the necessary items to the machine it is no longer competitive.

 

[Mercutio]

For a 100% legit Home PC, my price for a computer ends up being about the same as Dell's... unless I'm building for someone who has access to encheapened software (from a University or something), in which case I usually win by 20% or so, even off the slightly discounted prices Dell generally offers to college students. My box won't have a bunch of stupid crap on it (or in it!), but it will have enough free software to make it just as much if not more capable than the brand-name equivalent.

The difference becomes extremely apparent above the $800 - $900 mark, or if the buyer wants anything other than a stock configuration. Dell wants $150 for 1GB of extra RAM, or $300 to go to a 20" monitor from a 17". In that case, the white box guy wins every time. If someone is looking at $2000 Dells, it's even better yet. Dell wants $4000 for a machine that anyone reading this could assemble for $2000. That's just how things are.

 

[Buck]

It's also important to keep in mind that there are offices that are looking for a box replacement. They want to keep their monitor, keyboard, mouse and speakers. They just need a new tower. Then, there are a few places that will happily use OpenOffice instead of MS Office - that results in huge savings from me and Dell.

 

[Sol]

Of all the pre-fab boxes I've used IBMs (Lenovo now I guess) were probably the least objectionable. They were in no way impressive and the price was most definitely not right but they were solid enough boxes which isn't really something I would say of a Dell (I'm on to my second in less than 6 months at work) or anything else I've come across (HP, Compaq).

That said all my family have machines I've built for them and all my friends have machines they've built themselves (with occasionally varying degrees of success) so the only time I really see vomit boxes are when they break and someone asks for my help, or at work (IBM and Dell machines at my former and current job respectively).

 

[Clocker]

My mother-in-law is a principal at a school so I'll have to keep that software discount in mind.

 

[CougTek]

Gateway??

Bozo :joker:

Yeah, that would be my choice too, although I don't have any strong argument to back up my position. Maybe some Acer towers would be barely acceptable too.

The used Compaq EVO DS51 I often work with are fine for office systems too. These are small form factor and not ATX towers. Their PSU are proprietary format too. But they work fine...for used boxes.

As Mercutio wrote, the higher the price of the computer, the easier it is to beat the OEM.

Local shops use PC-Chips a lot too. I'm trying to avoid it at all cost and I use ASRock motherboards for the ultra-cheap systems. Asus and GigaByte for everything else.

 

[ddrueding]

Is Gateway still in some form of bankruptcy? Weren't they in trouble for like a decade?

 

[Mercutio]

I don't think Gateway has ever been bankrupt. I think they were losing millions on their retail stores so they closed them all.

IBM/Lenovo PCs don't seem to me to fit in the vomit box category, since they don't sell to home users, but if it is a choice I'd say it's a decent one.

I looked at a S*ny PC this morning that had a 160GB drive that was factory-configured with a 40GB C: drive and a 100GB Z: drive and 20 GB for restore. The user wasn't smart enough to realize that he even had the second partition, and I was the first tech to ever look at the machine so I don't think anyone else but S*ny could've done that... Unreal.

 

[ddrueding]

I don't think Gateway has ever been bankrupt. I think they were losing millions on their retail stores so they closed them all.

IBM/Lenovo PCs don't seem to me to fit in the vomit box category, since they don't sell to home users, but if it is a choice I'd say it's a decent one.

I looked at a S*ny PC this morning that had a 160GB drive that was factory-configured with a 40GB C: drive and a 100GB Z: drive and 20 GB for restore. The user wasn't smart enough to realize that he even had the second partition, and I was the first tech to ever look at the machine so I don't think anyone else but S*ny could've done that... Unreal.

Interesting. I wonder if their restore partition completely re-images the C drive; them assuming you will store all your stuff on Z...

 

[Mercutio]

The extra partition was completely, 100% empty.
I have done things like re-locate the documents and settings folder to another partition a time or two, but that was doing some REALLY freakish stuff, and it's just easier to do everything with TrueImage now.

 

[sechs]

If someone is looking at $2000 Dells, it's even better yet. Dell wants $4000 for a machine that anyone reading this could assemble for $2000. That's just how things are.

Of course, I can't convince my dad that I can assemble a much nicer computer for less. Last year, he bought a Dell XPS for, as far as I can tell, surfing the web and running eMule to download easy listening music. This is also the guy who refuses to crack the case to add anything, and, thus, has several stacks of USB harddrives.

People are computer-stupid and need their name-brand security blankets.

 

[ddrueding]

People are computer-stupid and need their name-brand security blankets.

I could simplify that to: Stupid people need (deserve?) Dell.

 

[LunarMist]

I could simplify that to: Stupid people need (deserve?) Dell.

Many of the really intelligent people I meet seem to prefer the Macs.

 

[Mercutio]

You have to be smart enough to know you want a Mac.

I really do wish I could install Linux on every home PC. It really does make the machine better in every way once no one can install spyware/virus laden crap on a computer.

 

[Buck]

You have to be smart enough to know you want a Mac.

I have a customer right now that knows he needs a Mac, but can't afford what he needs. So, he went the route of an Intel Pentium D system and installed Darwin (works pretty good). Then he managed to get Final Cut Pro up and running. He figures that when he is good enough at Final Cut Pro to charge money, then he'll be able to afford that Dual Xeon Mac system.

 

[LunarMist]

I'm smart enough to know that I cannot afford the full Mac system and that I would spend the rest of my life figuring out how to use it.

 

[ddrueding]

How about being smart enough to not need a Mac?

 

[sechs]

I believe that would lead us back to Linux.

 

[Bozo]

A few months ago I visited an Apple store. Lots of nice stuff. I found I could navigate around their OS rather easily. Much more intuitive than Vista.
Of the 5 employees there, it seems one spent all his time restarting/rebooting borked computers.
I don't know why, but that surprised me. Seems you can bring an Apple computer to it's knees just as easily and just as fast as a Windows computer.

Bozo :joker:

 

[CougTek]

I despise Steve Jobs just as much as Bill Gates (maybe even more). He is a BS factory. He doesn't have a mouth, he has a crap fab. I refuse to buy a computer from a company that is owned by a man who dared to spout that its technologically-retarded systems were 5 times faster than the cream of the crop x86 systems and then switch to x86 platforms and no less than a month later claim that its new lineup is twice as fast as its old one (which is true). So what are you telling us Steve? That you shamelessly lied to all of your customers for the last 10 years?

It's true that peeMacs use good hardware nowadays, but every time someone buys one, he gives money to that lying bastard. No thanks.

 

[LiamC]

Coug, not enough profanity to qualify as a MercRant*, but a good start none the less.

My workplace used Acer Veritons for years. 4 years ago, they tried a switch to Dell which lasted for six months or so. The failure rate of the boxes was so high, the cancelled the procurement and went back to Acer. 27 000+ units later, Stan said, "Thanks Michael".

The Dell monitors were good though...


As an aside, it really is amazing how far (K)Ubuntu has come...


(TM) (C) StorageForum 2007

 

[Howell]

Home users are less than 10% of our customer base. Even then they are employed at one of the businesses we support.
We do not build computers. The margins are too low.
We sell either Dell or IBM servers and workstations.

Why? I can have one quoted, and setup in under 3 hours + 2-3 day wait for shipping. The prices are cheap enough that our quotes can stay competitive. We don't have to keep ANY inventory tying up capital. They don't give me crap when I call with failed hardware.

I've got better, more profitable things to do than build computers.

 

[ddrueding]

I've got better, more profitable things to do than build computers.

Then you aren't selling computers to the right people. I just closed a deal on a baseline Shuttle SFF for $999. It's likely the order will be expanded to a dozen or more units.

 

[Adcadet]

As an aside, it really is amazing how far (K)Ubuntu has come...
/QUOTE]

I recently installed Ubuntu 7.04, and man is it good! Speaking of which, now that I'm done playing a game, I think I'll boot back into Ubuntu. Maybe I'll install KDE tonight.

 

[LiamC]

I've been running Edgy (6.10) and downloaded Fiesty (7.04) last night. I'll take it for a run.

 

[Howell]

vmware server takes some "adjusting" to get working under Feisty. The same kind as under Edgy.

I've been running Feisty for about a week now. No problems yet.

 

[RWIndiana]

I just tried Kubuntu Feisty (haven't gotten around to Ubuntu yet). I was surprised by how polished it seemed in comparison to previous Kubuntu versions, and how automatic everything was. I'm impressed.