Nope. Well, not any longer I don't.
We truly have had very few computer issues. Be they Dell, PowerSpec or VAIO our computers just work. We have had the odd hard drive failure but by and large life is trouble free around here in terms of hardware. Why then the no Dell policy? There are a few reasons, and here they are:
- I don't like having my phone calls for support answered in India. Say what you will, but >I< don't like it. These folks don't understand what they are doing and no matter what your complaint is they still have to go through their troubleshooting steps. They are friendly enough, but I simply can't understand what some of them are saying. Their English is good, but their accents are terrible. I just don't have the time that it takes to get through to someone, have a long useless conversation about all of the things that I didn't try because they have nothing at all to do with my issue and then have to wait to get a call back from someone in the US or Canada for further assistance.
- Proprietary parts. Had a Dell power supply go bad. Under warranty. No worries. Can't just slap in a new one. Has to be one designed to fit this Dell rigged system. OK. Order it. Part gets ordered and 9 days (NINE) later it showed up. 2 days later tech shows up. Not good. I can't do it or I void the warranty. Whatever. PowerSpec computers use standard parts that you can go and get right off the shelf. With local service I can carry in a computer (or have them come out next day) with a bad power supply today and get it back tomorrow. Out of warranty I can buy the parts to fix it right in the store. Very good.
- Dell parts; Round Rock, Texas. Nowhere near me. Microcenter parts; Sharonville, Ohio. 10 minutes from me.
- Rarely do I buy a computer well in advance of needing it. I am not good about planning these types of things and more often than not I am reacting to a need instead of planning for the future. As fast as Dell is I am at least a week from seeing a computer. With PowerSpec I can discover a need for a computer this morning and have that need met this afternoon.
- Price. This PowerSpec model is right off of the front page of the Microcenter website. Aside from buying their cheapest models this is the best that I could do at Dell.com on a similar model. $250 difference. It does have a better chip, but otherwise they are in the ballpark of one another. Even if the money were the same or somewhat lower for the Dell go back to reason's 1-3.
In some respects a PC is a PC. You can certainly be crippled with cheap Celeron chips and slow hard drives but if you pay attention to what you are buying and don't get saddled with an email machine the brand is less important than how quickly it can be serviced if something goes wrong. I know that Dell is almost synonymous with "PC", but I don't care about conforming to the standard rules.
Not everyone has a pleasant experience with Microcenter and PowerSpec. It happens. Just as I have had less than pleasant experiences with Dell there are those that aren't happy with my choice. I have loved every one of the PowerSpec computers that I have bought. They last FOREVER. I have an old PowerSpec that we bought in 2000 for our billing people. It still has the same 128 MB of RAM, the same hard drive and the same Windows 98 that it came with. It has never had a repair of any kind. It has had the network card replaced, but back in the day that wasn't a standard item. We added that ourselves. It is still used here every day, only now we use it to control our FAX machine.
PowerSpec for me thank you very much.
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