Mark Lloyd wrote:

On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 12:35:46 -0400, Eugene Nine wrote:

ameijers wrote:


"Oren" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 13 Jul 2006 01:11:09 -0700, Corinne
wrote:

Please don't blast me for asking this question here. I have posted
here before and received excellent advice, so I am back.

I am in the market for a new computer. I am interested in Dell. When
searching the Dell sites, I see lots of complaints about service, etc.

Do any of you use a Dell computer, and can anyone recommend a model
for someone who uses the computer basically for email, newsgroups,
searching the web, playing solitaire, and making greeting cards?

I am totally lost, and as you can see, I am not too computer savvy.
I just know the basics, and my computer man, in this small town,
just retired due to ill health.

Many thanks in advance to anyone who can help.

Corinne

I think Dell are very good computers. We had about 70 desktops in our
local network and maybe as many as 10,000 running on a national
network level. I have seen maybe two that failed right out of the
box. Each a dead hard drive, so Dell sent overnight new drives without
having to send in the old beforehand. You will get good directions
for setting up the machine.

E-mail, browsing the web, and small programs are not that taxing on
the system. Video, Music and Photo editing is another thing. I suggest
a mid-range system, based on your comment.

Dell commercial-grade machines are great, their consumer-grade machines
less so. I'd buy off the 'office' page, not the 'home' page. Optiplex,
not Dimension. Costs more, but a better machine, in my experience. We
had several thousand at work until Gateway underbid them. Very low
failure rate on the Optiplexes. If you are on a budget, look on ebay or
www.dellfinancialservices.com, for an off-lease machine.

aem sends....

Same goes with any brand, Compaq/Hp makes good business systems while the
presario/pavilion line are cheaply made propritary things.
For basic use, get a used business machine from someplace like retrobox
for half the price of a good new home system and you won't have all the
"free" software to uninstall.

You don't have to worry about that last thing is you first reformat
the disk and install the stuff YOU want.

Most people don't want to do that though, but its the first thing I have
done with any new system I've ever bought.