"John Rumm" wrote in message
news:WhjQb.27066
Agreed! - Like everything in life, there will always be mistakes made
or things overlooked. The better OEMs will learn from them and make
sure they don't make the same mistakes again.

Oddly some don't seem to bother with some product range... perhaps they
have worked out the economics and decided that it is actually cheaper to
ship out replacements to 30% of their customers for a certain product in
their range.

I've found the same to be the case. We're a Compaq/HP shop and a lot of
their new kit seems to have really obvious problems - especially laptops
(and while I'm whinging about them - why the hell can't Compaq make a
battery that lasts more than 1 hour and doesn't pack it in after a year!?).

made as new technology is introduced. Firmware on things such as
optical drives, HDDs & modems are modified to increase reliability or
speed depending on the application of the units.

Hmm - next time you talk to a big OEM tell them you want a DVD drive
without RPC2 region restrictions.... ;-)

(Something small dealers will be able to deliver without too much
difficulty)

Exactly - smaller firms make it their business to impress and look after
their user base. Particularly if this user base might be coming back to buy
another very expensive system from them in a couple of years! Big OEM's
couldn't give a damn if they lost a small amount of customers.

Most corporate buyers using the channel, have acces to slightly better
info than Joe Public. More importantly though they often have more
incentive you use it to resolve your problem. Many OEMs just dont have
the customer commitment for non business users (or at lest finding the
one in five members of staff who do is the trickey bit)

Yep - all the importance is placed on the corporate business. All the call
centres make their staff learn the ropes on Joe Public first, then be
"promoted" to corp. support.


(Must admit if I were working in a call centre with Joe Public on the
phone all day with daft problems mostly of their own creation, I most
likely would loose the ability to be civil within the space of a
morning! - not a job I envy at all!)

I did it a long long time ago and it damn nearly killed me!! The experience
even today makes me never want to spend much time on the phone to anyone!

IMHO If you want a special system and Don't have the skills to build it
yourself then go to a specialist.

Personally I would source the components online and D-I-Y it myself
:-) (had to get a reference to D-I-Y in somewhere! :-)

Well obviously - same here - but then again I design microsystems and
software etc for a living so the prospect of buying an "off the shelf"
system is almost an affront to my dignity ;-)


I can put together a system myself no problem. Just don't have the
experience knowing what works well together and what will land nicely in a
case to make a good neat design!



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