Dell Computer 22

In other words, you don't know. You just said something to support your point no matter if it's true or not. I understand.

Ok. When that warranty runs out, you'll see who saves money.

It doesn't matter how long you've been in the industry to me. There are plenty of old timers who don't change with the times. But since you put years on computers. I've been repairing computers in one way or another for 20 years. My mentor had been at it for over thirty years. He was repairing mainframes when home computers were a luxury owned by few. One thing remains true no matter how times change. They have a way to get you. They will sell you something at a loss to make money down the road.

Back in the mid to late 1990s. My mentor went about telling people not to buy proprietary computers. He showed them why. He would go to IBM, Apple, Dell, Compaq and HP to show people the cost of the replacement proprietary parts. Motherboards were up to a thousand dollars to replace. CD-ROM drives were hundreds of dollars more than the ones over the counter. Apple was one of the worst. I remember seeing an Apple motherboard costing $700 or more bucks. After my mentor went around spreading this information, many of them started taking down the parts list and prices from their web sites. Not saying it was my mentor alone but people were getting wise.

Ok now you're putting the qualifier "average user" in here. That's fine. If you really want to do that.

No it isn't. DVD-RAM is a disk standard and more and more companies are putting it back into their drives. It used to be only one or two companies put it in, now that's growing. DVD-RAM is a flexible format that lets you use your DVD as a drag and drop storage device. Granted there are other methods for doing it with software on regular RW disks but it's still very viable and sometimes faster.

Explain how DVD-RAM is a "highly specialized" feature? That's a new one on me.

Actually you don't need to keep up with your receipt. Most manufacturers let you register your part online. It's really useful. It can even send you emails when upgrades or other info is out there. When you want to get service, you don't need a receipt, you need only the serial number on the part or on the box. Not to hard to keep. This is the same with Dell BTW. You see it was a big problem for companies to go throug the motions when customers complained about losing their receipts and still wanted service. I think law in many states say you have to still provide service.

You said I didn't know what I'm doing because I was against Celerons.

You can buy the same kind of memory you already have and the MB will have slots for it. It's very simple to see what you're upgrading. Damn this is pretty easy to figure out, you sure you worked a long time repairing computers?

I never said I was depending on newegg.com for the warranty. You must have made that up. Manufacturer warranties are a good thing. More on that later.

Already dispelled this myth. I've had to replace a part and never needed the receipt. All I needed was a serial number. I replaced a Western Digital HD with the serial number. Video cards are the same.

That's why you get somneone who knows what their doing to have a build your own computer or a tech can do it for you for nothing if you bought the comuter from them. Most of the tech's I know won't charge for that. You're starting to bark up the right tree. Dells and other computers like it are for people who don't know much. They're the suckers. The people who know just a little more can save money.

It can take little time to replace the parts. But much longer than three days. Now if you buy parts from places like Circuit City or CompUSA, you can get the part replaced the same day. So you're up an running faster than a Dell service call. All you need is the serial number and-or barcode from the box. No receipt needed. If you pay with a card, they can also get the infor from that.

Yea you're going to pay that kind of money for more warranty on a computer that you don't even know what parts are in it. Now remember when you brought up "the average user"? Well here it comes to bite you in the butt. The "average user" does not buy the extended warranty. They stick with the one year warranty. Now what do you think happens when the warranty runs out and a part fails on that Dell? I tell you what happens. Me. They bring them to people like me and we deal with them.

The average users would run from Dell if they knew why they sold computers so cheaply and almost at a loss. When the average user chooses not to buy the extended warranty and the computer goes out in a couple of years, it may cost too much to fix. So there is Dell telling you to buy a brand new system. Then there's me telling my buyers to upgrade. All parts eventually fail and need to be replaced. It costs more to have big companies do it for you and chances are, they're using refurbished or used parts. I know I've been on the other end of this deal.

I would advise that you get pro. XP media center is an installation only. You don't get a disk. Then you get that bundle of software. Yea they give you Corel Word Perfect but what they don't tell you is that it's a 60-day trial version. They give you some usefull stuff like McAfee suite and stuff but that's about it.

Ok I'll give you a reference. Me. When they design their computers, they do it at least a year ahead of time. They may use cheap parts and they may not. You can find out by opening up a number of Dell computers and getting the manufacture date of the MB. Now I don't have a current Dell here so I'll have to look next time I open one up. The fact is that when you buy it, you don't know for sure what you're getting. When you have a non-proprietary computer upgraded or upgrade yourself you know exactly what you're getting.

The less knowledgable user doesn't care about the MB because he thinks it doesn't matter. But as we techs know, it does. As for the drives, same thing. If you buy a drive you can see what media will write at what speed. With Dell you just have to hope and pray. You might be able to dig up the info on the Internet but that's a bit iffy. I've seen people buy media and have it not work on a particular drive. For example one drive didn't want to write on TDK DVD-Rs if you put close to 4 GB on the drive. They had to take the discs back to the store and buy some that were compatible.

And that's the PT Barnum line. A sucker is born every minute. They are oblivious. They can sell them anything as brand new and they don't know what they're getting.

But more and more people are learning as people become more computer savy. I go into a store and someone keeps buy those HDs and video cards because I keep seing the shelves empty and refilled at CompUSA, Best Buy and Circuit City. So there are quite a few people who look at more than just the HD size, CPU speed and memory.

I just went to Newegg for current prices. You can buy the same parts from Best Buy, CompUSA and Circuit City. Then you can go to that company for support. Circuit City even has an extended warranty for individual computer parts. I just bought a DC-DVD-R-RW from them, it came with a two year warranty and I got two years extended. That's four years of warranty. When it goes out, I get a Credit Debt for the amount I paid for it and can buy a new one. So the turn around time is moot when you can buy parts from stores like Circuit City or CompUSA.

I guess you haven't been shopping for computer parts lately. Those big chains know that people are building their own so they are providing those individual part extended warranties. It's better than Dell because you can keep right on renewing it and you get a replacement part rather than getting that same thing fixed.

The last word doesn't matter. I'm just letting you know that proprietary systems are a rip-off down the line. A much bigger than the small rip-off you get from buying parts and in some cases no rip-off at all.

John

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