Source: Tom's Guide US | Keywords: Dell, Design, CES | Themes: Laptops and Notebooks, CES Las Vegas
- 1. Dell Declares Design Supremacy?
- 2. The Truly Custom PC
- 3. Design Studio: From Inspiration to Image
- 4. Dell's Worldwide Design Team
- 5. Leather and Luxury Design
- 6. Premium Materials
- 7. Inspiration: Chairs and Chronometers
- 8. The Industrial Innovation
- 9. Apple’s Way or Dell's Way?
- 10. No Need to Check The Engine
- 11. More on this topic
9. Apple’s Way or Dell's Way?
Microsoft keeps subtly pointing out that the choice of form factors and designs is a big advantage that the PC has over the Mac, and Ed Boyd agrees. “Take a brand like Apple - there's one way; Steve's way. You can have silver. But there are so many different types of people in the world.” Go to MacWorld and what do you see on sale? Cases. According to Boyd, Apple customers are focused on asking “How do I take this thing everyone else has and make it mine?” Dell’s answer was to try to create a series of brands that will appeal to different consumer groups and within those brands to create a series of products and silhouettes and profiles that those different groups will connect with.
All of this personalization hasn’t necessarily caused Dell to take more risks with its resources. On the contrary, says Boyd. “The risk to Dell is if you don't like it, you don't buy it - but if you don't buy that, I don't make that.” In the old days, Boyd says that if Dell manufactured lot sizes of a hundred thousand units based on his say-so, and the decision was a bad one and people didn’t buy the units, Dell ate the loss.
Those days are starting to go away. “Some of our more risky designs we would never have done in the old days - now we're doing it and it sells. People say ‘That's kind of crazy - I like it. It's mine and because not everyone else is going to have it, I like it even more’.” In the old days, Dell was forced to dumb it down and play it safe.
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Sorry but the quality of the machine itself comes before the quality of a case or paint job.
The whole modeling with the laptop just seems silly to me.
Sorry but the quality of the machine itself comes before the quality of a case or paint job.The whole modeling with the laptop just seems silly to me.
That's a very understandable position to take. Of course, a lot of people feel differently--especially when it comes to netbooks and other low-end laptops. When you reach the lowest common denominator of computing (where quality of the machine is nearly a commodity) suddenly looks matter.
Rachel Rosmarin, Editor of Tom's Guide
I was tempted by colours and bought custom Studio 17 online. The experience was terrible: my order was canceled twice, DELL tried to charge me second time (bank bounced the charge back), oh, and their customer service is clearly based somewhere rural in India.
Buy DELL just if you see it in the shop! Otherwise, get SONY.
I'm a network administrator for a library system. We have around 250 PC's and Notebooks between our 10 locations. We are a 100% Dell shop. I have very few problems with the systems. There might be 1 or 2 component failures a year out of the pool of systems which are very heavily used. About 2/3 of our systems are used as public Kiosks and for public internet access. These computers run at least 12 hours a day 7 days a week with children pounding on the keys all day and teenagers trying to delete the Windows folder... you get the idea. When I have had a part fail my replcement part is there within 24 hours with a technician to install it. I don't know if thier retail equiptment is built this well but for a business Dell is by far the best brand you can get.
I personally dont like DELL's design, the last company I was working gave me a IBM X61 laptop which I loved, in the current company which is working with DELL I have an option between D430 and D630, its a lose lose situation for me, since one is big and heavy the other is light and very very poor performance (ULV processor and 4200 RPM HDD).
Also IBM's design is better IMO.
I have an IBM server thats rock solid.
I actually didn't even know they still sold PC's.
When's the last time you saw one?
I thought IBM sold off all thier pc divisions.
Acer was once part of IBM.
Isn't the Think Pad made by Levono these days.
I don't want to come across as overzealous as my first post sound. We used to have Gateway systems and warenty repairs are a very frustrating experience since they went chapter 7 or whatever happened to them...
I'm extremly busy. I just want stuff to work and repairs to take one phone call.
If IBM can do that for the same money. I would use them.
But Dell has never done anything to make me switch.
Switching would be a hassle and a waste of money.
It's just a paint job, isn't it?
That's called personalization?
I have an IBM server thats rock solid.I actually didn't even know they still sold PC's.When's the last time you saw one?I thought IBM sold off all thier pc divisions. Acer was once part of IBM. Isn't the Think Pad made by Levono these days. I don't want to come across as overzealous as my first post sound. We used to have Gateway systems and warenty repairs are a very frustrating experience since they went chapter 7 or whatever happened to them... I'm extremly busy. I just want stuff to work and repairs to take one phone call. If IBM can do that for the same money. I would use them.But Dell has never done anything to make me switch. Switching would be a hassle and a waste of money.
IBM sold their PC division to Lenovo. The would be typical IBM machines are still being produced (thinkpad, thinkcenter) just under the name Lenovo.
We have some dells, hps and lenovos. Overall the lenovos are the best.
I would take a thinkpad over anything in the dell product line too.
I have never liked their laptops. Since Dell is emptying out a lot of their factories to have products produced overseas, their mark of quality has pretty much fallen down to the same level as the rest of the crap on the market.
I think I just like their support. We have 10 small offices in the midwest with maybe 35 laptops spread out amongst them. We're in a very rural area spread out over 6000 square miles. The Dell folks from Fargo, ND which is like 3-5 hours one way by car to swap out a touch pad on laptop I may personally have never seen. Next business day on site service every time. I can't remember the last time I had to stop working and haggle with a dell guy. They just show up do what there supposed to and disappear.
I don't use a laptop that much. I check one out each year to audit our wireless when I make my rounds.
I don't even use a laptop.
That is pretty sweet. HP has similar service. I haven't had to deal with lenovo yet.
I was pretty surprised by HP too, had some bad psus that needed to be replaced, gave them the model and SN and they sent them out with out even needing to call them up.
Haven't had to deal with dell either. We have some dimension 2300's as file processors and they don't really fail.
Haven't touched Dell in quite awhile because their "designs" always sucked. I'm not talking about the pretty outer shell...I'm talking about the important pieces inside that make it work.
While they may make neat-looking machines, from a system admin standpoint they were horrible. Every single machine came with slightly different hardware (video card, network chipset, modem, etc.) which made setting up install images a PITA. When you're dealing with a handful of PC's it's not as big of an issue. However, when you're dealing with thousands, as I was, it was a nightmare.
Hopefully they've cleaned up their act since.
IBM/Lenovo, HP/Compaq and Dell all have well deserved good reputations for the quality of their corporate grade hardware, service and support. Their consumer grade stuff is, in my experience, pretty dodgy. Proprietary parts, lower grade components and poor service and warranty support has led to pages and pages of griping about their respective consumer level offerings.
Where I work, we're standardized on IBM/Lenovo for everything...servers, workstations, notebooks, and monitors. Their service and support is exemplary. At home, I use custom built hardware, parts of my choosing and built by me.
Apple's take-it or leave-it hardware choices notwithstanding, I believe that if not for Apples innovation in design (iMac, Mac Mini), we wouldn't be seeing nearly the degree of customization from companies like Dell.
Dell's quality have decline year over year. Customer service is a absolute joke. Can't believe MD still would put his name out there.
Clearly this company need to get back on the right track. Build up customer service and dress up a pig.