im wondering if (hardware aside) one company is better than the other as far as failure rate/service etc. any info?

12/13/2006 7:59:55 PM

its a tie, they both lose

12/13/2006 9:44:17 PM

My track record:

Dell: I had a computer that shipped with a faulty hard drive. There was a dude from Dell at my door the very next day with a brand new hard drive.

HP: I had a monitor die on me after 8 days of use. I call (long distance). I swap my monitor for a refurbished monitor that had a permanent pink tint to it. I call again (long distance). They swap that broken refurbished monitor for a new one because I sent them a letter also. Turns out the "new" monitor was just a refurbished unit in a HP box to make it look like an unused unit. That one never did have decent brightness. Oh, and all the long distance calling and waiting on hold racked up close to $30 in phone bills.

Granted a hard drive is much cheaper than a monitor. Both companies are probably tripping over piles of them, but I know who I won't be buying anything from again. Oh, and the HP/Compaq merger permanently sealed the deal.

[Edited on December 14, 2006 at 7:48 AM. Reason : -]

12/14/2006 7:37:50 AM

had a latitude for 6 months and no problems whatsoever

12/14/2006 7:52:47 AM

Quote :

"6 months"

12/14/2006 8:03:27 AM

never had an HP, three dells over the years. first one was a complete POS, but the service was always very quick and they fixed whatever was wrong. i have had the current one for ~2 years with no problems. i will get another dell whenever i need a new laptop.

12/14/2006 9:06:19 AM

considering most people only keep laptops an average of 2-3 years, that's a 1/5-1/6 of its lifespan

12/14/2006 9:08:59 AM

I use a Dell at work and it's worked well for almost four years. Battery life is pretty shitty and the fans don't work well anymore, but otherwise it gets the job done.

12/14/2006 3:24:28 PM

I'm currently using both.

I have a Dell Latitude notebook and Dimension desktop at my workstation. The laptop is very quiet and has a pretty good battery life.

My personal notebook is an hp and its incredibly loud, original harddrive failed, and the battery holds about 4 minutes of life. Not to mention it weighs a ton compared to the dell i use at work. However, i have had it since 03.

[Edited on December 14, 2006 at 4:04 PM. Reason : oops only notebook info]

12/14/2006 4:04:04 PM