Matt:

In addition to ‘brick and mortar’ retailers pushing HP there are long established web site retailers pushing HP. I ran into this recently when a client wanted to use a specific web site vendor for purchasing a new server for Exchange 2007. The vendor pushed a standard configured HP solution, that was more expensive and less powerful then a similar ‘customized’ Dell system ordered for a different client.

In addition to the HP being less powerful, the one set of harddrives only carried a 1-year warranty because they were SATA and not SAS.

After this experience with the HP web retailer, I’ll take the Dell customized ordering any day. At least I get what I want and not what some marketing or sales person says is the ideal solution for my intended use.

My company has just taken a decision to abandon Dell products and to begin purchasing from Lenovo or HP. We reached a point where Dell’s multiple web sites and deceptive practices were too time consuming to wade through. Being able to find the same computer configured identically on several web pages at several different prices was just downright dishonest as far as I am concerned. Also, customer service at Dell has slipped to the point that it is becoming an issue. All in all, it was just time to explore new partners. We’re not a huge company, but we purchase around $50,000 in computers and laptops annually. I feel bad, because I like Dell computers.

Dell can be a massive pain-in-the-drain in other ways too, as a couple of my friends and I found out when we tried to upgrade one friend’s Dell so it would handle games better.

He was squarely on the fence re upgrading vs. buying new, and my other friend, who grew up in a hacker family and (probably literally) cut her teeth on PC’s said, “It’s usually cheaper to upgrade than to buy a new one. Let’s get the parts and I’ll install them.” So we went out and got what we thought were the necessary parts, only to find that they weren’t compatible with our friend’s Dell.

Evidently Dell has enough nonstandard and proprietary guts that a lot of off-the-shelf stuff won’t work with it. My friend ended up buying a new machine anyway, and all we did in the process was waste a lot of time.

I don’t know how much truth there is in it, but I’ve heard it said that Dell uses weird parts on purpose to lock out upgrades so they can sell more machines. After all our fussing, cussing and hair-pulling, I have to wonder.

I find my HP notebook to working nicely. It’s a dv8320ca. I’ve delt and owned DELL products. Their tech support is crap, their products are crap, and not to mention their tech support is run in India, it’s hard to understand if you are english speaking. Dell desktops aren’t “more reliable” than a custom build, I have experience with that, but perhaps DELL notebooks are better quality than their desktop counterparts.

I work in a large enterprise and the MOST important aspect of the machines we deal with to me is SUPPORT. I have to say Dell Gold or Platinum on all of our servers is the best. We have any parts needed anywhere within 4 hours. HP gets part numbers mixed, technicians calling rescheduling for dr appointments and the likes. I personally think the HP products are overpriced, and the support is closer to 3rd world dialup technicians than necesary. The remote access controllers on the servers called DRAC on dell’s and ILOs on HP are nice, but all the features are unlocked on the Dell’s by default while the HP charges you additional to pull up a console. What a blow…
I would definitely recommend anyone in business that needs reliable computers that have great support to go with Dell…

I think that everyone ’s judgement on Dell or HP products will be based upon his own experience with each one of the companies. For me (to be fair) I have to compare apple to apple in similar circumstances and with similar specs , when I did so I found for example Dell’s laptops much much better than HP ones , especially with graphich applications that require a bit more powerful architrctures to be run on.