Techies, Dell vs. Compaq: what should my co. buy?

[missbunny]

I am going to be upgrading my office’s computers. We now have a mishmash of makes, models, operating systems, software versions, etc. It’s a real mess. I want to get everyone on the same equipment. We are likely going to go with either Dell, because we have had good experience with them in the past; or Compaq, because our outside computer firm specializes in Compaqs. Do any of you tech types have opinions on which company, overall, is “better”?

Most of our computers currently have no more than a 200 mHz processor (some with only 166), 32 or 64 MB RAM. My basic requirements are for everyone to have a lot faster processor (how fast should I look for?) and 128 MB RAM.

Right now everyone either has Windows 95 or 98; everyone will go to either 98 or 2000. We are on Office 97 Professional and will either stay with that or move up to Office 2000. We already are using Outlook 2000. Everyone will also need to have IE, Netscape, WinZip, Acrobat, Quicken Expensables, Visioneer Paperport, and McAfee VirusScan. Some people will also have other job-specific software such as AccPac, CCH, Microsoft Money, PhotoShop, Palm Pilot, etc. – I don’t know if these facts would change anyone’s opinion about which hardware brand is better but just in case I thought I should mention everything. Also, we are on Windows NT 4.0 for our network, Microsoft Exchange for the e-mail server, and HP for printers.

So, any opinions right off the bat? Anyone hate one or the other brand? Any thoughts would be much appreciated. Thanks.

[Athena]

Compaq vs. Dell: Get Dell. Compaq likes to customize lots and lots of the innards, and Dell tends to be more generic, which is good. I work at a major software company, and the most difficult systems to get our software to work on are Compaqs. We have a dedicated test lab, and they're ALWAYS bitching about the Compaqs. If you're going to have problems with software compatibility, it'll show up the Compaq, guaranteed.

Dells, on the other hand, are the workhorse computers on everyone's desk. I'm using a Dell as I type right now.

As far as processor speed, get as speedy as you can afford, because in 1-2 years it'll seem slow no matter what you buy. I've got dual Pentium II 500's on my machine, and let me tell you how slow it seems at times. A year ago it was the speediest thing I could imagine.

[soulsling]

Athena has it right, I'd just add that no matter what you decide as far as purchasing new computers in life, never choose a compaq, they're all around techie problems. Propietary internal components make it virtually impossible to upgrade yourself, and IMO, theyr'e too cheap to care about their products or customer service. Dell on the other hand, from my experience, gives amazing customer service, and the PC's are easily customizable and upgradable.

[Necros]

Another vote for Dell, here. Compaq's have been decreasing in quality for the past several years. They've sort of become the new Packard Bells, which is not good.

Of course, you could buy IBMs...

[Purd Werfect]

Yet another vote for Dell. Compaq used to be a popular corporate player, but the desktop quality seems to have declined over the past five years, and the innovation that was once Compaq's forte has lessened as other vendors and off-the-shelf components have caught up. When it comes to servers though, Compaq still has it going on pretty well with their rackmount systems. My experience with Dells in the office has been that they're fast, reliable, and come with excellent corporate customer tech support, though that could vary with how large the account is. For laptop systems, Dell has made great strides over the last few years, and has some excellent offerings. I still prefer the IBM ThinkPads though, but that's just a personal preference.

[OrcaChow]

I previously was lead support in a Compaq-only company. They're good machines most of the time; Compaq occasionally cranks out whole productions runs of lemons, and that's a nightmare when you're directly supporting hundreds or thousands of desktops. The PC's components, however, are either proprietary or third-party that must be Compaq-authorized.

I'd rate their support for corporate customers as excellent; it's their support of non-corporate customers that's horrible. Some of our employees bought Compaq home PCs because they had Compaq on the office desk; they regretted having done so. Compaq definitely stiffs the civilians.

I've worked briefly in Dell-only houses and Gateway-only houses, and it struck me that the Compaqs had only marginally higher rates of compatibility problems than the other brands. It may be that at the Compaq house we stuck with consistent software arrangements.

But the Compaqs definitely are picky about what h/w you put into 'em.

[broccoli!]

Compaq utilises more and more proprietary software each day. Soon they'll be the kind of company that if you need a new hard drive, you might as well cash in the enitre unit, besides the monitor, because everything will be linked together.

Compaq is also so cheap as to not shield their speakers in the laptops so you get lovely speaker noise from radio interference or magnets.

Dell isn't much better, but they're still not that bad.

[missbunny]

Wow - talk about fast customer service! Thanks SO much for your speedy responses. I kind of thought that Dell would be better, but hardware's not really my thing and I really needed to get some knowledgeable opinions.

Necros, not at all biased, are you?

Anyone who wanders in now, I’m still looking for more opinions so keep on posting. Thanks again!

[Max Torque]

Sounds like you've already come to a decision, but allow me to reinforce it: Dell. The sharpest tech support guy I ever talked to on the phone was a Dell employee; evidently, they really know their stuff.

Compaq has a long history of using non-standard parts, all the way down to the screws (tech persons who remember the "star" screws, raise your hands). They're just....ick. A computer guy's nightmare. And, as was said before, they're putting lots of highly-customized software on their machines these days, to drive crap like the keyboard buttons that open your browser and such. In my book, those custom additions are just more things that can go wrong. Keep It Simple, Stupid.

[Tranquilis]

Dell, in general, is better, especially in the components that are most important: Hardware and Driver support. Compaq has horrible, obscurely named little zip files on their site for collecting install info, tech specs, and drivers. A real PITA to find what you're looking for.

With both companies, go for the mid-range, full sized, models: They both have some fancy small-footprint designs that look great but have the majority of components on the back-plane, and/or require specialized (expensive) low-profile parts.

One quible: Some Dell laptops are rather painfull to deal with. Stick to the 'Latitude' line if you're going after Dell Laptops. Compaq laptops are a first-rate b!tch if you're loading NT.

[Meephead]

HAving supported both Compaq and Dell in a large corporate helpdesk environment, I would say Dell.

[TheNerd]

This sounds a bit like Bush vs Gore Those aren't the only two choices.

But of those two, definitely Dell. I'd suggest that you also take a look at Micron.

This from a guy who worked for Compaq for almost a year, and whose mother works at Compaq now.

[OrcaChow]

(tech persons who remember the "star" screws, raise your hands)

Here.

Catch is, I kind of liked the Torx screws. The tool was far less likely to slip out.

IIRC, at least for the last couple of years they slotted the Torx-head screws so you could also use a common screwdriver on them.

[Trixie]

I'm not a techie, but I use a Compaq Presario computer at home and a Dell OptiPlex GX1 at work.

The Compaq has crashed a few times since I bought it over 3 years ago. The Dell, which is just a little over a year old, crashes almost daily. It is slow; I have to reboot the thing at least 2 or 3 times a day when it "freezes." Tech support at work says it's just the way the computers are. It really sucks when I'm in a Word document or an Excel spreadsheet, and I get the dreaded blue screen and fatal error message. Using Access is also a pain.

GET THE COMPAQ!!!!

[New & Improved Scott]

Why not try a smaller, local computer assembly company. They usually don't want to risk losing you as a customer and go all out. Also, they can use the most reliable parts.

Dell and Compaq both have contracts with parts manufacturers to try and keep costs lower. That means you could save 5-10$, but because of their volume thay save hundreds of thousands. For that 10$, you could have gotten a better modem, or network card. Independant companies do not have these kind of contracts, and will tell you "Well, this one costs 5$ more, but I never receive any complaints or have to service this card.

The small company is also more personalised, and if your company is looking to give them a bit of business, they really go all out.

[Rally Vincent]

I don't know if you still need the input - but we had a compaq and had a lot of trouble with it freezing up to where all you could do was to turn it off and back on again.

Our Dell was fine until the power supply fried out.

Now we've got the kind that you have put together at the computer place - you tell them what you want and they assemble it.

[dublos]

Previously Zeos computers, I have to admit a strong fondness for Micron's machines. They may not always been the fastest thing on the block, but the one's I've had have been darn near bulletproof.

To give you an idea of the environment I put them in. I'm a cat owner. Before I became serperated, the number of felines that were sharing my domain passed the double digits. (nope, not posting the exact number, but lets just say more felines than two adult human beings should ever share their abode with unless they are independently wealthy and have an on call vet that does house calls)

There were two litter boxes in the same room with my CPU. At times those litter boxes were filled with expensive clumping litter, and at times cheap clay litter. I only cleaned the fur out every year or so.

That CPU was powered up and functional for over 4 years. Occasional reboots, but I am constantly amazed that it didn't just choke up a hairball of its own and blow up. As far as I know this CPU's still running. I have it to a friend when I replaced it with a new Micron.

Of course then I got seperated and the wonderful micron was burgled from my apartment <sigh>. Someday I'll get another one. A cheap CompUSA is what I could afford so that's what I have for now. Only two furry felines with me and the litter box is a good distance away, with air filter near it. We'll see how it does.

Oh.. and on the professional side, being a computer consultant, I've been at maybe 20 - 30 client sites over the last decade. The most frequent thing I'm seeing is standardization on Dells, Gateways, and occasionally a local PC producer. The bigger the company, the more likely they use Dells. Medium tend toward Gateway, and the smaller one's usually don't standardize.

-Doug

[missbunny]

TheNerd and dublos, re Micron: we do now have some of their machines and I am totally unimpressed. However, that may well be because the nimrods who bought this stuff a few years ago bought the absolute cheapest, most basic-featured models - lowest RAM, slowest processors, no monitors (duh!), cheapest software package (among other things, no PowerPoint because the stupid controller didn't need it so therefore nobody should), no modems, weakest graphics cards, etc. (Can anyone tell I am SO annoyed at being left to fix some idiot's wish to save a few bucks on the bottom line without considering future costs?)

I've just spent the last 4 hours with our computer tech trying to get a new employee's machine configured. I mentioned that we were considering either Dell or Compaq and he totally slammed Dell. I asked if he wasn't perhaps biased, since his company sells Compaqs direct, and he said no, that Dell's customer service sucks (not my experience) and their components are awful (again, NME). I'm not sure I put too much stock in his opinion (especially since I practically knew more about how to configure this new employee's computer and server controls than he did).

Trixie, you are outnumbered! I would bet anything that your Dell at work has all those problems because of either something to do with your network or because your machine was configured incorrectly. I don’t know the specs on the GX1 but it really sounds like something is funky with the set-up – even the worst machine shouldn’t get the blue screen every day.

[OrcaChow]

Why not try a smaller, local computer assembly company. They usually don't want to risk losing you as a customer and go all out. Also, they can use the most reliable parts.

Ouch. Those local places have a nasty habit of going out of business. And bdee-bdee-bdee, that's all she wrote for the warranty support, folks.

Twice I've worked at companies that went that route.

The first time, 250 PCs and several servers from the #1 indie in the Seattle area. About the time the warranty period expired, the vendor went paws up. (It wasn't my call then, thank goodness, and I was gone from that company long before the vendor died.)

The second time, I was IS director at the local symphony, and because of insane budgetary constraints I had to go the indie route again. 30 PCs. Murphy's Law hit big-time: when one of the PCs died, it was only then that we found out the vendor had gone bust the week before. I incurred serious political damage from that.

Indies are great for home buyers--especially the more intrepid ones--but I'd never recommend indie vendors for a corporate environment.

[handy]

Better to just visit a local computer store that makes computers. Have them do a complete line of computers that are all the same for you.

This is wonderful idea because you can get a big discount & they would come & install them all for you, probably for free.

They can easily come & update them for you.

[missbunny]

handy, what do you mean? I don't understand this local computer store concept - do you mean a small independent company that sells HPs or NECs or some other nationally known brand, or their own private brand? I feel quite stupid but I've never heard of the kind of place you and New & Improved Scott are referring to, or I'm just not understanding what you guys mean. Please explain ...

[Mr. Blue Sky]

Originally posted by missbunny
handy, what do you mean? I don't understand this local computer store concept - do you mean a small independent company that sells HPs or NECs or some other nationally known brand, or their own private brand? I feel quite stupid but I've never heard of the kind of place you and New & Improved Scott are referring to, or I'm just not understanding what you guys mean. Please explain ...

Pardon my barging in. What the guys are referring to is a company that takes all the bits you want (motherboard, CPU, hard drives, etc) and puts it together for you. This way, you get exactly the features you want. My current computer (HP 7420) had a lot of useless software (I've since deleted it) on it. My last computer was a hand-built 386. I got together with a guy and we spent about 4 hours building it. It's still being used occasionally by my kids.

If you are so inclined, you can order all the parts yourself and build your own unit. Kind of a Franken-computer. Check out an issue of Computer Shopper (I think that's still being published) or something like it, and you'll find no end of available parts.

[OrcaChow]

MissBunny,

Would you please answer some questions for me?

-----------------------------------------------

How big is your company?

How many PCs are you going to be supporting?

Do you yourself have the technical background to support them? How comfy are you with speccing-out (down to brand & model of component) office PCs?

Do you have the time to support them all yourself?

How comfortable is your management with lack of comprehensive warranty support?

Do you consider that your reputation (or even your job) within the company would be jeopardized if the local shop disappeared, leaving you on your own and with no warranty support?

---------------------------------------------------

I'll be totally frank with you on this--and at the same time, I do not mean this to sound insulting.

Given that you're so unfamiliar with the concept of local shops assembling clones, I'm unsure if you're up to the task of securing a reliable local shop (one unlikely to vanish within the promised warranty period), much less assembling and supporting PCs yourself.

The strategy you choose will probably depend a great deal on the size of the office and the risk-tolerance of your management. There's a saying around Operations/TechSuppt groups: "Nobody ever got fired for buying HP printers." You can buy cheaper printers, but in the corporate world a safety net has value. The same goes for buying name-brand PCs.

[Lexicon]

<lex strolls in, a hapless shmoe>
<get's his hat blown off by a resounding chorus of

DELL!!!


If you have any say in the matter, go with Dell. You will not be sorry. It's strange, I work for a competitor of Dell's, and I am telling, go with Dell.

<starts fraternity style chant>

Dell! Dell! Dell! Dell! Dell! ...

...

<notices everyone looking at him.>

Nevermind. But really, go with Dell.

[Badtz Maru]

I did technical support for Compaq Presarios in 1995 and 1996. They were nightmare computers even back then. We had a document hundreds of pages long full of problems they were aware of before they were even produced, they stuck all kinds of messed up proprietary shells and telephony software on the computers that caused countless problems, and at the time we charged $35 before we would even begin to troubleshoot an issue (true, if it was a known issue or a hardware problem the money would be refunded, but 95% of the calls we got were not refunded) and most of the time the resolution was to reformat the HD and reinstall all the original (shit) software - as techs we weren't particularly lazy, but we were encouraged to do so to get the customer off the phone in 7 minutes. I would never spend money on a Compaq computer.

[Chocobo]

A friend of mine and I both bought computers around the same time, both for just home use. I bought Dell, he bought Compaq. His was about 100 MHz faster, with 2x as much RAM and 4 Gigs more HD space. Mine was about $500 more expensive than his, but he didn't buy a printer and I did, so that might make up for it.

Long story short, when we both had approx. the same amount of disk space used (and pretty much the same s/w) mine ran at least 3x faster than his, and his crashed much, much more. About 6 mo. ago, he bought a new computer. A Dell. I'm still using mine and quite happy with it, as it's performance has not degraded at all over the 3 year period of time I've had it.

FYI...my computer has...

A 300 Mhz Pentium II processor, 64 Megs of RAM, 6.4 GB hard drive, 32x CD-ROM drive. It has faithfully served me, and will for quite some time.

[yosemite]

I am using a locally built, "homegrown" PC. I really like it, and I'm glad I have it. It was cheap, and (apparently) relatively easy to upgrade. One of my techie friends just did some major upgrades on it for me. He says he much prefers custom-built PCs because they use generic parts (no propriety crap) and that's all he'll use. Just his opinion.

The local company that built my PC did right by me - they started their business in '85, and I figured I was safe with them. However, they went belly-up a few months ago! (My warrantee expired a long time ago, though.) I could not believe that they would go out of business after 15 years, but there you go.

I have little personal experience with Dells or Compaqs, but all the polls and info I have read in PC magazines lean towards DELL DELL DELL! I'd go for Dell if I were you.

Interestingly enough, I am helping my newbie sister choose which used computer to buy. (She can only afford used at this point.) At this point she is going to decide between a Compaq and some other brand (I'm not sure which), both in the 300 MHz neighborhood. After reading this thread, I think I will steer her away from the Compaq!

[handy]

Do I hear someone not having to pay $75/hour for a computer counselor? :-)

"handy, what do you mean? I don't understand this local computer store concept"

All computers have the same parts in them made by the same people basically. When you buy a Compaq, you are buying their name because the parts are basically the same as A Dell inside. So, a local computer store makes your computer with these parts & only the parts & software you need, which is great!

Compaq's, Etc, come with a semi-pirated operating system. If you have you local computer stuff make your systems, they give you a real disk with the real operating system on them.
They can also install a backup system & network for you right in the store, which is great. You didn't even mention backup, which doesn't come with Compaq's etc..

[TheNerd]

handy, I'm not sure if you're misinformed, or just not saying what you think you're saying.

While it is true that most of the parts and chips are the same across various brands, significant components are proprietary to the big companies. Motherboards especially, and it's the motherboard which most determines the stability of the computer.

Also, the phrase "semi-pirated" is very misleading. The stuff they give you is completely legal, but you're right that they don't generally give you a disc from which you can install the operating system yourself.

[Cerowyn]

I'm the CTO at a small (130 or so employees) company, so I've actually done a fair bit of research into this topic. While "local" vs. name brand is something of a religious issue with some (my own home machines are all hand built from locally sourced components), it is not even really a consideration for a business of any size. I've settled on Compaq and Dell for servers, and Dell for desktops and laptops. The only comment I'd make in favour of Compaq over Dell is the consideration of third-party support; it's generally a little cheaper for Compaq, because it's easier to find service companies that are also Compaq resellers (makes it cheaper for them to source replacement parts). In the end though, I've found Dell stuff to be at least as leading edge as anyone else, and almost always considerably cheaper (an important consideration given that I've bought more than a hundred new machines in the last year).

Just my $0.02.

[Patty O'Furniture]

We recently upgraded all of our workstations to Dell monsters (30GB hard drives & 1 GB RAM- what in hell am I supposed to do with all that?? Wait a minute- I forgot about Napster ). I would take that as a strong endorsement. We can't afford to have a PC so much as hiccup in the middle of a delicate operation like making provisioning modifications on interstate fast packet backbones (T3s & higher). Using Compaqs to do this job would just be asking for trouble.

[Mockingbird]

Compaqs are vile machines. I can support every single criticism of Compaqs. They are exceedingly proprietary, difficult to upgrade, and buggy as hell.

When I had them in a corperate environment, Xerox did the servicing. They were slow to arrive(took days to get them there), they were never prepared to handle the problem, and were quick to shift the blame onto the client.

Dells machines are MUCH better and so is their tech support.

[Whammo]

I work for a tech support call center, one of the clients that they do tech support for in my location is Dell (I am with a different client).

Dell is good... Dell Tech Support is fantastic. They hire super bright (for the most part) techs and put them through a grueling month long training session before hitting the phones and the people that train them are actual reps from Dell. (unusual in my experience)


Compacs are the packard bells of today

[Monster104]

Go with Dell. Please. Don't buy a Compaq, you'll regret it very much. We have a new compaq with a 1.1 ghz Athlon. There is so much CRAP running in the background that is integrated with the operation of everything on the computer that my personal PIII-450 runs way faster than it.

Dell will also have some Dell software installed, but it is quite easy to remove or disable. Compaq is a nightmare. I'm still working at removing all nonessential software. Not to mention that the powercase is a POS, and hardware picked for the machine is mediocre.

Compaq: Die, please. Do what Packard Bell did and sell only in Europe.

[handy]

Tiger Athlon 1GHz Computer 128MB/30GB only $799.00


It's true you wouldn't need 30 gigs but you shouldn't buy anything smaller because there won't be any smaller HD's to trade for later if you need to mail it in.

[missbunny]

I’ve been without a computer all weekend – thanks again to everyone for the great responses.

OrcaChow, to answer your questions: My company is about 15 people. Although I do quite a bit of software and workstation configuration and troubleshooting, I don’t have the technical background to completely support our computers (I’m not a network engineer or certified or anything) and I personally am not comfortable speccing out office PCs. We don’t have an in-house full-time IT department; we have an outside company that handles all the stuff I don’t know how to do. They will, if requested, research different brands to see what fits best with what we want, but they can never be as familiar with what we need as I am because they don’t work here every day. Plus, since they are a Compaq dealer, they are naturally going to extol the virtues of Compaq over any other brand. I definitely don’t have time to support 15 computers by myself. I am extremely wary of buying anything without a comprehensive warranty, and would absolutely not buy anything from anyone without either a national reputation or a very long-standing local one.

My company is small but we compete with I-banks and top-tier consulting firms for staff, so our equipment has to be top-quality. This is one reason I won’t buy any little-known or new brands. Also, the machines have to be standard enough that one brand with one configuration works well for everyone. This is the big problem we've had in the past - people were allowed to buy whatever type of machine they liked, from whichever company they liked, in whatever configuration they liked. Now we have 15 machines that are practically non-interchangeable.

You weren’t insulting, don’t worry – I don’t know much about hardware. Even if I did know how to work with a clone shop, I just don’t have the time. I will be doing some of the basic support – we have people who haven’t the first clue of what to do their network login doesn’t work after the first try – but I’m not an IT person. It sounds to me like

handy, only $75 an hour? We pay our guy $150. But I’m quite willing to pay whatever to whomever to handle our upgrade, but since our computer consultants sells Compaq, they are naturally going to try and get me to buy Compaq, which is why I wanted to get some third-party opinions from you guys.

I think it’s pretty certain that when we do upgrade we will go with Dell. There might be cheaper brands out there but overall I think Dell will be the least amount of work for me and will have the longest “shelf-life,” easiest future upgrade potential, and best long-term support. When our outside computer co. starts pushing for Compaq, I will be armed with rebuttals!

Thanks again everyone. This is one of the great wonders of the Internet - that so many strangers are willing to help some random person, and I really appreciate it.

[handy]

Im sure they would get large kickbacks from Compaq.....

[Balance]

Computer curmudgeon checking in. I don't like Dell--we use Dell Optiplex stations at my office, and we have to fiddle with them constantly to keep them doing what we need them to do. Of course, we do make them do odd things, and we are trying to make them do so under NT with occasional bits of a noxious custom office environment poking its dribbly nose into things.

That said, and lest you get the wrong message: NEVER BUY COMPAQ! Unless of course you are planning to use it for target practice. They don't even make good boat anchors.

My real recommendation is local build, but you aren't really in a position to do that, so Dell is probably your best bet. Try to stay away from models that have a lot of on-board peripheral support; it'll be easier to upgrade if you go modular, and it'll almost certainly work better besides.

[RickJay]

So I got my new Dell PIII-1000 today, coincidentally enough.

Parts of the computer had fallen off their moorings inside and were rattling around the case - actually, to be honest, I dodn't think they'd ever been attached. These are parts like the fan assembly on the CPU. The computer cannot power up the motherboard despite my best efforts and the best efforts, such as they were, of tech support. Basically, it's a thousand dollar box of scrap metal.

The "next business day" tech support won't be around for three days. My efforts to get through to "customer care" have left me on hold for an hour. The sales manager did not understand what I meant by "exchange."

So, I'm pretty soured on Dell, and I'm gonna send this pile of junk back.

[Badtz Maru]

Whammo, do you work for Stream? That's who I worked for when I was doing Presario OEM support, then they lost the Compaq contract and I was moved over to HP Pavillion support. I think Stream still has the Dell contract...

[Gyrate]

At the risk of having my virtual head bitten off, I've had exceedingly good luck with Gateway Computers, including some of the best customer service I've gotten anywhere (computer or non-). But maybe I've just been lucky.

I've also been told that Athlon processors are just as good as Pentiums and significantly cheaper (by about 200 pounds from Gateway, at least). Any views on the Athlon vs. Pentium thing?

[Revtim]

In a recent (maybe the most recent still) issue of PC Magazine they review all the big PC makers, and Dell came out way on top. I'm not currently looking for a PC, so I didn't read the article in any depth, but it might be worth looking into.

[Ptahlis]

Dell. No question about it. Do not accept the opinion of someone comparing a single computer of one brand with a single computer of another. Anyone who has supported them in a business environament will tell you that Compaq sucks, for all the reasons given above. Let me chime in and say that I have dealt with customer support for both companies, and Dell outshines Compaq both in attitude and ability.