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.
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.
<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.
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.
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.
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!
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…
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.
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.
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 :D). 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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
Im sure they would get large kickbacks from Compaq…
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.
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.
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…