Dell or HP?

[Canadiens1131]

I really gotta sit down with 2007 for a couple of days to master it. The new way the ribbons work is supersechsy, I hear.

 

[jimjam]

You wouldnt even notice the difference between a Dell computer and a HP computer if you're running the same OS (in this case Vista). They're both pretth much the same IMO

 

[arw]

Sorry BC....I'm going to sidetrack your thread instead of starting my own....

I'm also looking into buying a new computer but I don't have a lot to spend. I actually want to finance something with Dell so I only have to pay about $35 a month. I keep getting student rebate discounts (or something like that) in an email from Dell. When I was in the business world, all we ever used was Dell. They were a vendor at my last job and I had a lot of clients order from them....but we're talking pc's for an entire office.

I don't even know where to begin so if anyone has any info I'd love to hear it. I know what I want but I don't know what else I'd need. Basically I really want something where I can download and burn my own dvd's. I also want it to come with Word instead of Works. School only has Word so I can't do my homework at home right now and then finish up at school unless I copy my work and paste it in an email, then copy the email and paste it in Word. I'd like to stop doing that!

Otherwise I really don't need anything too fancy. I have a desktop that's about 5 years old and so far I've been able to do anything I've wanted to with it aside from the above issues. Plus I really think at this point in my life a laptop would be more practical for me.

I don't care so much about the size because I have to keep the price down. I know the smaller ones can be more expensive. I don't need a fancy printer or any other accessories other than maybe a mouse. I don't like the the laptop mouse thing in the middle.

I've built a few on the website but to be honest I really don't know enough about computers to know if I have everything I "need" or if I'm going overboard on stuff too.

So do I need to start my own thread for this to be answered?

 

[Liesje]

Amanda, pretty much anything you buy new will be sufficient. I recommend 1GB RAM and an Intel Duo Core processor or the AMD equivalent (upgrade from Celeron if necessary). Maybe 2GB of RAM depending on whether you do anything with graphics or video. When you "build" the computer on their site, you will need to specify Office 2007 or it will come with Works. Check with your school though. We offer it half price to students at school.

I built a Dell one. Upgraded the processor to the AMD dual core, upgraded to home premium (I think "premium" has more for multimedia stuff, maybe something better for you to make DVDs), upgraded to DVD burner. It was $699 or $21/mo with financing.

 

[Liesje]

Here's another plug for HP - My laptop (brand new in January) stopped booting or would boot and then shut off. I determined it was the first RAM module. I had purchased a 3 year warranty from CompUSA, but their store closed and the closest one is now 2 hrs away. I decided to use the 1 year HP warranty instead. I contacted HP and they sent me a pre-pair Fed Ex box with all the packaging and stickers. I brought the box to FedEx at 7:30pm on Wednesday night. My laptop just arrived, fixed, less than 48 hrs.

 

[LarryMullen's POPAngel]

Add me to the list of question-askers in this thread.

My 5 year Compaq just died and I just got back from Best Buy and looked at laptops. They had a HP 56fkjkgjgj (no idea on official name) for $599 and they told me I could attach the hard drive I added to my Compaq with all my music on it, it has a cd/dvd burner over 1GB I think, etc. I was there for a good while looking at it and was wondering if it's a decent model.

This is the first one I've looked at and if I get the BB card I have 48 months financing $16/mo.

Good deal or should I keep looking?

And fyi, they think my original hard drive is the one that died (I had Geek Squad look at it). They offered to recover it for $100 - if I know anyone who's good with computers could they do the same thing for less?

PS - I've backed up all my data on the original HD every few months on cds.

 

[namkcuR]

Add me to the list of question-askers in this thread.

My 5 year Compaq just died and I just got back from Best Buy and looked at laptops. They had a HP 56fkjkgjgj (no idea on official name) for $599 and they told me I could attach the hard drive I added to my Compaq with all my music on it, it has a cd/dvd burner over 1GB I think, etc. I was there for a good while looking at it and was wondering if it's a decent model.

This is the first one I've looked at and if I get the BB card I have 48 months financing $16/mo.

Good deal or should I keep looking?

And fyi, they think my original hard drive is the one that died (I had Geek Squad look at it). They offered to recover it for $100 - if I know anyone who's good with computers could they do the same thing for less?

PS - I've backed up all my data on the original HD every few months on cds.

Is this the one?

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8404283&type=product&id=1180743305065

If so, it's quite a good deal.

As I always say to prospective laptop buyers - I'd get a MacBook, because they're better, ( ) , but if you want to stick with PC laptops....this one looks like a really good deal for you.

 

[Liesje]

April, if the hard drive IS the culprit, it's usually possible to recover at least some of the data. Most of the time people bring me laptops and say "my hard drive died", it's really just the mastor boot record, and all you have to do is boot off of any Windows XP CD to the Recovery Console and type "fixmbr" in the command prompt (although if this were the case with yours I would think Geek Squad would have done it already). Other cases have severe physical damage, ie, you can hear the read/write heads are off and it sounds like a ping-pong game when the comp tries to power on and these hard drives are a lost cause unless you want to pay hundreds. Hard drives are sealed in a certain way (can't remember the term) and only certain technicians at certain companies even know how to open them and "fix" them. If neither of these are the case, then typically it's just SOME of the sectors on the drive that have gone bad, in which case data can be recovered from all the sectors but the bad ones (and sometimes the bad ones can be repaired with chkdsk). What I do is remove the hard drive and use this adapter that has SATA and IDE ends on it and plugs into a standard USB port on any other computer. If the drive mounts, you can drag and drop data as if it were a USB flash drive. Sometimes it will freeze/fail so you skip that file or folder b/c it's on a bad sector. I believe these adapters are like $25-$35, so cheaper than paying $100+ for someone else to do it.

ETA: I thought it was a laptop but sounds like a desktop and you have two hard drives? If so, you'll need an IDE to USB adapter (unless you have a friend with a desktop and you and put your drive in their computer). What we do at work is get just the case for an external IDE/ATA drive and use that for data recover. Not sure how much they cost but I imagine it can't be more than $50.

 

[namkcuR]

Isn't it unethical for Geek Squad to conceal from their customers the fact that they could buy the USB HD adapter and recover their files themselves for cheaper than the Geek Squad is offering to do it?

I mean, for people buying new computers, who have no hard drive problems, they even offer to do 'file transfer', which just means copying files from one PC to another, and they charge a hundred bucks for it. Anyone who knows anything about this stuff knows that that's a total ripoff.

 

[Liesje]

I think it's snarky, but not necessarily unethical. It's a product or service like anything else. If I go to the store and ask about an expensive wash machine, I don't expect the salesperson to mention a cheaper wash machine at another store. If I do file recovery on the side for people, I charge more than say just throwing in a stick of RAM or showing someone how to burn a CD. It can be really tricky and time consuming, even when you have the right adapters and diagnostic tools. I'm not saying it's not a complete rip off, but I suppose it's up to the customer to shop around.

 

[LarryMullen's POPAngel]

Lies, it was a desktop with two drives, and they told me that for the price of fixing the comp I might as well get a new one (they estimated it at $350) but then again they could just want me to buy a new comp. The desktop was over 5 years old, though.

I know a couple of people who are good with comps, so hopefully they can do something with those drives. If not, I have one of them backed up. The other is my music but I'm told there are programs that can transfer stuff from my iPod over to iTunes in the event of a crash.

 

[LarryMullen's POPAngel]

Is this the one?

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8404283&type=product&id=1180743305065

If so, it's quite a good deal.

As I always say to prospective laptop buyers - I'd get a MacBook, because they're better, ( ) , but if you want to stick with PC laptops....this one looks like a really good deal for you.

PS - yep, that's the one.

 

[DrTeeth]

Add me to the list of question-askers in this thread.

My 5 year Compaq just died and I just got back from Best Buy and looked at laptops. They had a HP 56fkjkgjgj (no idea on official name) for $599 and they told me I could attach the hard drive I added to my Compaq with all my music on it, it has a cd/dvd burner over 1GB I think, etc. I was there for a good while looking at it and was wondering if it's a decent model.

This is the first one I've looked at and if I get the BB card I have 48 months financing $16/mo.

Good deal or should I keep looking?

And fyi, they think my original hard drive is the one that died (I had Geek Squad look at it). They offered to recover it for $100 - if I know anyone who's good with computers could they do the same thing for less?

PS - I've backed up all my data on the original HD every few months on cds.

Wouldn't it be cheaper if you just bought a new hard drive?

 

[LarryMullen's POPAngel]

Wouldn't it be cheaper if you just bought a new hard drive?

I don't know that it's worth it to put it in the old comp. From the sounds of it, it wasn't going to be worth it.

 

[DrTeeth]

I don't know that it's worth it to put it in the old comp. From the sounds of it, it wasn't going to be worth it.

I guess it depends on the general state of your computer. If you're happy with how it used to function, and if it doesn't look like other big repairs are coming up, you may be better off with a new drive. If you have all of your music etc. on an external drive, you could do with a relatively small and cheap drive just for your OS, and put it in yourself (or have a friend do it for you). My computer is 7 years old and I just put in a new feed last spring and, with a bit of luck, I can get another two years out of it.

 

[LarryMullen's POPAngel]

It was running very slow before, which means I was probably going to have to put some new memory in there, depending on how much that cost, etc.

I was wanting a laptop anyway, but now that I look at that comp again the screen was sort of small.

Now I'm looking at the Dell website but I wonder if they have the same sort of financing options I was going to get from Best Buy.

 

[Bonochick]

I mentioned it in my journal, but then I remembered this thread...so I figured I'd share that I ordered a Dell on Monday!!!!!! I'm getting an XPS 420. I am soooooo excited. My UPS arrived today, since that was being shipped separately, so...it has begun. I'm expecting everything else between March 4th and 6th.

I also ordered a Canon printer...PIXMA 610, per the suggestion of a friend who has one.

 

[Canadiens1131]

I getting computers in the mail. Nothing feels better than opening that box when it arrives

 

[elevated_u2_fan]

Duude! You're getting a Dell!

[/2003]

 

[Bonochick]

My printer arrived today! Man, I can't wait to get my computer!

Here are some system specs:

Processor: Intel Core2 Duo processor E6850 (3.0GHz,1333FSB) w/Dual Core Technology and 4MB cache

Memory: 3GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz - 4 DIMMs

Sound Card: Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Music

Video Card: nVidia GeForce 8600 GTS 256MB

Monitor: 22 inch UltraSharp™ 2208WFP Widescreen Digital Flat Panel

Other stuff:

Dell 19 in 1 Media Reader with Bluetooth

Xcelerator with Hauppauge HVR1250 Hybrid TV Tuner and Remote

Adobe Elements Studio for XPS™ 420 (Photoshop Elements 6.0, Premier Elements 4.0, Soundbooth CS3)

~~~

Know what's great? If you go to Dell now and try to rebuild my system, that processor option is gone...they're all better now, even if just ever so slightly. My technology is already outdated.

 

[verte76]

Get a Dell. My HP was a lemon. Dells last alot longer.

 

[Liesje]

Get a Dell. My HP was a lemon. Dells last alot longer.

I work on both everyday (repairing and using, since my work PC is a Dell and my personal PC is an HP, also have a work iMac) and beg to differ!

 

[Bonochick]

I set my new Dell up last night, and I love it! Granted, I still have a lot of things to do and try out, but it's really nice so far. I actually really like Vista...but we'll see if I still feel that way as I continue to get settled in, I guess!

 

[officeman120]

Both of them have their own good computers.

 

[waynetravis]

HP.

Screw Dell.