I won't even get into how Dell has the most pathetic web site from an ordering/customer perspective. Nor that they run the most convoluted back-end order system in the universe and employ likely the most inept segment of the workforce.

Background: My parent's computer (which I built for them almost 4 years ago) won't boot. It's running Windows XP Pro. I can't even remember where I left off in trouble-shooting the issue (I didn't post about it here) as I decided after about 30 minutes that buying a new machine would be less of a headache.

A couple of weeks ago I ordered a low-end Dell Dimension 1100 for CAD$350 with XP Home. Decent price, all things considered - certainly not worth trying to build an equivelent low-end system yourself.

The out-of-box experience was somewhat disappointing. Though packaged well enough against transit damage, everything just screamed "cheap!" It was clearly obvious that each piece (mouse, keyboard, speakers, etc.) came directly from some random factory in China and sat on a shelf somewhere at Dell's warehouse until it was simply dumped into the larger box.

The computer itself might as well have been any no-name low-end box. The Dell logos were the only thing that made it a "Dell" externally. It even still had PS2 mouse and keyboard ports.

There were no Windows discs in the box. Not even a restore CD. Dell included a note saying this software was already included on the hard drive. Doh! What a wonderful time it would be to recover/restore in the event of hard drive failure (the only point to having a restore in the first place beyond simple deletion of some piece of bundled software)

The horrors start: Booting the machine brought up various licensing agreements before Windows was allowed to boot. Low resolution and horrible looking. Bad first impressions made worse.

If you recall, a few weeks ago we talked about software installing icons in the tray area. This system had no less than eight (8!) icons after initial boot. That was simply the tip of the iceberg of the pre-installed disaster that lurked beneath.

I believe every single media player available for download on the net was installed on that machine. I exaggerate of course, but these were only some of them: RealPlayer, QuickTime Player, Interactual Player, Dell Cinesomething, Some Corel player, Windows Media Player, Learn Player and some Roxio thing. And then of course a handful of programs for dealing with Photos.

I spent one hour uninstalling garbage. A large part of that time was spent solely trying to remove McAfee suite from the machine. Evil software. The presence of McCafee garbage is worse than the threat of the Viruses it's supposed to protect against. And it's easily as hard to remove as some viruses. When you run the uninstaller it tells you that it can't uninstall because the program is running. Of course it's running, I want to uninstall it! Turning off the program through every control I could find in it Suite's options screens didn't get rid of the uninstall failure. Finally I just had to start terminating processes directly.

Their uninstaller eventually froze and made the system pretty much unusable. I managed to get enough of it back to do a restart. Repeated all the manual "turning off" and uninstall after a reboot and it was finally wiped.

Much of the software didn't have uninstallers and/or didn't appear in Windows' Add/Remove software list, so I didn't even get to it within the hour I mentioned.

Windows inability to locate a driver for a simple/generic PCI WinModem was about the last straw. I decided to pack it in and finish the clean up at my place during the week.

However, a while after packing everything back up into its cardboard home, I decided to read the Dell purchase terms... 30 day return policy for a 15% hit plus I have to pay for shipping to get them the box. Hmmmm... Done deal, I'm getting rid of this POS and I'm going to be very clear about WHY when I call them for the RMA.

I just ordered a Core Solo Mac mini, so that's the first and last my parents will ever see of Dell and likely the last time they'll ever see Windows.

The mini is costing twice the price of the Dell after adding the Apple USB modem and Tax. Plus the hit we'll take on returning the Dell. Well worth it in my opinion, I'm just sorry I didn't think of it right from the start.