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.

A savvier person would have checked the box upon ordering that includes the operating system media for an extra $10 and then reformatted upon receiving. The reinstall takes about 30 min. of attended time and you're left with a fresh clean system for an insanely cheap price.

I know Joe User wouldn't know to do this, but for me it's well worth the inconvenience for the price.

EDIT: You're right about McAfee though. I've learned the tricks to uninstalling it now, but it's incredibly obtuse. Why can't they just make the uninstaller work right?

The process and product is still crap though. I've had a couple of problems with dell that mean I'd never buy another, however cheap they are.

It's definitely the extras that suck you in.

The low end Dells suck. I ordered a Dell Dimension 9150 for my dad because he was going to get one of these low end machines. It was worth every penny I paid as I haven't had to fix anything for him after setting it up (Removing all links to IE and Outlook). Most OEM don't ship media cd's anymore they have a program on the drive to let you burn the restore cd. The restore cd's don't let you just install Windows it formats the drive and restores it to the state it was before you took it out of the box. OEM PC's have been showing the licensing agreements before Windows starts since 1995 they just have more agreements now. As for the software you removed you need to know about Dell De-Crapifier it works really well.

I probably should have thrown another sentence between the cheap and PS2 ports comments. It's not the presence of those ports that make it cheap. Those ports however, are just a reminder of how generic the system actually is. If they're super cost sensitive on the low end, they should leave those off, even if only to save 50 cents per mainboard. They were using sub-standard corrugated cardboard inside the main box and that was definitely to save some pennies.

Back to the lack of restore discs... I didn't notice in the order process (on Dell.ca) that you could receive physical media for an additional $10 (that would have tipped me off that it came without in the first place). The paper notice also didn't mention that you could burn said discs from what was installed on the computer.

I also didn't mention the hardware wouldn't be useful nor that it wasn't worth its price. In fact I mentioned it was well worth not trying to build one yourself given the price of the Dell. I could have completely wiped and re-installed the original computer I was replacing - the point of the Dell was so I wouldn't have to bother with that.

The Dell is precisely not suited for the market it's intended for - people like my parents. If I want some low-cost hardware to run as a small server or workstation, yeah, I don't have a problem buying something like this and wiping it all (I'm doing just that with a couple of PCs I've already got here and they're all going to get Ubuntu). I will still continue to run Windows PC myself, just not as primary/work machines. Also, ever PC I've ever owned I've built myself, so this was my first experience with a "name-brand" from unpacking to initial setup.

But my parents? They'll be much better served with the more "expensive" mini (which I suppose can still have Windows installed at some point in the future if the sky begins to fall or some other cataclysmic event requires it).

Ok...I can agree with that. It especially annoys me that the systems from the Home store come with even more lame crap pre-installed than the stuff from the Small Business store, as if they know that the buyers will most likely be stuck with it and not able to remove it.

Well, I'd hate to see what the install would have looked like if I had bought from the home store then!

Hell, this all makes me think, I'm Dell's greatest fan, but maybe when I call: A flag comes up at their end saying deaf, senile and stupid! They've been with me within 48 hours to sort out my, very basic, PC, spent endless time on support and always delivered when and what they promised. Half the village I live in has Dell PC's on my recommendation!
Incidentally, and with no connection, has anybody else used PConPoint? I was just about to get the recovery disks out on Friday, when I ran in to a support guy of my acquaintance in a Tapas bar that I favour, who suggested it and it has solved all my problems, in one.
Disclaimer: I only speak as I find.

I've had mixed experience with Dell support. I've had great ones (where the dude shows up promptly the next day with the right parts and fixes the problem in minutes) and horror stories (caught the repair guy prying hard at a notebook mainboard with a screwdriver and breaking the case 'cause he missed a screw, then sending the wrong parts to fix it. twice.) I suppose it all depends on who they contract with for support in your area and how competent their people are. I've had more good experiences than bad.

It's times like these I wish I still worked for a large corporation. Whenever I called support, I got the same guy, Dave. I never had to deal with the "I know you say the hard drive is bad, but let's try re-installing windows to see if it works first" crap. Wonderful support. Nowadays, I get some random guy in India who simply cannot understand english, much less technical english.

HP Support nightmare: The other day, I went to a client site, because his printer was broken. Basically, the rollers that fed paper into the printer would not feed paper. I take it apart, and see that the gear is broken that lifts the paper platen up to the rollers. So I call support. The guy tells me that we need to reset the printer. Umm, OK. So we reset the printer. This of course, makes it think it's brand new out of the box, so it must complete the setup procedure, which wastes an incredible amount of ink. During this process, which I know will NOT help, it runs out of yellow ink. So I tell the guy, to which he responds "We need to finish this process because it fixes the problem 90% of the time." Now, I know that there is no way in hell resetting the printer will magically "fix" the broken gear, and when I insist that this pointless test will not make any difference anyway, please send me a new damn printer, he gets snotty, and tells me I need to go out and buy more yellow ink so we can complete the reset. At this point I'm getting a bit Irate, so I ask for his manager in the hopes that this person will at least have some capability of reason. I'm on hold for 15 minutes, and he comes back and says" I talked it over with my boss, and we're going to go ahead and replace your printer."

I mean come on. I wasted over an hour running tests that had NOTHING to do with the problem. Does he really think I'm trying to just get a new printer out of him for the fun of it?

Then there's Dell support again, I bought an APC UPS Pro 3000 Rackmount. 2 of em. These things weigh about 150 lbs. The first one was flawless, the second one had a cracked faceplate, so I called our rep to see if he could send out a new faceplate. Nope. They can't send me the $3 worth of extruded plastic, but they could overnight me a whole new unit. That makes ZERO sense. I mean, this thing costs at least $100 just to SHIP it to me. Stupid.

Ditto for the capability of generating the CD in the field -- the software that does this is also not always provided.

If you did have it, where would it be. I'm looking right now.

Bruno: ditto on pretty much everything you just said. I had the same exact experience ordering one of their higher-end systems for a family friend (I tried to convince them to let me build something for them, but they hear Dells are the best!). I had the same headaches with the McAfee software, but I'm convinced that this isn't Dell's fault. 33% of the freelance tech support visits I make to people in the area seem to trace to a problem with Norton or McAfee. I've had a couple instances where McAfee blocks all internet access whatsoever (hey, you're not getting any viruses!), and one where Norton slowed an eMachine down so much it literally took 3 minutes to get the start menu to appear. In all instances a simple removal of that software alone fixed the problem, and the user is left dumbfounded that a product they bought to protect their computers rendered them unuseable.

As for the recovery disc, you didn't mention my favorite part of their new policy: that the note they include regarding the recovery disc is on a little piece of paper that looks like a recovery disc. Haha! You're funny, Dell. The difference I ran into was that when I called tech support, they ended up sending out the discs to me for free. Of course, you're stuck with no computer for a few days if you don't remove the software yourself.

Lastly, regarding tech support, I don't want to make any comments about India or anything, but the policies that they make these technicians over there follow result in unimaginably poor customer service. I was helping a family friend talk to tech support because this Dell wouldn't turn on.

Now, one would imagine that this would be the simplest tech support call to make. First you ask if the computer is plugged in. Then you verify the user is pushing the correct button to turn it on. Then you ask if any lights are coming on in the front. Then you ask if any fans are coming on or if the user can hear any noises in the computer when the power button is pushed. If these all fail, you send a technician out to the house.

This is not how it happened for this poor fellow (we'll call him Mr S). The first tech told him he had to speak with a manager, and would call back in half an hour. Two hours later Mr S called Dell back because he hadn't heard anything. This rep gave him the same routine, and another two hours pass. Finally, after 2 hours of talking, 3 hours of hold music, and 6 hours of waiting for return calls, a manager decided to send a technician out to the house.

Now, I know that it costs them a lot to send someone out, but I imagine it costs them a lot in man hours on the phone and the loss of a customer. Plus, as a result I'm not going to recommend Dells anymore.

This was a long shot from my experience my freshman year of college, when I had a problem that a tech support person couldn't diagnose over the phone in an hour, so he sent a technician to my dorm room. That impressed me. Their service no longer impresses me.

Here's what I live by:

Rule #1: Dell sucks, except some LCDs, etc which are insanely discounted rebadged high end components (ie: 1095FP LCD). Buy Gateway desktops (quality support) and Lenovo laptops (quality hardware).

Rule #2: FDISK!!! The first time I power on the machine, it boots to a WinXP CD, formats the drive, and reinstalls a REAL copy of XP, not the bundled restore CD.

Rule #3: Tech support can tell you nothing that you can't find on the manufacturer's website (or elsewhere online). To get hardware replacement/repair, be patient and calm with their innane tests, doing only what they tell you, until they get to the part in the script that says "replace the part." The more calm you are, the quicker they get there.

Rule #4: PC vendors must get compensated BIG TIME for bundling all that crap on every computer. I asked Gateway if they could not install XP and, thus not charge me for it, since I'll FDISK instantly anyway. Nope, "it's part of their licensing agreement." So is Google Desktop, Mcafee, RealPlayer, etc. Build the price of retail XP and Office into the price of the computer.

Preinstall annoyance story:
When I first turned on the hot new Lenovo X41 tablets I got for work, they ran NTFS-to-FAT conversion!! Then, gave me all WinXP mini setup (no complaint there) and all the disclaimers. When the CPU stop churning after probably 40 minutes, there were about 14 systray icons, some systray search app, and enough windows open that not one pixel of the taskbar was blank. And every boot thereafter takes at least 5 minutes.

FDISKed with XPTablet, Office 2003, OneNote, etc, these things are lightning fast and my staff think they're a joy to use. Time spent doing clean software install (then making a Ghost backup image CD for when the computer owner gets spywared to death so you can quickly restore) are worth it 1000 fold.

Gateway doesn't have excelent hardware; who does. I opened one of my new E-4500D dual core "blue bombers" (re: blue led power button) and its Gateway-trademark annoying air duct had fallen off. Took too long to figure out how to get it back. Oh well.

Their support has never let me down. Instant replacement of dead CD-Rom drives on old desktops, monitor replacements, etc. I even got a helpful guy on a Saturday afternoon (ugh, a working weekend) to help me for almost an hour with something odd... BIOS problem or something really weird.