Buying a £600 gaming Dell tommorow! Right choice?

imho

Broke Student.have a look on crucial to see how much a graphic card is.I would get a good one already installed,then upgrade the Ram, if you are trying not to spend to much at once.

David B.Oh god,tell me about it ! they are bloody useless ! But if anything is not working right on my computer i get more help form Pcadvisor web page then them.

Broke_Student

I think I am going to get on the phone to Dell and see how the haggle goes!

devils_advocate

Just before Xmas I managed to haggle with Dell from about £680 down to £600. Had to reduce the hard disk from 320gb to 250gb though!

If you don't ask, you don't get.

steve_r123

David_B wrote:

I've heard some very bad reports relating to their customer service of late. The CS centre not being within the UK and the staff not been very helpful or knowledgeable. Worth considering.

I've been one of those unfortunate customers who tried to deal with one of their far away call centres:rolleyes:

After about three over 30 minute phone calls (to what would have been an 0870 number had it not been for MSE:money: ), and them failing to understand that the product they sent was not what I had ordered, I ended up having to send them a letter to their head office explaining what was wrong. I have to say though, once I had finally got through to them what the problem was, it was sorted promptly.

ABH_3

imho wrote:

Have you looked on Dell outlet ? Most of the computers on there are "over orders" There is no way Dell would sell a computer that's been returned and faulty.

FYI Most maybe. But you'd be incorrect in your assumption that they don't refurbish old returned systems and then sell them again through the dell outlet.

Blacksheep1979

steve_r123 wrote:

Not really had a good chance to look around but what about THIS ?

The spec is about the same, what you lose in RAM, you make up for in the graphics card though. A touch more expensive, but it does have a 3 yr warranty;)

the graphics card on that computer is little to no better than the one on the dell - you're just going by the common misconception that more ram must be better (cunning marketing ploy) as if the card can't cope with the number of coputations then more memory will make no difference once above the maximum threshold.

Ashok_2

Hmm. I paid about £2600 on an Alienware laptop this year, and the specs were nowhere near that.. I think I got ripped off!

Blacksheep1979

Ashok wrote:

Hmm. I paid about £2600 on an Alienware laptop this year, and the specs were nowhere near that.. I think I got ripped off!

laptops are always more expensive than desktops and alienware come at a premium.

Broke_Student

Ok guys the deal is almost done. Didn't go through yesterday as there ws something I was unsure about in the invoice, so I will confirm with Dell later this morning.

I didn't manage to haggle as much discount as I wanted, but Dell were more lenient to let me swap things about:

Old deal (public price on website), £639:
Intel® Viiv™ Core® 2 Duo® E6400 2.13GHz
2048MB Dual Channel DDR2 533MHz [2x1024] Memory
320GB (7200rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive with 8MB DataBurst™ cache
256MB ATI® Radeon® X1300 Pro graphics card
Genuine Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005
MCE to Vista Premium Upgrade (Free)
Dell™ 19" Value Flat Panel
16x DVD +/- RW Drive
Internal 13-in-1 Media Card Reader
Collect & Return, 1 Year Service only


New deal (after haggle), £650:
Intel® Viiv™ Core® 2 Duo® E6400 2.13GHz
2048MB Dual Channel DDR2 533MHz [2x1024] Memory
320GB (7200rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive with 8MB DataBurst™ cache
256MB Nvidia GeForce 7300 TurboCache graphics card
Genuine Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005
MCE to Vista Premium Upgrade (Free)
Dell™ 19" Value Flat Panel
Upgrade to ultra sharp, usually £41.
16x DVD +/- RW Drive
No Internal 13-in-1 Media Card Reader
Collect & Return, 1 Year Service only
Dell 5650 5.1 Surrond System, usually £41 with a PC. I can ebay these for a £35 profit to put against my graphics card.

That is £82 worth of upgrades for £11 more, but I had to give up a little:
- No more 13-in-1 media card reader. I already have one built into printer so no problem, and they retail cheap anyway.
- Had to downgrade from the ATI x1300 Pro to GeForce 7300TurboCache 56MB.

I know the new graphics card is EVEN CRAPPER than the x1300 Pro (and the turbocache uses us system memory whatever thing...) but I can only see saving any money on downgrading as a good thing as I am going to upgrade to a better gaming card very soon! I don't think I could have got much for either card through ebay so for me this seems the best option.

I prefer this deal to paying £721.5 online for possible £30 Quidco cashback in 2 months time although it would come with upgrades I do not even need. Am I doing things right?

I may also get another £8.50 off. I have replied to the invoice saying you had given me £15 discount to downgrade the graphics, but why is that Dell puts a value of £23.50 on upgrading the 7300 to the x1300 on other machines?