Dell giving me runaround... help on spec

foxyuk

hi guys deal posted here and on another forum ... now expired but may get same price if they waive delivery....

Spoke to dell sales india 4 times kept hanging up as messing me about ...

they are telling me that the spec below will take min of 3 mins to load a page on internet

IS THIS TRUE .. OR HARD SELL


AMD Sempron Mobile Technology 3600+
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Basic - English
OR
XP home
1024 MB 667MHz Dual-Channel DDR2 SDRAM (2x 512 MB)
80GB (5400rpm) SATA Hard Drive
ATI Radeon Xpress 1150 HyperMemory (integrated)
Microsoft Works 8.0 - English
Fixed Internal 8X DVD+/-RW Drive including Software
15.4" Wide Screen WXGA (1280 x 800) Display
Dell Wireless 1390 802.11b/g Mini-Card - Europe
56.6k V.92 Capable Internal Modem & Adapter - UK

motorguy

It will be slowish. I'm not a big fan of semprons, and its dells very entry level processor.

Also Dell are very reluctant to discount their entry level machines as they get very little profit on them - hence them trying to 'talk you up' into something else.

I'm assuming its a Vostro 1000 at £293?

Goto www.dmxdimension.com and locate the vostro 1000

Personally, beg borrow or steal the extra £58 to buy the one with the TK60 processor - two seriously big steps up from your processor option, 2048MB RAM, 120GB HDD, and Vista Business or XP Pro.

I'm using one now - i bought six for our company a week ago. Fantastic little machine for £351 inc VAT and delivery. Go via www.quidco.com for some cashback too.

ABH_3

No computer built over the last 10 years should take 3 minutes to load a webpage, though it does depend upon which page (ie: if it's graphically intensive) or the connection speed you're connecting at (ie: if it is a graphically intensive webpage and you're connecting at 56kbps\33,000kbps then maybe but it shouldn't).

Pages similar to this: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/index.html are quite intensive for something like dial-up connections and may take a minute as all of those topics and pictures have to be downloaded, but if you don't clear your browser cache at the end of every session then you will only download whats required or changed since your last visit.

The specification of the laptop is fine however and shouldn't have any problems handling it.

HTH

epz_2

that pc is way more than most people will ever need, unless they choke it full of spyware but yea if all you want is to surf and do office work its fine.

many businsess run high end servers with lowere specs than that.

i think it was allan moor of moors law fame who advised after computers got to about 300mhz (aka good enough for most people) chip prices would fall and they have been, things have been kept alive a bit by the poor quality of ms software.

1jim

the op's experience is similar to mine a year or 2 ago when I bought one of the dell inspirons, they kept putting the phone down on me and telling me that they had processed the order when they hadnt, also told me that would be unable to surf the internet on the basic spec model.
In the end I got so fed up with it that I told the salesman that I was recording the call and that any failure to provide the computer at the price advertised or if the phone was put down on me/fake order taken that I would send a copy of the recording to the cheif exec, trading standards and all newspapers throughout the uk.......suprise suprise managed to get the laptop without any problems.... its still going strong (although battery nearing end of life so might invest in new laptop given the cost of batteries),

Garetha

• Order a Dell online
• Do it via Quidco or TopCashBack for 5% back
• Don't speak to a sales person!
• Ask on here for advice

motorguy

Garetha wrote: »

• Order a Dell online
• Do it via Quidco or TopCashBack for 5% back
• Don't speak to a sales person!
• Ask on here for advice

totally agree. Though I'd definitely spend the extra £60 for double the RAM, a much better processor, an O/S upgrade and a bigger HDD. If you keep it three years, the much better machine will cost you £16 a year more.

Vista is very resource hungry and memory intensive. That machine at £293 will be dog slow when you add itunes, antivirus, anti-spyware and then open a few internet explorer sessions.

motorguy

1jim wrote: »

the op's experience is similar to mine a year or 2 ago when I bought one of the dell inspirons, they kept putting the phone down on me and telling me that they had processed the order when they hadnt, also told me that would be unable to surf the internet on the basic spec model.
In the end I got so fed up with it that I told the salesman that I was recording the call and that any failure to provide the computer at the price advertised or if the phone was put down on me/fake order taken that I would send a copy of the recording to the cheif exec, trading standards and all newspapers throughout the uk.......suprise suprise managed to get the laptop without any problems.... its still going strong (although battery nearing end of life so might invest in new laptop given the cost of batteries),

A slightly different boat to the one the o/p is in - the deal he wanted was a misprice that has EXPIRED, so its not a currently available deal

motorguy

epz wrote: »

many businsess run high end servers with lowere specs than that.

Sorry, no they dont, or if they do, they're certainly not 'high end servers', their machines they've had for years and are running firewalls, etc off them.

epz wrote: »

i think it was allan moor of moors law fame who advised after computers got to about 300mhz (aka good enough for most people) chip prices would fall and they have been, things have been kept alive a bit by the poor quality of ms software.

Yup, we want more graphics, more bells and whistles, bigger o/s's to do more, therefore we're paying for that with more memory, more RAM, more processing power. Compare the footprint of the linux o/s Ubuntu to that of Vista...

custardy

3 minutes is nonsense.
im running a pc here with a lower spec sempron but 2 gigs of ram on xp(previously 512mb) and its never taken that long lol

you can get the ram for half the price from crucial

epz_2

pgilc1 wrote: »

Sorry, no they dont, or if they do, they're certainly not 'high end servers', their machines they've had for years and are running firewalls, etc off them.

didnt mean to call it a highend server but it is more than capable of running a good sized sme

dont know what businesses you manage servers for, but ive admined ones for HSBC, RBS, HBOS, tescos, and several power companies. clustering is used for redundancy but 3.6ghz equivelent single threaded cpu is plenty for most stuff as network latency and disk io kicks in well before cpu or ram.

that said we set them up properly so rather than having bells and whistles they did the job they needed to.