Laptop

[cgallery]

What is your source? I live about an hour away from where Dell just built a plant in NC. And a good friend of mine would be interested to hear that since he works for Dell in Texas.

95%+ of the content of any PC is produced overseas. To the best of my knowledge, there are no motherboards, drives, RAM, peripheral cards, etc., being produced in the states. What Dell does in the U.S. is final integration. They pull a barebones box and add the drives, RAM, and peripheral cards. They load the software and do some final testing, then ship to the customer.

Dell has been testing performing this final configuration overseas for a while now. Dell isn't the only one doing this, I believe Lenovo (was IBM) has been doing it to a greater degree for at least two or three years. It is obviously more ecomomical to do this with laptops, which can be shipped via air a lot less expensively than a desktop.

Dell is committed to driving costs down. The day they figure out a way to replace U.S. workers w/ overseas workers on integration, without delaying shipping, they will do so. This is Dell's model.

In terms of reliability, Dell apparently has about 6% of the PC market. Perhaps a little more in notebooks. AFAIC, they are over-represented when it comes to system board failures. Mainly due to what appear to be power problems (DC-DC controllers). We get a ton of dead (just won't power-up) Dell's in. Way more than HP, Toshiba, IBM, Fujitsu, etc. Sony has had their power problems, too.

I don't think you can best a Thinkpad. I'm very happy with my Fujitsu. I wouldn't hesitate to purchase a high-end Toshiba or HP (commercial machines, not the BB/CC stuff). I own four Dell notebooks, they are all Frankensteins. I can make one "good" Dell from about two to four bad ones.

Just my .02.

[HarmsWay]

At the risk of turning this into a Dell thread (instead of helping JB), my experience with Dell is completely different. We have 2 Dells at home (an Inspiron laptop and an Optiplex desktop) bought at different times that were delivered as spec'd, on time for a fair price. They have worked flawlessly. I bought them because of my experience at work where I use a Dell Latitude laptop. My boss wanted me to get a Lenova like hers. My IT guys suggested I also consider a Dell. As configured, the equivalent Lenova would have cost 30% more than the Dell. Reliability wise, the our Dells have been much more reliable than anything else and we are heavy users. According to our IT, the Apple laptops have been the least reliable and the most difficult to get parts for.

One thing I really like about the Dells is that I can get any information about it from the website. I inherited a very old Dell laptop that wasn't working. I was able to quickly download the detailed instructions I needed to disassembled the laptop and repair. I could also still get parts for it.

I tried to do the same thing for a friends Acer desktop that is less than a year old. No luck, it seems they don't even list any of the OEM computers (which I suspect is the bulk of the Acers sold in Canada).

I don't know what the entry level Dell Inspirons sell for in the US but here if you can wait awhile you will find one for under $700 that already has 1GB of memory. Upgrade the batteries and Bob's your uncle. I don't have any experience with that model (1501?) but a coworker has been using one as the family laptop for awhile now and loves it.

Bob

[Black wallnut]

Hi,

I'm just curious about your statement that Dell will send ALL manufacturing out of the U.S. Are you sure about that? Late last year, Dell opened a huge new manufacturing plan in North Carolina - Dell's third U.S. manufacturing plant:

"Dell's growth, and the need for our new North Carolina plant, is the result of the direct way we do business and the efficiency, productivity and customer focus of our employees," Mr. Dell said. "Our manufacturing operations give us a competitive advantage and we're confident this new plant will add to that."

A global company, Dell is expanding its operations in the U.S. and around the world to be closer to its customers and continue to deliver the industry's best value and customer experience.

Dell has plants in Poland, to serve Europe; Indonesia and is planning a new one in India to serve Indian clients.

I don't believe Dell has any plans to close their U.S. manufacturing sites as that would completely destroy their business model. I would like to know about any definite information you have that proves otherwise.

rick

Not to hijack this topic but I'll raise a cold one to what Rick said!


Rick lives in a bordering country and as far as I can tell there is not much difference between BC and CA. (they are both foriegn to my way of life, no offense intended, have friends in both places...) I work in Logistics and in N. America along the western shore I'm just as likely to talk with someone that is a resident of our region that does not speak english as if I were to call for tech support and be transferred to the far east. We live in a global world folks, just look to two of our most stellar jig makers: Rod and Niki and then ask yourself if it really matters where your pc comes from.

[HarmsWay]

..., just look to two of our most stellar jig makers: Rod and Niki and then ask yourself if it really matters where your pc comes from.

So that's why my last PC was so tidy and so well documented. Not a trace of saw dust in the case.

Bob

P.S. Agree 100% about the global economy.

[paintandbodtman]

I could be wrong on this figure but seems like an article in w-s journal shortly after dell opened their NC plan quoted dell as saying that something like 75-80% of customers could be reached far better from this location then anywhere else. Forsyth county and Raleigh both would probily have liked to have know about this before the big incentives package that they threw out to lure them here.

[fiasco]

I do not like Dells. I got a new laptop for my son about 2 weeks ago. Bought it from Office depot, Lenovo. After all rebates - $600 on a dot. Check the specs below - the only difference is the price:
http://www.officedepot.com/ddSKU.do?...g=true&An=text

No offense but that is a terrible recommendation for a $600 price range laptop. You let your anti-dell bias steer you away from a superior machine at or near the same price.


For $49 more you could have had a Dell Inspiron 1501 that simply dwarfs the lenovo.

1501 specs ($649)
AMD Turion dual core MK-36 processor
256mb ATI Radeon Xpress1150
60 gig
512mb ram (1 dimm)

Lenovo specs
Intel Cor 2 Duo t5500 (1.66 ghz)
generic integrated Intel GMA 950 video
80 gig
512 mb ram (2 dimms)

To upgrade ram in the lenovo you would have to throw away 1 256mb dimm. To upgrade ram in the 1501 you can just add a dimm because on slot is open
The GMA 950 video in the Lenovo uses shared memory with the system whereas the Radeon has 256mb of it's own dedicated ram.

The lenovo can play Microsoft Hearts. The 1501 can play Half Life 2 or Doom III or Far Cry.

[JBCrooks]

Thanks for the replies, guys. I see I have a bit of homework to do on this one.

[cgallery]

No offense but that is a terrible recommendation for a $600 price range laptop. You let your anti-dell bias steer you away from a superior machine at or near the same price.

I disagree. But I guess it depends on what you want to do with your laptop. If you want to play HL, then the Lenovo is the wrong machine. If you want a reliable machine that won't start your lap on fire and will last a few years, I think the Lenovo is a good way to go.

BTW, building a laptop that offers true desktop performance is an incredible challenge. Those fast CPU's and video chipsets generate a tremendous amount of heat.

[fiasco]

I disagree. But I guess it depends on what you want to do with your laptop. If you want to play HL, then the Lenovo is the wrong machine. If you want a reliable machine that won't start your lap on fire and will last a few years, I think the Lenovo is a good way to go.

BTW, building a laptop that offers true desktop performance is an incredible challenge. Those fast CPU's and video chipsets generate a tremendous amount of heat.

The killer on the particular Lenovo listed above is the integrated GMA 950 graphics. If you got a Lenovo with an ATI or NVidia card with dedicated memory it would be a much better machine.

I would never consider any machine with the video intergrated.

At $600 there are better options then the particular Lenovo configuration that was posted above.

As far as reliability and heat, my dell 8600 is 3 years old and works fine. I am not aware of my lap catching on fire at any point.

[HarmsWay]

Well since cgallery indirectly brought up the battery issue, I'd like to comment on that. As most people know, the batteries that were potential fire problems in Dell laptops were made by Sony. IMO, Dell did exactly the right thing when they found out about the fire-risk. They quickly issued a recall and made the exchange process as painless as possible. I don't know offhand how many laptops were involved in the recall, but out of about 75 Dell laptops we have at work, none were recalled. Interestingly, several other large manufacturers who also used the Sony batteries, took as long as 2 more months to even admit it publicly.

Bob

[fiasco]

I just saw an advert for a Lenovo from Staples for under $500. I don't know the configuration but if all you plan to do is surf and don't plan on running any graphic intensive programs (photo editing, video editing, games) that would be a pretty hard price to beat.