Dell Recommends
2007-03-21
Normally I have little complaint against Dell. There are plenty of issues, of course, but not enough to stop me using them or recommending them (for business use at least). But there's one thing about their annoying flyers and things that really bugs me.
Across the top of each page in their paper catalogues and leaflets (side point: Why do people send me this crap on paper? I wouldn't buy anything from it unless I need something, and by that time I've normally gone to the website anyway) it says 'Dell recommends Windows VistaTM Business'. Most of the machines are running Vista Home Basic. There's something of a rationale for this, because the hardware in question probably cannot run Vista Business at any usable speed, but maybe that's part of the point. Systems that they don't 'recommend' are being shoved in my face to try and make the range look cheaper.
Then there's the description of Vista Aero, saying that it requires 1GB of dual channel RAM and 128MB of graphics RAM and that Dell recommends twice that. I'm not even sure my gaming rig meets that! Of the 8 machines in the flyer I received yesterday, two are pre-installed with Vista Business (two more are servers, without OS by default). Only one of them meets the recommended requirements of Aero and that has Home Basic on it (which doesn't have Aero, if I remember rightly).
Sure, all these things can be fixed by going to Dell's website, where you can specify almost everything about a particular machine. But it bugs me that Dell has presumably accepted lots of money to advertise these recommendations, yet seem not to support them properly. It's also annoying that to find a system like the flyer recommends I generally have to go to the website to work out the spec and the price. They may as well have sent me a business card saying 'Don't forget about our website'. Because of their policy of hiding some of the cost of the machine in their exorbitant shipping fee, I then have to place the order over the phone: if you order machines with a good enough profit margin they'll normally waive the shipping but only if you talk to the sales people.
It's all just a huge waste of time and money.
Across the top of each page in their paper catalogues and leaflets (side point: Why do people send me this crap on paper? I wouldn't buy anything from it unless I need something, and by that time I've normally gone to the website anyway) it says 'Dell recommends Windows VistaTM Business'. Most of the machines are running Vista Home Basic. There's something of a rationale for this, because the hardware in question probably cannot run Vista Business at any usable speed, but maybe that's part of the point. Systems that they don't 'recommend' are being shoved in my face to try and make the range look cheaper.
Then there's the description of Vista Aero, saying that it requires 1GB of dual channel RAM and 128MB of graphics RAM and that Dell recommends twice that. I'm not even sure my gaming rig meets that! Of the 8 machines in the flyer I received yesterday, two are pre-installed with Vista Business (two more are servers, without OS by default). Only one of them meets the recommended requirements of Aero and that has Home Basic on it (which doesn't have Aero, if I remember rightly).
Sure, all these things can be fixed by going to Dell's website, where you can specify almost everything about a particular machine. But it bugs me that Dell has presumably accepted lots of money to advertise these recommendations, yet seem not to support them properly. It's also annoying that to find a system like the flyer recommends I generally have to go to the website to work out the spec and the price. They may as well have sent me a business card saying 'Don't forget about our website'. Because of their policy of hiding some of the cost of the machine in their exorbitant shipping fee, I then have to place the order over the phone: if you order machines with a good enough profit margin they'll normally waive the shipping but only if you talk to the sales people.
It's all just a huge waste of time and money.
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