Laptop Pricing - A small rant.
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Dear Dell,
I honestly want to like your company. I've used your products for almost my entire professional career in IT. I really enjoy a lot of the features you have, notably how easy it is to get broken junk warranted. I think it's because of these factors that I want to see you get even better, so here we go.
Item 1: Your sales reps. Pay them a decent wage, not commission, and actually retain them for more than 6 months. I spend a lot of time and effort breaking the new one to my will, preferences and desires. It's a waste of my time I wish to see end.
Item 2: Your prices for custom hardware configs. That you offer them kicks ass - that is right off the top. However offering a stock config with a 320gb rusty 5400rpm piece of absolute garbage, then offering me an upgrade to a 128gb SSD for AN ADDITIONAL $150 IS BULLSHIT. Ahem. We all know that the 320gb hunk of junk costs EXACTLY the same as the 128GB SSD. Why you want to charge me 3 times what it costs to just buy one and piss me off in the process escapes me. I get that making a zillion all the same is cheaper, but 3 times (essentially 4 if you count the cost of the 320gb) is OUTRAGEOUS. Please stop this. I will require less blood pressure medication.
Item 3: Really zaney config options on your servers. Again, absolutely have to say that having that config page is brilliant - I really love it. Not keeping up with all your own configs is just lazy. To the point of ineptitude. Show some pride in what you make, especially where the people who buy it are most likely to interact with you.
Item 4: Reserved for later. Please feel free to add some of your own below.
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The OP...SO MUCH WIN!
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@MattSpeller said:
Item 1: Your sales reps. Pay them a decent wage, not commission, and actually retain them for more than 6 months. I spend a lot of time and effort breaking the new one to my will, preferences and desires. It's a waste of my time I wish to see end.
There is a secret.... switch to a partner! At least in the US, that's how you get good service. Dell has long left the bulk of the real customer service to partners.
We work with xByte for that.
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@scottalanmiller TIL xbyte will sell new dells - thank you
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@MattSpeller said:
@scottalanmiller TIL xbyte will sell new dells - thank you
Yes, but I don't believe that they are any use to you in Canada.
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@scottalanmiller build me up and break me down
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Dell has been getting much better with their reps since it went back to a private company rather than publicly traded.
I've always gotten better pricing through the Value Add Direct Partners though. Get a reputable one though, dell does net 30/60/90 on these for the partners (even with CTOs) and if they don't pay dell, you don't have any warranty.
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@thecreativeone91 and you'll want a reseller partner. We are a non-reseller partner. So you can get Dell access through us, but when you want to buy you get passed over to Dell or, more commonly, xByte.
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@thecreativeone91 said:
Dell has been getting much better with their reps since it went back to a private company rather than publicly traded.
Agreed from what I've seen elsewhere, but we're on our Nth rep this year alone
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@MattSpeller said:
@thecreativeone91 said:
Dell has been getting much better with their reps since it went back to a private company rather than publicly traded.
Agreed from what I've seen elsewhere, but we're on our Nth rep this year alone
Wow. I'm used to getting a new rep every 1-2 years anymore. it used to be every 3-6 months though before the change back to a private company.
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@MattSpeller said:
@thecreativeone91 said:
Dell has been getting much better with their reps since it went back to a private company rather than publicly traded.
Agreed from what I've seen elsewhere, but we're on our Nth rep this year alone
At my old job, about 1 1/2 ago, we started to have a new rep every quarter it seemed. Of course, it isn't just Dell. I currently have had about 3-4 Reps from our phone provider within a year. I think people move around a lot more in companies, now a days. They get promoted to manager, they don't hack it in Sales and move to a different department, or find a better company/job. Of course, that is just my opinion, I could be way off.
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Have a love/hate with Dell. I've opted for them over almost all other competitors and mostly just wish their design was better. Actually ordered a new Dell laptop last night.
1080p @ 17.3"
Win 8
i7-5500U
8GB @ 1600MHz
GeForce 840M 2GB
DVD drive for some silly reason
Backlit keyboard$839.
I got fed up w/ my 2015 Retina MBP for development and just needed something w/ a Windows keyboard. We'll see how it goes.
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@creayt Nice config! SSD?
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Throwing one in, possbily two if the model supports replacing the DVD drive w/ an internal housing, but it didn't come w/ one. I have a handful of 840 Pros lying around from an old workstation.
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@creayt Yeah it should be compatible, you can buy them on eBay IIRC. Nifty battery "slice" things can go in there too.
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@MattSpeller said:
@creayt Yeah it should be compatible, you can buy them on eBay IIRC. Nifty battery "slice" things can go in there too.
Awesome, I'll check it out. It'd be amazing to Raid 0 that sh.
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@creayt said:
Awesome, I'll check it out. It'd be amazing to Raid 0 that sh.
lol damn rights it would. You'd probably see little benefit but massive props if you do it anyway XD
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@MattSpeller said:
@creayt said:
Awesome, I'll check it out. It'd be amazing to Raid 0 that sh.
lol damn rights it would. You'd probably see little benefit but massive props if you do it anyway XD
I'm the asshole that thinks OS X is too sprinkled w/ latency to use for web development. I notice that command + tab has a slight, imperceptible to some people, delay before it fades onto the screen when compared w/ Windows' alt + tab on the same machine. I wouldn't be shocked if I did feel some benefit
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@creayt I spent several hours creating the fastest core XP install I possibly could for similar reasons. Granted that was for dual WD Raptor 150GB 10krpm drives that you could hear with headphones on. Ahhh good times
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@creayt said:
@MattSpeller said:
@creayt said:
Awesome, I'll check it out. It'd be amazing to Raid 0 that sh.
lol damn rights it would. You'd probably see little benefit but massive props if you do it anyway XD
I'm the asshole that thinks OS X is too sprinkled w/ latency to use for web development. I notice that command + tab has a slight, imperceptible to some people, delay before it fades onto the screen when compared w/ Windows' alt + tab on the same machine. I wouldn't be shocked if I did feel some benefit
I'm a Mac user and find EVERYTHING to have an annoying amount of delay. I have the top end, brand new MacBook Pro and find it sluggish and problematic.
