Main Area and Open Discussion > Living Room

Why I could never buy a Dell or HP computer (rant)

(1/4) > >>

zridling:
A neighbor of mine bought himself an incredible new HP laptop a few days ago and asked me to come over and tweak it for him, since he knew no Vista. However, we spent almost three hours uninstalling (and constantly rebooting) 28 crapware programs installed by HP. Microsoft seemed to have everything they've ever made as a "trial" installed on the HD, and if you clicked on any Microsoft icon, you were immediately asked to buy — not try — the software before using it even once. Amazing audacity to say the least.

It took a while longer to tweak Vista (no need for tweak apps, I already had a full Vista tweak list from a simple Google search), but HP had Vista locked down so tight that there were many parts you could not adjust, UAC and Vista's power settings for some odd reason. I ended up reformatting and reinstalling from the partition, but that took three calls to Microsoft for "permission," and this included being lectured to for "altering the system" in the first place by a MS tech support rep.

I've built my own systems for years and now I have a renewed wonder why anyone would tolerate the pain of a commercial computer! I seriously didn't have that kind of time to spend on a computer. Just load the OS, load your apps, let them activate/validate themselves, and GO!

sri:
http://pcdecrapifier.com/

app103:
There is a big difference between buying an HP or Dell machine meant for a home consumer and a business machine. The business machines do not come with all the crap installed.

As a matter of fact, my daughter's HP laptop came with the OS on disk (not a restore partition), a driver CD, and a disk of optional crapware...none was preinstalled.

Hers was a business machine.

My HP desktop, on the other hand, came with everything preinstalled, lots of crap I had to remove, and a restore partition rather than an OS disk. If I had not changed settings to reveal all hidden files & folders and browsed around in the depths of things, I would not have known that there was an outdated copy of python preinstalled on my machine, which could have become an issue when I went to install my own copy. Not only that, but there are security risks associated with having really old outdated hidden copies of python preinstalled on machines.

Lesson learned: Buy a business machine if you are going to buy prebuilt.

steeladept:
App103 beat me to the punch - I love HP machines, but will NEVER buy any of their "consumer" grade machines.  I too build my own, but when it comes to desktops, nothing beats a "business" grade laptop from HP (except maybe a business grade laptop from Lenovo).  To be fair, you end up needing to get the top end to have a decent graphics card, or at least going through their custom configurator, but it is the same for Dell's, and I always found supporting HP laptops a bit easier.  Unfortunately, for that convienience, you pay a premium; but in addition to the clean OS you get drive bays instead of built-in drives, you get cleaner designed docking stations (if you want them) and you get a much more customizeable system, both during configuration and later for upgradability.  I will never buy a laptop that is not business grade unless I find a custom build.

PS - I don't know how other companies are handling it, but HP no long provides disks even with their business machines.  Instead, they provide a disk label with instructions on how to make your own disk.  Another cost cutting measure to annoy the masses (what does it save them?  $.30/machine, if that much?  Come on!), but since they were designed for businesses, I guess you only need a couple disks at most for your entire company and it does cut down on trash.  Eh, not a bad tradeoff on the disks as long as they include the burning software (since you typically make it first thing on boot).  Of course most businesses that maintain any significant number of machines use their own created image using something such as Acronis or Ghost....</rambling>

SirSmiley:
I've stuck with Dell my last two computers, always the business model plus upgrades and have never had to deal with the level of crap that I constantly hear about.

Also their customer service and responsiveness have always been great for me, maybe that's also a nice perk of the business models?

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page