Dell Desktop Great Deal

[CC1]

Originally Posted by Stephen Hoover

I need one. Think this is a better deal than buying a $599. Acer or e-Machine desktop from Walmart?

Dell actually has some preconfingured systems at Sams Club and Wal Mart right now (also Staples and soon to be Best Buy).

They are good general systems and most have nice 17", 19" or even bigger LCD monitors bundled with them.

However I don't think most or any of those had firewire and they all had just an integrated graphics card. Plenty of hard drive, RAM, and a CD/DVD burner though. For 95% of people those systems are great and sell between $589 and $899.

I wanted a system specifically for editing High Definition video which needs a lot of "ooomph" in processing power, RAM, and graphics card capability.

For that reason the $350 off promo code worked better for me as I was able to forego a monitor, speakers, etc that comes with the store packaged and instead get a more powerful processor, lots of RAM, and a dedicated 256mb graphics card with support for dual monitors (digital DVI at that!). What I got for $650 is truly amazing.

If I had been buying a computer for just general use like internet surfing, digital photos, word processing, etc then one of the bundled packages at a store would have been fine.

Bored is correct about Wal Mart employees not being any help if anything goes wrong but even with service going down some in recent years Dell is still one of the best at customer support so if you bought a Dell at Wal Mart you wouldn't have to deal with them locally.

I will tell you it paid off for me buying my Toshiba laptop last spring at a Best Buy that has the ""Geek Squad" desk on site. I wanted to put more RAM in and the cover to the RAM would not unscrew. I took it to two little computer shops. One guy tried and couldn't open it and the other wanted fifty bucks just to try. I took it back to Best Buy and the guy at the Geek Squad desk had it open in a couple of minutes with no paperwork, no charge! I had bought it at Wal Mart I would have been out of luck and would have either been out fifty bucks or would have broken it trying to open it.

The next few months will be a good time to buy as the new Quad processors become the new big thing and prices will drop on what has been the top end most powerful dual core processors.

[BoredOutOfMyMind]

Originally Posted by CC1

Dell actually has some preconfingured systems at Sams Club and Wal Mart right now (also Staples and soon to be Best Buy).

They are good general systems and most have nice 17", 19" or even bigger LCD monitors bundled with them.

However I don't think most or any of those had firewire and they all had just an integrated graphics card. Plenty of hard drive, RAM, and a CD/DVD burner though. For 95% of people those systems are great and sell between $589 and $899.

I did not realize WM sold Dell Machines. Acer and eMachines are about one step off the old Packard-Bell machines that could not be upgraded and were very problematic.

I would not get a free AOL CD from BB. Be glad the GS only turned one screw and did not do worse. Surprising they did not charged you $59.95 and keep your machine 3 days to do this.

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by CC1

Dell actually has some preconfingured systems at Sams Club and Wal Mart right now (also Staples and soon to be Best Buy).

They are good general systems and most have nice 17", 19" or even bigger LCD monitors bundled with them.

However I don't think most or any of those had firewire and they all had just an integrated graphics card. Plenty of hard drive, RAM, and a CD/DVD burner though. For 95% of people those systems are great and sell between $589 and $899.

I wanted a system specifically for editing High Definition video which needs a lot of "ooomph" in processing power, RAM, and graphics card capability.

For that reason the $350 off promo code worked better for me as I was able to forego a monitor, speakers, etc that comes with the store packaged and instead get a more powerful processor, lots of RAM, and a dedicated 256mb graphics card with support for dual monitors (digital DVI at that!). What I got for $650 is truly amazing.

If I had been buying a computer for just general use like internet surfing, digital photos, word processing, etc then one of the bundled packages at a store would have been fine.

Bored is correct about Wal Mart employees not being any help if anything goes wrong but even with service going down some in recent years Dell is still one of the best at customer support so if you bought a Dell at Wal Mart you wouldn't have to deal with them locally.

I will tell you it paid off for me buying my Toshiba laptop last spring at a Best Buy that has the ""Geek Squad" desk on site. I wanted to put more RAM in and the cover to the RAM would not unscrew. I took it to two little computer shops. One guy tried and couldn't open it and the other wanted fifty bucks just to try. I took it back to Best Buy and the guy at the Geek Squad desk had it open in a couple of minutes with no paperwork, no charge! I had bought it at Wal Mart I would have been out of luck and would have either been out fifty bucks or would have broken it trying to open it.

The next few months will be a good time to buy as the new Quad processors become the new big thing and prices will drop on what has been the top end most powerful dual core processors.

I have a firewire "card" if anyone needs it. You have to have an onboard (mother board) port to connect it too

[Steve Epley]

I have two nieces that want to buy a simple laptop any suggestions. Can't be complex one is a blond.

[CC1]

Originally Posted by Steve Epley

I have two nieces that want to buy a simple laptop any suggestions. Can't be complex one is a blond.

Best Buy runs specials all of the time on Toshiba Satellite laptops that are great deals. For $599 they have had ones with 15.4 true brite screens, dual core processors, card readers, Vista Home Premium, CD / DVD burners, 1 gig RAM, good size hard drives, etc.

Lately Wal Mart & Sams Club have had good deals on Dell desktops and I know that they also have notebooks but I have not checked those deals out but I bet they are good.

In today's newspaper one of the three office supply chains (office max, office depot, or Staples) has a basic laptop for $399. It would be fine for surfing the internet and doing school work, etc but if one could afford the extra two hundred bucks the one I described first in this post is worth the difference in money.

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by CC1

Best Buy runs specials all of the time on Toshiba Satellite laptops that are great deals. For $599 they have had ones with 15.4 true brite screens, dual core processors, card readers, Vista Home Premium, CD / DVD burners, 1 gig RAM, good size hard drives, etc.

Lately Wal Mart & Sams Club have had good deals on Dell desktops and I know that they also have notebooks but I have not checked those deals out but I bet they are good.

In today's newspaper one of the three office supply chains (office max, office depot, or Staples) has a basic laptop for $399. It would be fine for surfing the internet and doing school work, etc but if one could afford the extra two hundred bucks the one I described first in this post is worth the difference in money.

Yes exactly SE. IF all she wants is simple stuff this might be fine. The computing power of these low end Laptops is not great. They are usually celeron/sempron chips, cheap video chips with little ram...however they might have pretty good battery life as a result