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Synchromesh
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Re: Macbook Pro news <split> What about price?

Tue Mar 31, 2009 3:58 pm

Skrying wrote:
Dell produces a tremendous variety of machines. If you even put a bit of research in your statement it would be quite clear that Dell produces a product line for every market at this point.


I had several Latitudes before at work and home including D8x0, D6x0, C640, C610 etc. That's supposed to be the professional-oriented series of laptops and they were all junk without exception. Motherboards failed, CPUs overheated, cheap ugly plastic was abound. My personal C640 was the main reason I switched to Thinkpads. Granted, Pentium 4M was a horrible CPU platform to start with but somehow IBM pulled off a decent design based on same processor with the T30 and Dell didn't. There are several horror stories I read about as well as witnessed and even participated in myself so you can say whatever you like but I seriously doubt I'll trust those idiots at Dell any time soon. In fact, the first thing I tell people when asked what laptop to buy is "whatever you do, don't buy Dell". As far as I know there are only 2 brands for mainstream PC laptops: Lenovo and HP.

Yes, the Inspiron line is very cheap but then they're targeted to folks who need a computer and don't have the budget to spend anymore than $400. Then you have the Studio line that is very stylish for the most part, a significant step up in build quality and comes with a wide array of component choices. Then you go even higher where you have the XPS units and the new XPS Studio which are of equal quality to Apple's options. You can now purchase a XPS M1330 with starting at $699 that has better hardware than Apple's $999 model and with slight tweaking has exceeds it in basically every way when both at $999. Now you can also purchase the XPS Studio 13 which is a absolutely beautiful unit.


Thanks for proving my point about their quality being anything but uniform. Features and form factors are a different story. But treating people like they don't matter and selling them junk because they can't afford a more expensive system is not good. Although, granted, vast majority of people buying such systems don't know any better.

Then even further is the Adamo lineup that Dell has started which while the first unit is slower than an Air, I don't think anyone could argue with a straight face that it is of less build quality than an Apple unit.


Adamo is very new, meaning there will be bugs. Since vast majority of people haven't seen one in real life, much less used it for an extensive period of time, I think it's a bit too early to state that Adamo is on par with Apple's entry. Give it at least a year to see what happens and what bugs show up and then we'll have that discussion.

It pretty clear that Dell is trying to ape Apple with Adamo. I can only hope that they don't ape Apple's overall attitude and atmosphere.
 
Skrying
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Re: Macbook Pro news <split> What about price?

Tue Mar 31, 2009 4:11 pm

Synchromesh wrote:
I had several Latitudes before at work and home including D8x0, D6x0, C640, C610 etc. That's supposed to be the professional-oriented series of laptops and they were all junk without exception. Motherboards failed, CPUs overheated, cheap ugly plastic was abound. My personal C640 was the main reason I switched to Thinkpads. Granted, Pentium 4M was a horrible CPU platform to start with but somehow IBM pulled off a decent design based on same processor with the T30 and Dell didn't. There are several horror stories I read about as well as witnessed and even participated in myself so you can say whatever you like but I seriously doubt I'll trust those idiots at Dell any time soon. In fact, the first thing I tell people when asked what laptop to buy is "whatever you do, don't buy Dell". As far as I know there are only 2 brands for mainstream PC laptops: Lenovo and HP.


Every brand has "horror stories." Anecdotal evidence means absolutely nothing when the great majority of experiences are positive. Companies, consumers, schools, and universities of all sizes and forms use Dell computers or numerous other brands. If a company is staying profitable in numerous markets, and has for years now, then more than likely the issue rust on you rather than the company. I can rant on and on about bad experiences I've had with a product but chances are that someone somewhere will have a horrible experience with a product. That is why responsible people don't base a purchase on one other person's experience, but rather multiple. Anything else is stupid.

I have a wonderful story to tell you about BFG and how horrible their service was for me. But something tells me you wouldn't be so stupid to take as the holy gospel in this case.

Thanks for proving my point about their quality which should be fairly uniform. Features and form factors are a different story. But treating people like they don't matter and selling them junk because they can't afford a more expensive system is not good. Although, granted, vast majority of people buying such systems don't know any better.


Do you have any concept on the pricing of materials? No company can afford to use aluminum or carbon fiber in a $399 laptop and still make money. What a company can do is create a product that is very cheap and makes the required sacrifices to meet the price point and still turn a profit. This isn't using the consumer or lying to them. People who buy these laptops know perfectly well what they're purchasing isn't the best, it's damn obvious when to the right is another 15.4" model that costs triple. Someone must cater to this market and Dell, HP, and Acer have made billions doing so. People on limited budgets need computers too. Your way of thinking would suggest they simply give up heat for a month and buy the $1000 all aluminum model instead. Real life doesn't work that way.

Adamo is very new, meaning there will be bugs. Since vast majority of people haven't seen one in real life, much less used it for an extensive period of time, I think it's a bit too early to state that Adamo is on par with Apple's entry. Give it at least a year to see what happens and what bugs show up and then we'll have that discussion.

It pretty clear that Dell is trying to ape Apple with Adamo. I can only hope that they don't ape Apple's overall attitude and atmosphere.


Of course Dell is trying to copy Apple. Every company copies each other when they can make doing so. Entire economic theories are based around this fact.
 
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Re: Macbook Pro news <split> What about price?

Wed Apr 01, 2009 8:23 pm

derFunkenstein wrote:
I believe Apple and Dell both charge sales tax. I'd rather not pay it.

Legally, you should still be paying sales tax on purchases you make where the seller doesn't take it up-front. It's called a use tax. IIRC, we've mentioned this before when Newegg was going to start charging it.
So it's more that you're going to count on the state never enforcing the use tax, even though you are technically still supposed to be paying it.
</off topic>
 
derFunkenstein
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Re: Macbook Pro news <split> What about price?

Wed Apr 01, 2009 8:32 pm

I don't really recall caring. I might be wrong, though.
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Re: Macbook Pro news <split> What about price?

Wed Apr 01, 2009 8:33 pm

Usacomp2k3 wrote:
derFunkenstein wrote:
I believe Apple and Dell both charge sales tax. I'd rather not pay it.

Legally, you should still be paying sales tax on purchases you make where the seller doesn't take it up-front. It's called a use tax. IIRC, we've mentioned this before when Newegg was going to start charging it.
So it's more that you're going to count on the state never enforcing the use tax, even though you are technically still supposed to be paying it.
</off topic>

Many states offer you a single fee that you can pay instead of calculating use taxes, though, and it's often much less than a serious internet shopper would otherwise be giving out.
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