Everyone’s a winner in the PC market but Dell

[Bombastinator]

On 4/16/2021 at 6:55 PM, SGT-AMD said:

Face Palm? Nah, Uzi's:

 

Ridiculous “extended warranties” that are really unregulated insurance are offered on just about everything by everyone these days.  I consider it a “so are you a very stupid or uninformed person?” Question.

[Bombastinator]

43 minutes ago, SGT-AMD said:

Some states do not allow extended warranties (Mass, California)

 

Good for them.

[dalekphalm]

1 hour ago, Bombastinator said:

Ridiculous “extended warranties” that are really unregulated insurance are offered on just about everything by everyone these days.  I consider it a “so are you a very stupid or uninformed person?” Question.

From a home consumer perspective, this opinion makes sense.

 

From a corporate perspective, it does not. Particularly on critical infrastructure - having the option to purchase a 5 year 4-hour response time warranty for a Server is a must for any business (they don't have to choose that option, but the option has insane value).

 

For things like workstations and work laptops, having a 3 or 5 year warranty on them is also incredibly useful. Yes you can probably repair it yourself, and it'll probably work out with less cost overall if you do. But your time costs money too, and most IT techs get paid too much for that to be worth it when calculating lost productivity on their regular duties.

[StDragon]

9 hours ago, WolframaticAlpha said:

lmao. As an Indian, I guess I should take basic then. Will understand my Indian comrade on basic support XD

I agree with this. The problem isn't capability, the issue is a language barrier. And, it's only compounded worse over highly compressed VOIP audio.

 

When I'm having to repeat back to the Indian technician with  A, E, P, T, G, V, and Z in NATO phonetics as verification, you now know why it's a problem; the accent is often too strong to understand clearly.

[Bombastinator]

3 minutes ago, StDragon said:

I agree with this. The problem isn't capability, the issue is a language barrier. And, it's only compounded worse over highly compressed VOIP audio.

 

When I'm having to repeat back to the Indian technician with  A, E, P, T, G, V, and Z in NATO phonetics as verification, you now know why it's a problem; the accent is often too strong to understand clearly.

Well not potential capacity anyway. One would assume that basic would get level 1 techs whereas premium would start at level 2 or something.  A basic subscription might still be an advantage for an Indian National though because of language barrier issues.

[StDragon]

6 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Well not potential capacity anyway. One would assume that basic would get level 1 techs whereas premium would start at level 2 or something.  A basic subscription might still be an advantage for an Indian National though because of language barrier issues.

Level 1 is farmed out to India because the labor is much cheaper than employing Lvl1 in the US. But I've dealt with engineering lvl support from India too and they're pretty sharp. But again, language barrier.

 

It's only getting worse where software engineers can be found for 9 bucks an hour. Soon that will be below US minimum wage. What would you rather do, code for cheap, or push a broom for 15 bucks an hour?

[Jet_ski]

1 hour ago, StDragon said:

Level 1 is farmed out to India because the labor is much cheaper than employing Lvl1 in the US. But I've dealt with engineering lvl support from India too and they're pretty sharp. But again, language barrier.

 

It's only getting worse where software engineers can be found for 9 bucks an hour. Soon that will be below US minimum wage. What would you rather do, code for cheap, or push a broom for 15 bucks an hour?

My issue is always with the company that puts employees in situations they could not possibly handle. Nowadays call center staff don’t even make decisions. They handle calls from different companies, randomly assigned. And they read through stupid multiple choice scripts designed by moron execs trying to save a penny to meet their performance targets before bailing with their golden parachute.

[The Torrent]

Dells high end business stuff is actually really nice as well 

[dalekphalm]

2 minutes ago, The Torrent said:

Dells high end business stuff is actually really nice as well 

Last year and the year before we decided to try out HP (we normally stay mostly within Dell) and we purchased a crapload of ProBook x360 13" laptops, and a bunch of ZBook G5 v15 15" laptops - both have had lots of issues - particularly with battery replacement being required within 1-3 years (We're talking literally more than 50% of them in both model ranges).

 

There have been other issues too.

 

Whereas we bought a 5000 series Dell Latitude (not even the highest range) and that thing is a much better put together laptop. We also purchased a bunch of Lenovo P53S Thinkpads that are doing kickass as well.

 

We typically only look at Dell and HP due to the warranty and turn around times for enterprise equipment, but with laptops we consider Lenovo as well. There's essentially no way we'd ever purchase something like an MSI or ASUS laptop, given the turn around repair/service times involved.

[StDragon]

2 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

We also purchased a bunch of Lenovo P53S Thinkpads that are doing kickass as well.

X1 Carbon is a good choice for those that prefer an ultralight.

[dalekphalm]

51 minutes ago, StDragon said:

X1 Carbon is a good choice for those that prefer an ultralight.

Ultralight is not something we particularly care about. We generally look for "regular" laptops in terms of weight and thickness. The G5 v15's are pretty monstrous (not quite the size of top of the line gaming laptops but getting pretty close), but that's about the upper range we'd be looking for.

 

The X1 also looks considerably more expensive than the P-series for the same core specs (CPU, RAM, etc). If we had a need for an Ultrabook it's certainly something to consider though.

[Bombastinator]

6 hours ago, StDragon said:

Level 1 is farmed out to India because the labor is much cheaper than employing Lvl1 in the US. But I've dealt with engineering lvl support from India too and they're pretty sharp. But again, language barrier.

 

It's only getting worse where software engineers can be found for 9 bucks an hour. Soon that will be below US minimum wage. What would you rather do, code for cheap, or push a broom for 15 bucks an hour?

I suspect it’s heavily situational like when you call any company on the phone.  It is entirely possible though that US phone support is a good paying job in India in which case they could get very competent people.   

[StDragon]

1 hour ago, dalekphalm said:

Ultralight is not something we particularly care about. We generally look for "regular" laptops in terms of weight and thickness. The G5 v15's are pretty monstrous (not quite the size of top of the line gaming laptops but getting pretty close), but that's about the upper range we'd be looking for.

 

The X1 also looks considerably more expensive than the P-series for the same core specs (CPU, RAM, etc). If we had a need for an Ultrabook it's certainly something to consider though.

Sure, the primary clientele that X1 is fitting for would be executives and sales(wo)men that need a Windows laptop. Works really well for a TB dock with multi-monitor setup for both office and home

[dalekphalm]

1 hour ago, StDragon said:

Sure, the primary clientele that X1 is fitting for would be executives and sales(wo)men that need a Windows laptop. Works really well for a TB dock with multi-monitor setup for both office and home

Those of us in IT are using an HP Thunderbolt Dock G2 with the Zbook G5 v15 - and annoyances aside with the HP laptop, the dock combination works really well. 
 

We are likely going to try Thinkpads out with TB docking stations at some point, as our next workstations. Probably not for a couple more years mind you. 

[Luxzio22]

Don't worry Dell, you can be be losers with us: the consumers.