So I Bought a Dell... (and stoll this topic name)

Ironic, because the Latitude line is the business class and are supposed to be much better than the Inspirons. I have an Inspiron 640m and a classmate has a Latitude D620 (I think). The difference in build quality is huge.

Yeah, but unfortunately that's how Dell operates and they're still one of the top PC vendors because people are suckers. I suppose they figure a business user will take better care of their company equipment, so they use cheap panels and substandard parts to manufacture the Latitudes, then take care of it on the back-end by replacing parts under warranty. At work I had so many latitudes where it was basically a new machine because absolutely everything had been replaced under warranty. Plus Dell had that issue with the USB ports not providing enough juice to power USB-bus-powered equipment. That might have been a problem on the Inspirons too though.

Well, actually Dell operates on a very low-overhead between the factories to the end consumer. I forget the details, but its a business model that allows them to cut a lot of typical manufacturing expenses.

This is what allows them to sell their products at practically the same price as if you built one from scratch.

Dell has been making immense losses over the last 2 years. What started out as a booming bussiness, a market unexplored and swiftly conquered, they reached their top about 2 or 3 years ago. The market didn't expand anymore, people are said to have become smarter ( although I doubt it ), but especially the experience people have with Dell is one of the main factors their bussiness is no longer top of the line.

As I've said a couple of times, I've seen some early Dell PC's on the inside. Actually having some of the hardware burned into the case was one of the normal things you'd come across. Also the so called help desk is one of their budget cutting factors.

Their helpdesk is effectively counter-acting the production efficiency Dell has. As Ass said, they don't sell in stores, so they remove that part from the chain and add it to the budget. They also only manufactor the PC when the order is made, not long before. (on demand)

Over the past years Dell had to expand its helpdesk (and thus employees) and salery is the single largest cost in any company ( except goldfarmers, or childlabor ), because the issues people had were not addressed quick enough. Not to mention, and people that sent their dell pc back to dell know this, they were severely undermanned and it could take several weeks up to monthsb efore the PC would be returned. Which didn't bring them much goodwill.

I believe Dells objective is to have a leading position on the market by a fair percentage, because of their "cheaper" chain, they should be able to produce far more and be attractive to alot of companies, but since 2007 it's placed second, HP being first. And HP is still one of the old system.

Personally I'd say the horrible quality of the hardware inside the Dell PC must've costed them some customers as well, but who knows.