Vendors With Good Post-Purchase Support?

ivo welch asks: "I purchased two computers for which the manufacturer never offered any real new software updates. Primarily, I would have liked good BIOS upgrades, but Windows 2000 support would be nice, too. In marked contrast, DELL and SAG seem to be pretty good releasing updates for machines even 2-3 years old. What are the experiences with other vendors? The differing post-purchase support has tilted my own purchase decisions towards DELLs in the future, even though I must admit Sonys are 'sexier'. Does this matter enough to anyone else? Should we communicate this to the vendors?" Which vendors stand by their hardware years after it's been outdated and which ones drop support 5-8 months after a specific model is released, forcing their customers to adopt a short and expensive upgrade cycle if they want any kind of support?

Comments

what matters to me

[ksheff]

What I want from a computer equipment manufacturer are the following:

• Hardware specifications available online as HTML or PDF documents for any piece of equipment they have made. I like it that I can lookup specs for an old Seagate hard drive or Mac that I can via ebay or yahoo. IMHO, auction sites increase the chance that old hardware may be bought and used by someone rather than being junked. Having good documentation for obsolete hardware is important if one is trying to make it useful again (isn't that one of the many beauties of Linux?).
• Software updates available for download. Since, I'm not one for throwing hardware away and like to upgrade when I can, I want the manufacturer to keep updating the software in their products if possible. For example, Celerons with cache initially caused the motherboard that I have to not boot. A simple BIOS upgrade fixed that and I would expect that for each processor that Intel makes that uses the Slot 1 interface, I would like the board manufacturer to make sure that its BIOS will work with it.
• Warranties with no-question replacement of defective parts. I don't want to buy something (a monitor for example) and then have it break in under a year. If it does, I want the company to replace it without having to jump through a lot of hoops.

I build most of my own systems, so I try to pick quality parts based on recommendations of friends & others on the web. Because I'm essentially providing my own support, I want the information/software to be able to keep my systems running for years. My brother had nothing but trouble with his Compaq. Not only did he have trouble with it breaking down a lot the first few months he had it, he had a heck of a time getting it fixed. Other friends have had good experiences with Gateway where if a part went bad, they would ship a replacement and have the user return the defective part in the same box without any questions.

Re:what matters to me

[titus-g]

I'd guess it could be a regional thing, my brothers worked for a co that bought quite a few gateway machines, and they were a pain from day one. Sent back, then more problems, tech support calls, "it's your imagination".

Whereas my wife's comaq 120 (from way back) is still running fine after 2 service call outs (admittedly the cost on both would have been about 10 times the price of the PC if it wasn't under warrenty, and I dunno how they can charge 600 quid for a 1.2G quantum HD when you can get a 17G for 50)

The best bet is normally to buy the basic systems new (often cheaper, they can buy in bulk), then upgrade when you get it, and never ever buy service contracts, get what you need and no more.

Re:what matters to me

[Anguirel]

I agree with the stuff on Compaq and Gateway. I've never heard anything but problems from people with Copaqs, while the Gateway people only have praise for the Customer support. This is a Good Thing... they seem to need it a lot, since their computers frequently have problems. If you want a trouble free computer, I'd avoid both Compaq and Gateway (though it seems most of the Gateway problems were in relation to shipping, so if you get it at a local store, it might be better. I haven't checked on that yet...)

On to the main question... I've had good luck with my Dell Optiplex system. Not a single hardware problem with it (except for a whine in my monitor in certain resolutions on occasion). ((Side-note: I was told by a friend when I got it that I'd made a mistake, since the entire system is on the motherboard (no cards). He said I'd burn out one component in a year and the whole system would be unusable, but that hasn't happened yet (2 years now). I think he said that from a bad previous experience with overclocking a system like this, which I don't do.)) I've gotten updates on all the components in my system directly from the Dell website, which had them almost as soon as they were out from the individual parts manufacturers. All in all, it's been a good deal. I'm not sure on the quality of parts in the Dimension systems (those are made from the least expensive at production time parts as opposed to well-tested standard parts) but the customer support looks like it's there for those machines too.

If I ever get a new pre-packaged machine, it'll probably be a Dell. I didn't like my HP as much, and the customer support on it wasn't as good. Most of my older computers were made by smaller companies that no longer exist. Good thing those ones haven't needed any real support. ^_^

~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"

ASUS motherboards...

[cowbutt]

...have pretty good support; Readable English manual, BIOS updates "for ever" and even semi-official hardware mods when an unanticipated development is made in peripherals...

Forget warranties, buy cheap and often.

[IdeaMan]

Don't bother with warranties, "Rock-Solid" "Brand-Name" PC's with inflated prices, etc. Buy almost cheap generic boxes from people you deal with locally. Don't buy the cheapest stuff from the cheapest place. Buy exact part/model #'s from the cheapest place, full computers from the next-to cheapest place. (The cheapes place definitely put cruddy components in.)

PC's are advancing too fast for warranties or even attempting to trade-in the box to be reasonable. Trickle-down the computers (give to your kids/stone soup supercomputer), until they are about 3-5 generations behind the times, then trash or donate them. It's better and cheaper to buy 1 generation behind the times and upgrade every 2 generations then to buy Brand-New stuff every 4 generations. (That would be equivalent cost). Don't bother buying a dual-cpu motherboard unless you are going to populate both chips when you buy it. By the time you go to buy the cpus to upgrade it, the new ones will be more than 2x as fast for the same price, but you'll need a new mobo. (For SMP, the fewer processors your MIPS are concentrated in the better because there is less overhead.)

DELL

[latro]

I've had very good luck with them. Excellent support under warranty, and even after the warranty expires, they are usually very good about providing sw updates/drivers.

The other thing I like about Dell (I'm sure other companies do this as well - compaq, for one, anyway) is that they keep certain product lines as stable as possible. For example, with their desktop machines, they have two separate lines of products, Dimension and Optiplex. The Dimension machines are constantly updated with new hardware (video cards, sound cards, etc.) while the Optiplexes are made as standard as possible for as long as possible so that any new machines you buy will basically be using the same parts. The same goes for their laptops - the Latitudes have the latest/greatest, while the Inspirons are meant to have longer product lifetimes.

This was extremely helpful to me when I was buying laptops for sales reps in our company - we would get waves of new sales reps and we could be confident that the new laptops we got would not be radically different (hardware-wise) from the ones we had purchased 3-4 months earlier.

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