Slashdot Mirror
Dell fights Alien Invasion
Asakawa writes "With manufacturers like Alienware and Voodoo sucking up the low-volume/high-margin high-end gaming market, it looks like Dell wants a piece of the action. The machine that these guys have reviewed looks pretty awesome, but they reckon it's overpriced. It will be interesting to see if Dell can shake off its grey box image and entice the more fussy gamers and enthusias."
If the max resolution is 1280x1024.
go to the apple store, go to store UK (since the article is in £ instead of $) pick the dual 1.8, add 512MB ram to get to 1GB, upgrde video card to 9800XT the upgrade to 250GB harddisk, add a 20inch flatscreen and hit 'update total'. Voila 3288£ compared to £3176 for the dell (with a 17inch monitor only, but 40GB. Okay, the dell has a 800X video card, but that's a mere 100£ difference)
and now you have a decent OS.
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
What everyone has failed to mention is that the Dimension XPS is old. Been out for awhile. The only thing new about this is the review. But I guess since everyone has a hate for Dell, you just didn't notice and this is "news" to you.
Seriously - what the hell is up with Computer equipment prices in England? Is their economy so strong that $5519.37 is a reasonable price for a 3.6 ghz P4 with a Radeon X800?
The problem in the UK is two things. First of all, we have to pay import duty on anything manufactured abroad (+0% to +85%). Then, we also have to pay VAT (+17.5%). Then there's the middle man tax for the company that's doing the importing, and warehouse storage. Not forgetting the high price of petrol which means that transporting anything becomes increasingly more expensive the further away you are from London. Deliveries in the Greater London area are usually offered "same day", while it can take three days to get to the North of England.
Details can be found at Rip-Off UK.
The combination of the high rates of taxation, and the rapid change of hardware has forced people to become cost-conscious about buying computers. Web based suppliers like Dabs.com are usually the first place people look when comparing prices. Nobody in their right mind is going to waste 400 pounds (600 dollars) on VAT, for a 1600 pound system, if they can help it.
The only people I know who are buying from Dell are the university departments when making a bulk order with educational discounts for a new computer lab.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Heh, the problem isn't with the resolution perse, it's the fact that it is bundled with an LCD that is the problem. For gaming on an LCD(this is in addition to ghosting issues) is that in order for it not to look "blocky" you either have to run it at it's native resolution, or half it's native resolution(so that each pixel translates into a 4 pixel square). I don't know of too many games that support 640x512, though since 1280x1024 seems to be a very popular resolution for LCDs, maybe we will see it in the future(you can always just add a little 32 pixel black bar if need be)
That is why dell is so looked down upon. If you ever have to work with them you just know you are dealing wich a "company/piece of hardware" were everything was done by the lowest bidder. Such tricks as finding out a 128mb machine had all its memories slots full (wich as you say makes it harder and more expensive to upgrade). Finding out that for some unspeakable reason yes this PC comes with only 1 IDE slot. That the case size means no expansion card fits.
It is not that Dell actually makes bad stuff. Just that if you are used to make your own cages or worse IBM style hardware Dell feels cheap. The biggest problem is that they feel cheap but often really aren't. If you buy your dell as is and never ever touch its insides then it is a decent enough deal. Else just don't. Friends don't let friends dell.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.