...They turn up in Lidl !

Will they sell the Dell machines with linux pre-installed?

Is that the time? My beer will be getting warm. Merry Christmas all!

Will they be sold in cakes of ten at a time like rom media! Or maybe buy two, get one free! "Every little counts" you know, so find out just how little computer you get when you buy one, or two or three of these!

Merry Xmas all round peeps...........

..they make decent systems with decent parts that are close to worth what they charge

dell *spits* scum of the earth :p

When will people realise that the Dell business model is no longer valid in these changing times ?? Back in the days when it involved black magic and wizardry to build a PC, Dell minted it by supplying that service. All power to them.

Now, every other kiddie can build one without too much effort and DIY books and mags are a penny a million, that business model will not work anymore. Add on the fact that Dell executives are paid fortunes while the High Street computer shop owners earn peanuts and you can see the worm doing flip-flops !!

Since almost all PC parts are manufactures in China anyway, many people are sourcing direct and by-passing Dell just as Dell by-passed IBM for their parts. It really pinches when the boot is on the other foot !!

FYI, I built my first PC from bits and parts sourced from Taiwan (the renegade province ??) in 1988, so I do know a little about DIY PCs !!

El Reg starts up a weather service, and upon this weather service they report the daytime maximum temperature of hell to be bellow 0 degrees celcius.

It already does - it has done for quite a while now.

OMFG I had some Vostro™'s to install today. Everything about them is horrid. The cardboard box was thin and flimsy. The packaging inside was inadequate. They have a very cheap and nasty feel to them and pressing the DVD-ROM drive eject button made me cringe as the drive bay pushed open the case moulding with a nasty click (I just know this is going to break). One of them even had a loose screw rattling around inside it. What happened Dell? You used to make lovely cases such as the OptiPlex GX range with cases that opened like a cars bonnet and drives that slid in and out on rails (no such rails with these, back to screws again). Yuk.

I doubt it. Tesco shoppers won't buy it because they won't know what it is and they won't be able to run Word on it.

Wonder if Dell will start selling Servers as well at Tesco!

Me: Hey Boss I just picked this server from Tesco.

Boss: Are you kidding me? I have had enough of your stupid imagination. You're fired

Me: But...

Boss: OUT!

I'm guessing you've not heard about the phenomenal success of the Linux powered Walmart PC or the Linux powered Asus Eee PC that stores like Toys R Us are flogging at the moment then?

Also, I believe Asda is also selling a Linux PC albeit through their online electricals store.

You'd be surprised ;-)

I think I will buy a Mac then.

Dell, schmell! I just want some of those wonderful TESCO stainless steel double edge blades! Wish you blokes would mail me a gross of them..

Unless Dell are getting an exclusive, I just see Acer putting their product on the Tesco shopfloor cheaper. Besides, having seen how the knuckle-draggers at Tesco kick their other products around, do you really want to buy a laptop/PC that's been through the retail equivalent of Heathrow baggage handling manned by gorillas?

I did something for a living, I put many an optiplex on the company's desktops, with a high reliability rating.

From what I've heard since those days, maybe I *wouldn't* buy one now, even at LIDL prices.

As for a server: my first test was... can I sit on it? Guys... wheel that RS6000 over here a minute, I need to get at some wires in the false ceiling.

Personally I've always been happy with Dell units for the office. They're cheap, reliable and quiet even if you do have to spend an hour uninstalling all the "bonus" software that comes on them.

Sure, you can build them yourself, but in a small office who has the luxury of a couple of spare hours per PC you want?

All Dell suffers from is the same problem as Microsoft, they're really well known and thus it's cool to slag them off to your techie buddies. In much the same way as running Microsoft applications have their place, Dell computers occupies a niche of providing fairly cheap, fairly quiet, mediocre computers to the masses.

I've been using Optis for donkeys' years and they still make them damned well. Of course the Vostros don't compare to those - they're way cheaper, and yes, relatively nasty. You get what you pay for; pay Vostro prices, don't expect Optiplex quality.

Here in Bangkok, TL have been selling HP, Compaq, SVOA (local brand) with bi-lingual Linux for at least 12 months. Cost of HP laptop - 1.7GHz, 80GB HDD, 512MB DDR, about USD550.

I'd reckon about 30% of the population can plug in a computer without assistance. Maybe 1% would have the ability and inclination to make their own computer from bits - and that's only desktops. (Most people who can afford one get a laptop, and you can't really build your own laptop).

> All Dell suffers from is the same problem as Microsoft....

You mean, all they suffer from is that everyone buys from them but like to protest that they don't, or that they wouldn't if only they could avoid it? :)

XPS? Isn't that all the 8800gt / quad core stuff aimed at gamers and so on?

If so, it's not alienware, but it sounds a bit more attractive / interesting than the average £299/399/499 pcs and laptops you usually find on supermarket / woolworth-esque retailer shelves.

"Besides, having seen how the knuckle-draggers at Tesco kick their other products around, do you really want to buy a laptop/PC that's been through the retail equivalent of Heathrow baggage handling manned by gorillas?"

Yup, because PC World/Dixons/John Lewis etc, they baby the stock and gently pat it as it waits to go out on the shelf.

Trust me, no retail outlet is any better or worse than any other for stock handling - they pay peanuts for all the shop floor/stockroom staff, so they get monkeys - or at least, people who just don't care.

I used to work in PC World, with people who have worked in Asda/Tesco/John Lewis, and they were quite happy that throwing the stock around like a beach ball was very much the norm in all the places they have been in....

Steven R

What you say about the kiddies is partly true. However, there are more savvy kiddies out there than you'd suspect.

Re. laptops - they are just like desktops, only more fiddly. What you need are the right sources of bits and pieces. Laptops are *NOT* magical black boxes that blow up if you try to open them. I've opened many a laptop to fix/upgrade them. Semi-literate persons in the Far East regularly open laptops for the same purpose and make a good living out of that. So it is a sad comment that, in the West, laptops have this mystique that prevents ordinarily knowledgeable persons from opening them up and doing things to them.

The only difficulty with many laptops is that many of their component parts are "built-in" to the motherboard and cannot be easily repaired/replaced.

@Matt Bryant - to avoid the Thiefrow baggage-handling treatment, just order online for home delivery.

@Thad - It's just the shell that you need strong. If that is your requirement, then I can recommend that you get military-grade cases that are guaranteed to be bullet-proof (not shell-proof, though). I've used Tempest-spec (US military specs) HP PCs that were deliberately dropped from the third floor to the concrete below, picked up and plugged in and works first time, every time. Then again Uncle Sam buys $20 hammers that are on sale at Walmart across the street for $2 !! WYPIWYG - What you pays is what you gets !!

It's their fuggin website.

I absolutely HATE the way you have to identify your market sector. All I want to do is look at the whole range.

dabs.com's is the best, a multiway parametric search.

Acer and Dell need slapping.

The thing is, that Tesco already sell PCs with linux pre-installed

See http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.200-6129.aspx and

http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.200-6129.aspx

Which at £189 and £139 (for base units) looks pretty convincing.

I wonder how that will continue now?

BTW, Merry Christmas all Register-ites

Ishkandar - do you honestly think that couriers handle goods any better than retail stock handlers? Come on - most of them are bloody useless and drop kick packagaes about because they care just as little as their high street store counterparts (or, in the case of one company who shall remain nameless, they employ light fingered scrotes who have it away on their tooes with half the packagaes that go through their doors). Just make sure the packaging is weel filled with polystyrene and you'll mostly be OK. After all, who amongst us hasn't bought a hard drive from eBuyer and not had it arrive in no more than a Jiffy bag?

Approximately 10 years ago I worked at a LARGE hospital. I had a DELL (don't remember what model #) and I needed to increase the memory on it. My boss called in the order (to DELL) and they requested the date the computer was made as apparently they change the memory type on a day to day basis so they didn't have a clue as to what type of memory to send out. Even with a serial number they didn't know themselves.

Would the unwashed public put up with that type of service? I sure would not and especially not with Dell moving their support line overseas to (I believe India).

Great PCs for the money with good components/build quality, certainly less hassle than building something myself their mid range desktops are generally built with upgrades in mind (space bays with associated nearby cables, plenty of cooling etc) while their mid range Inspiron or Latitude laptops have proved rugged enough toi survive daily transportation whilst packing a good punch for the money,

I have steered clear of their budget/value ranges though as these don't seem to be as well specified or built with cheaper chassis and lower grade components (many integrated).

Mr Ed Gould et al

YES, Dell have moved support lines to India but if you have say a Dell Precision Workstation you can pay an extra £30 for initial telephone support from London based engineers. (That was the cost 4 years ago when I supplied CAD workstations to the Channel Tunnel Rail Link/St Pancras project)

In fact Dell's on-site support is one of the best items it offers. I say that with 8 yrs experience as a UK based Dell reseller.

Also, if you have the TAG number from the back of the Dell PC you can look up the original full specification, on line, in seconds.

The Vostro motherboard saved Dell about £10 per PC. Certainly not the best PC for access and upgradeability, but if that is your need you should not be buying one!

It would be nice however if Dell would offer a PC without bloaterware. They said the Vostro would ship without extra software but it didn't.

But overall, Dell supply good , reliable, PCs at a fair price so please don't knock their success. I am proud to sell Dell to my clients.

Ron Shiel, Mister Inkjet Ltd