I was the IT Director for a chain of portrait studios. Each store had 8-10 computers and a server that housed all of the pictures. Each computer ran Express Digital to proof the customer and a point of sale system that I wrote specifically for that company. We opened new stores every year, and this was when I made the large purchases detailed below. I would buy enough computer equipment and software for a store, which was about $25k-$40k. After that, the budget was quite small because it was expected that the computers would last 3 years.

I don’t like Compaq. The Compaq’s that I’ve used/purchased over the years have been pretty crappy machines. If this was school, I’d give Compaq an F. Although I have to admit that because of my poor experiences with them, I haven’t bothered buying a Compaq for over 5 years.

Dell is better. I’d give them about an overall grade of a C. They have decent machines, but their tech support is pretty poor. If you call them, plan on about a 45 minute wait, and then plan on arguing about whether or not your problem is “supported”. We were supposed to be on their best support plan too. I’ve had to get into some really heated conversations with them to get them to actually help me. For example, they had a problem with the front side USB ports on their small form factor machines. I called and told the girl that my bar code reader wouldn’t work and she said that wasn’t supported because I didn’t buy the reader from Dell. It turned out that the USB ports on the front of the computer don’t have as much power going to them as the ones in the back. The solution was to plug the reader into the back of the computer. This was after an hour of arguing about whether or not she could help me, getting a supervisor, arguing with them, etc. The problem was with their USB port, not the actual scanner. I think I left a bloody mark on my desk from banging my head into it multiple times before that problem was fixed.

I’ve been quite unsatisfied with the quality of service from them. Also, their sales staff is pushy and they don’t treat you very well unless you spend $50k or more. I’ve had experience with them at both levels. They were very kind, helpful, and worked hard for me when I was spending $50k+ a year with them. When I dropped below that level, there was a very noticeable change. They gave me the impression that I was a burden of their time. In all fairness to Dell, this was while I had an account level that was supposed to spend $50k or more a year. There are other divisions that deal with customers with a smaller budget. I dropped below that threshold because Tigerdirect.com beat their bids and we made some large purchases with them instead.

I just bought a Dell Laptop this month. I bought it online after talking to a chat sales representative. The person was helpful, and it was a good experience. I didn’t have to wait very long.

I’ve bought many things from Tigerdirect.com. Their service is excellent. Their sale staff is rock solid. I spent a lot with them and thus had a dedicated corporate account manager. He’s now a friend of mine and we talk on the phone from time to time about computer stuff even though I don’t spend money with him anymore - I’ve since moved to another job where I’m not buying all the PC equipment. His direct line is still on my speed dial on my cell phone; however.

I bought 40 computers from TigerDirect one time - their brand is called Systemax. I wasn’t happy with these computers. We had a lot of problems with them. My sales rep assured me that this wasn’t normal and that I got a bad batch, but out of 40 computers, we swapped out 2-3 motherboards, 3-4 hard drives, some bad memory, a couple of power supplies, etc. They gave us great service though. In most cases, a tech came out and fixed it for us, except for the stores where we had a person that could do it themselves. Some of the problem was probably caused in part by us. It seemed that the computers overheated fairly easy, and we didn’t help the fact because we put the computers in an enclosed cabinet with limited air flow. After a the first few problems, we put in a fan in the cabinet to help cool off the computers and that slowed down the problems. So, I’d give them a C when buying their Systemax brand as far as equipment goes, and an A in service. I’ve bought a ton of stuff from them such as extra hard drives, memory card readers, etc and all of that has been great.

Since I’m a tech geek, I prefer to build my own desktop. This way I know all of the parts that are in it and can easily fix it. However, if you don’t know how to build a computer and don’t want the headache of troubleshooting hardware problems, then I’d go with either Dell or TigerDirect.com. Between the two, Dell computers had less overall problems, but each problem took a hell of a lot longer to fix because their support staff sucks. Tiger had more problems, but each problem was relatively painless because their support staff rocked.

In both cases, you’ll want to come up with some sort of backup plan. You can get a hard drive replaced, but you can’t get your files replaced if you don’t have a backup - well unless you spend thousands of dollars with a data recovery company and then it’ll only be a partial recovery.