I recently ordered a Dell OptiPlex desktop for my office desk. Though the computer came through a higher education “preferred pricing account” that my university has with Dell, it turned out to be the most expensive computer we ever bought. I tried a similar desktop configuration with Dell Dimension available in Dell Home section and that computer turned out to be $200 cheaper than this *preferred pricing* computer. May be in Dell’s dictionary preferred pricing means higher pricing. Also, my university thinks it is a good deal with this *preferred pricing* from Dell and doesn’t want to deal with any other manufacturer (wasted taxpayers’ $$)…so I had to go ahead and order it anyways. Other than this cost discrepancy, there were other idiotic things that I came across on the website.
Right after I chose a OptiPlex model and click on customize, these options appear for the choice of processor:
What the !? Ok, I am glad you are giving your customers a lot of flexibility in the choice of the processor, but look at the way this information is presented. It’s neither arranged according to increasing or decreasing pricing, nor according to processor speeds. Fortunately, I am a bit literate about some related terminology, but for an average customer, what will this “2×2M?” and “2×1M” mean? (it’s Level 2 cache of 2MB per core; for a dual core processor it’s 2 cores x 2MB cache total 4MB cache). If they want to throw some jargon in the buying process, at least they should link it to someplace where you can find what it means. After reading some information on Intel’s website, I finally decided on Pentium D 945 processor.
Later on, there were some stupid options like this:
I don’t understand why this option is even existing.
And like this:
Nice, pay a buck to “Hide Microsoft Outlook Express” 
. Read the last option “Sets wallpaper to blank”…I am glad they are not charging a buck for doing that. May be Dell thinks university people are really stupid or something (there are stupid people in universities, but let’s talk about them sometime later).
And then there is the issue of warranty. For higher education purchases, Dell slaps a mandatory 3 year warranty at the minimum. This is what makes education purchases from Dell really expensive. I don’t want your “3 year warrant with NBD onsite with 3 year Gold Tech Support”..I just want a plain 1 year warranty! (btw, NBD stands for Next Business Day..more jargon)
What’s going on with Dell?
After going through all that, I was able to get a Pentium D 945 Processor (3.40GHz), 2 GB RAM, 17″ Flat Panel Analog Monitor, 16x DVD+/-RW, and two hard drives - 80 GB each, for around $1180 (no tax for universities). I looked up this deal at Best Buy which has a better configuration than the Dell we ordered and for much cheaper price (may be another $80 for an additional hard drive). Well, looks like we just bought some “preferred” crap from Dell.
