alanbell

iTrader: (6)

are thay any good, ??????

Nicks VR4

I have one well the Girlfriend has it now 2260 model I think
Had it about 4 years and not a problem had it running for 2 years 24/7 just needed to odd reboot at times but fine

bigsigh

iTrader: (4)

i have had two , they can be a bit more expensive but if you shop around you should get a good deal both mine have been very reliable.

djuk

I had (or still have bits of) a packard bell laptop which is about 3 years old now.

Never again, it failed component after component and required lengthy phone calls at 90p a minute to actually call on the warranty.

It was a nightmare in warranty so now 3 years down the line when the power inlet failed I've lobbed it in the corner and bought a Dell which is an entirely different ball game in both price and build quality.

HTH

David

_Meridian_

iTrader: (1)

Here's a clue: they're French.


M

alanbell

iTrader: (6)

Think Id better get the extra cover on it then £6.50 a month,

_Meridian_

iTrader: (1)

NO NO NO NO NO! NEVER buy extra cover - it's a complete waste of money.


M

BlkKnight

If you want to go down the branded route - Dell & HP / Compaq get my vote.

If a Dell breaks or needs to be RMA'd - does it still have to go back to Northern Ireland?

Packard Bell are fairly pants TBH - aren't they tied with PC World?

djuk

Not sure about the RMA but my power supply died a couple of weeks back.

E-mailed Dell online support, response within 5 minutes, and new power adapter at 10am next morning to my door.

john_s

iTrader: (1)

Don't tknow if it's still the case, but people used to say that you only ever buy one packard bell PC. They used to use non-standard components, which made the difficult to upgrade.

Colleague at work has a PB laptop, and had no end of trouble with it; it took them 3 attempts to get it fixed under warranty.

John.

SC008Y_MAD

iTrader: (5)

I totally agree, DELL are one of the best if not the best PC on the market. Im on my 4th dell an 8300 dimedsion with 18" Digital TFT and a 3.0GHz and 512DDR RAM, etc... They make great PC for all ends of the market and inbetween.

Their help desk things, its good, but could be a lot better, but i have not had a prob with them yet or the PC for that matter

www.dell.co.uk

Darren

GC8

You do not have to call a premium rate number for warranty support; this is simply untrue.

Packard Bell is a trading name of NEC a Japanese multinational company; PB in Europe is based in Holland.

Packard Bell havent ever used non standard components. They do however, use a complicated EXTHS tattoo (forced on all large OEM customers by Microsoft, along with diskless recovery) which virtually all 'compoter experts' do not understand; hence the 'non-standard parts' nonsense) Packard Bells commonly use Gigabyte and Microstar system boards and standard fixed disks).

The real problem with PB was that a confessed novice user would always be directed to PB products,, principally becuse of the included software. The result was people who didnt know their **** from their elbows chuffing up their machines and then demanding that engineers visit to sort out the result of their foolishness. This didnt happen of course and is the root of the majority of the horror stories that Ive heard, and Ive heard literally hundreds of them.

I have to add though, that this applies to desktop kit only. Notebooks used to be NECs and they were excellent, now theyre OEM, possibly Mitac and I wouldnt chance one.....


Simon

Edited to add: Im an ex Packard Bell service engineer.

Notorious

Dixons group are the biggest supplier of packard bell pcs in UK...as GC8 states they are made by NEC...in my experience their desktops are far more reliable than there notebooks and again as GC8 said majority of the problems come from the preloaded software and recovery system and user error.

They also used to have a team based in the UK, however they were all paid off last year and they no longer operate from the UK.