From: sherlock@vsnl.com
Actually you will have to compare prices with a similar speced machine from whoever. You will be able to determine how much more you are paying for "CompleteCover".
I compared with IBM, HPs, Compaqs. Similar speced machines were costing me 3-4K less than the dell. All machines came with the regular 1 year warranty and all the dealers whom I spoke to made it plenty clear about the warranty on the laptops. They clearly wouldnt replace anything other than the harddisk, cpu, motherboard or ram. LCD, keyboard, laptop's body etc... were *my* responsibility.
And by the way Dell is manufactured in China. In fact you will find it nearly impossible to get a piece of electronic equipment from any place other than China. Which means that they produce quality goods too.
My machine has been manufactured, assembled and shipped from Malaysia except for the charger.
Most OEM factories produce stuff and sort them into a, b and c categories, a for the big brands (IBM, Sony, Matsuchita), b for their own brands (sold mostly in US, eur and gulf) and c for the importers from India and other third world countries. There is also a d category
- junk - for consumables (batteries, pencils, inks, etc). We have a
lot to learn about "cheap", which is mostly about efficiency and a little about cutting the right corners. You will find cheap laptop clones of IBM, Dell, Compaq etc. The price difference is a good 40 ~ 50% on the base models. If you buy the upgrades (harddisk, Wlan etc) from lamington road the difference grows by another 15%. Not to mention the fact that you are no more dependent on Dell / IBM. You are ofcourse taking a chance on the warranty. I am no fan of the Chinese - I continually pressured to readjust my bussiness to maintain margins and keep my customers happy. But that is life outside of Paradise.
Yes, I agree with you. Chinese companies do produce quality goods otherwise they would never survive in the western market. It is only countries like us which are dumped with low quality stuff...
Regards, Dinesh.
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