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Some of Dell's hardware seems to be getting better again. I just purchased the Dell XPS 12" and I'm mostly satisfied with the computer (although it's a bit expe

Some of Dell's hardware seems to be getting better again. I just purchased the Dell XPS 12" and I'm mostly satisfied with the computer (although it's a bit expensive). However, there are two things that still drive me crazy about Dell. The first one should be easy to fix which is that the website is absolutely awful. It's slow, many links 404 and overall just a very frustrating experience. It took me awhile to get my computer ordered because of how slow the site is and I almost gave up. The other issue is the fact that I have to wait about 2 weeks for my computer to be built and shipped to me. Most of their computers they don't even allow many configurations so why can't they have pre-built machines ready to ship. The very day I ordered my Dell, I ordered a Macbook Air for my wife which shipped in 2 days. Dell has been pretty consistent force on the server side, but I'd like to see them regain some strength in the consumer laptop market again.

untog 13y ago
The very day I ordered my Dell, I ordered a Macbook Air for my wife which shipped in 2 days. The last time I ordered a customised Macbook, delivery took weeks (and was from China). This was some years ago though, so may no longer be accurate. Seems the answer here would be for Dell to have 'off the shelf' laptops with standard configurations they can ship quickly. If they don't already, I'm kind of amazed.
- akmiller 13y ago
  I've had it take longer with Apple too but that's usually been on popular releases when they've gotten back-ordered. My wife's laptop was customized with 8gb of ram and 512gb ssd and its ship date was 1-2 days and it did ship 2 days later. My main complaint was that after ordering a computer for 1800.00 it's very frustrating to be told that it will take 10-20 days just to "build" it, much less how long it will take to actually get to me.
  - Samuel_Michon 13y ago
    Judging from your comment and GP’s, it’s obvious that DELL is giving women special treatment ;) I’ve ordered numerous BTO Macs. Most took only a few days, a few took over a week. In the cases that it took over a week, it was always when the model was recently released.
  - vacri 13y ago
    MBA 'customisation' isn't really. It's just another one of the four variants (small/big memory/ssd) that they will have on the shelf. They'll just run through one shelf faster with the 'common' setup.
- dagw 13y ago
  When I ordered my MBA last year it also shipped directly from China and took about 10-12 days.
Samuel_Michon 13y ago
> [it] should be easy to fix [...] the website [It] is absolutely awful. That’s a comment I did not expect on Hacker News. I think it’s safe to say that the majority of HN commenters have some experience with web site development. To do an overhaul on a site like DELL’s is a major undertaking. I wouldn't characterize it as ‘easy’. If their corporate structure even allows rethinking their online strategy, it will take considerable effort to get the site on par with the likes of Apple and Microsoft. Those, IMO, are best in breed. And DELL is certainly not alone, HP’s site is just as nightmarish. If they ever desire to improve their brand identity (and subsequently, their website), they would do well to look at how Microsoft did it. Microsoft hired Pentagram[1] to completely rethink their aging brand and went from there. DELL’s brand could use a similar treatment. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagram_(design_studio) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagram_(design_studio)
- akmiller 13y ago
  I've been a developer and building websites for a long time. Yes, "easy" is probably overstating, but the parts that are problems I'd think could be corrected or fixed without a major undertaking. Fixing the broken links and finding a way to speed the pages up a bit should not require overhauling the entire site. Dell, I would guess, does much of their business online so it would seem a no-brainer to make the online experience as good as possible. Broken links and consistent timeouts are inexcusable for a site like Dell.
  - Samuel_Michon 13y ago
    > Broken links and consistent timeouts are inexcusable for a site like Dell. Oh, I agree. But I doubt they’re doing it on purpose. I would also guess that they have a lot of talented, knowledgable web developers on staff. That's why I'm saying that the problems are probably not as easily solved as you may think. I don't know what their backend is, I don't know what kind of CMS they're using and how it ties into their ERP, CRM, etc.
Encosia 13y ago
For what it's worth Dell does sell several configurations of most models that ship immediately or next day. Personally, I prefer to build my own, but I help my clients choose Dell PCs from time to time and it's never been an issue getting them delivered within a week. If you look for "Smart Selection" or "Quick Ship" models, you'll find quite a lot. Apple works the same way, in my experience. When I ordered my Air a couple years ago, I couldn't buy it in store because it was a configuration they didn't carry and it took several days after my online order before it even shipped from China.
cantrevealname 13y ago
There's a very good idea on Dell's website that I haven't seen on other laptop sites: All Dell laptops have a sticker with a "service tag" (a 6-character code that looks like, say, HYBVGX). You enter that code in the Dell website, specify the OS (say, Windows/XP), and you can download all the drivers specific to your laptop configuration. The idea is wonderful. For Lenovo laptops, by contrast, you have to somehow know exactly what components are used in your laptop and then go hunt for those drivers. (And no, I don't want to use Lenovo's mysterious automatic update tools.) I said that Dell's idea is wonderful, but the implementation is horrible unfortunately: you have to download the drivers one-by-one (unless you're willing to use their download manager), the order in which drivers are installed matters and Dell doesn't tell you the order, the documentation on what each driver does is very poor, they are inconsistently packaged (zip files, exe's, installers), and sometimes you get offered, say, 3 wifi drivers because apparently Dell doesn't know which wifi chipset was put into your configuration. Like I said, the idea is great.
- Samuel_Michon 13y ago
  > All Dell laptops have a sticker with a "service tag" That seems very old-fashioned to me. Why should I have to type in anything at all for the computer to know what its components are? Shouldn't it already know? Apple’s Software Update/Mac App Store knows what computer I use. Even with the BTO Mac’s, the OS knows what components those computers have. The Mac App Store never presents me with software that's not suitable for my computer. I know x86 + Windows has way more possible configurations, but even there, it should be possible to create a report of all the components and send it to Windows Update (AFAIK, it already does that — why are you downloading drivers from DELL’s site?)
  - Amadou 13y ago
    Sure, the computer knows the PCI-ID's of everything on the PCI-family of buses. Same for usb. But you presume that the person downloading the drivers is doing it from the same computer. If it needs a driver for its network interface, then that is going to be a problem.
dustingetz 13y ago
bigco websites are generally bad not due to technical incompetence, but because it is difficult to organize collaboration between hundreds of teams, each with their own incentives and requirements.
zmonkeyz 13y ago
The bay trail tablet looks pretty nice so far as well.
nnash 13y ago
Just out of curiosity why didn't you give up and order elsewhere? There are countless sites to buy computers from, even dell computers like the one you eventually received.
- bluedino 13y ago
  You don't really have much of a choice, assuming you're a business. Dell, HP, maybe Lenovo. Lenovo and HP's business websites were a disaster for the longest time, they basically forced you to go through a VAR, and Dell had such a huge price advantage that it didn't make sense to go with anyone else.
kunai 13y ago
Currently, Lenovo and Apple are the only two profitable consumer laptop manufacturers. It's pretty easy to see why; Apple is iterating and refining to the max with the new MacBooks, and Lenovo continues to push out innovative and seamlessly designed consumer products (much to the chagrin of ThinkPad traditionalists like me), like the new Yoga 2 Pro, ThinkPad Yoga, and Helix. There's a reason customer satisfaction is high with these two brands. If Dell can bring his company back, 1997-Apple style, we might see a resurgence in its popularity (which peaked in the mid-2000s), giving us three major consumer notebook player. This is a good time.
DharmaPolice 13y ago
Agree on the Dell Website, it's atrocious. Trying to get prices on servers a couple of months ago was agonisingly slow. Somehow managed to crash my browser repeatedly too (we're stuck on IE7 at work).
- bluedino 13y ago
  For servers, you might as well just call a rep because the price they are going to give is going to be 20-40% below the price on Dell's website.

untog 13y ago

The very day I ordered my Dell, I ordered a Macbook Air for my wife which shipped in 2 days. The last time I ordered a customised Macbook, delivery took weeks (and was from China). This was some years ago though, so may no longer be accurate. Seems the answer here would be for Dell to have 'off the shelf' laptops with standard configurations they can ship quickly. If they don't already, I'm kind of amazed.

akmiller 13y ago
I've had it take longer with Apple too but that's usually been on popular releases when they've gotten back-ordered. My wife's laptop was customized with 8gb of ram and 512gb ssd and its ship date was 1-2 days and it did ship 2 days later. My main complaint was that after ordering a computer for 1800.00 it's very frustrating to be told that it will take 10-20 days just to "build" it, much less how long it will take to actually get to me.
- Samuel_Michon 13y ago
  Judging from your comment and GP’s, it’s obvious that DELL is giving women special treatment ;) I’ve ordered numerous BTO Macs. Most took only a few days, a few took over a week. In the cases that it took over a week, it was always when the model was recently released.
- vacri 13y ago
  MBA 'customisation' isn't really. It's just another one of the four variants (small/big memory/ssd) that they will have on the shelf. They'll just run through one shelf faster with the 'common' setup.
dagw 13y ago
When I ordered my MBA last year it also shipped directly from China and took about 10-12 days.

Samuel_Michon 13y ago

> [it] should be easy to fix [...] the website [It] is absolutely awful. That’s a comment I did not expect on Hacker News. I think it’s safe to say that the majority of HN commenters have some experience with web site development. To do an overhaul on a site like DELL’s is a major undertaking. I wouldn't characterize it as ‘easy’. If their corporate structure even allows rethinking their online strategy, it will take considerable effort to get the site on par with the likes of Apple and Microsoft. Those, IMO, are best in breed. And DELL is certainly not alone, HP’s site is just as nightmarish. If they ever desire to improve their brand identity (and subsequently, their website), they would do well to look at how Microsoft did it. Microsoft hired Pentagram[1] to completely rethink their aging brand and went from there. DELL’s brand could use a similar treatment. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagram_(design_studio) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagram_(design_studio)

akmiller 13y ago
I've been a developer and building websites for a long time. Yes, "easy" is probably overstating, but the parts that are problems I'd think could be corrected or fixed without a major undertaking. Fixing the broken links and finding a way to speed the pages up a bit should not require overhauling the entire site. Dell, I would guess, does much of their business online so it would seem a no-brainer to make the online experience as good as possible. Broken links and consistent timeouts are inexcusable for a site like Dell.
- Samuel_Michon 13y ago
  > Broken links and consistent timeouts are inexcusable for a site like Dell. Oh, I agree. But I doubt they’re doing it on purpose. I would also guess that they have a lot of talented, knowledgable web developers on staff. That's why I'm saying that the problems are probably not as easily solved as you may think. I don't know what their backend is, I don't know what kind of CMS they're using and how it ties into their ERP, CRM, etc.

Encosia 13y ago

For what it's worth Dell does sell several configurations of most models that ship immediately or next day. Personally, I prefer to build my own, but I help my clients choose Dell PCs from time to time and it's never been an issue getting them delivered within a week. If you look for "Smart Selection" or "Quick Ship" models, you'll find quite a lot. Apple works the same way, in my experience. When I ordered my Air a couple years ago, I couldn't buy it in store because it was a configuration they didn't carry and it took several days after my online order before it even shipped from China.

cantrevealname 13y ago

There's a very good idea on Dell's website that I haven't seen on other laptop sites: All Dell laptops have a sticker with a "service tag" (a 6-character code that looks like, say, HYBVGX). You enter that code in the Dell website, specify the OS (say, Windows/XP), and you can download all the drivers specific to your laptop configuration. The idea is wonderful. For Lenovo laptops, by contrast, you have to somehow know exactly what components are used in your laptop and then go hunt for those drivers. (And no, I don't want to use Lenovo's mysterious automatic update tools.) I said that Dell's idea is wonderful, but the implementation is horrible unfortunately: you have to download the drivers one-by-one (unless you're willing to use their download manager), the order in which drivers are installed matters and Dell doesn't tell you the order, the documentation on what each driver does is very poor, they are inconsistently packaged (zip files, exe's, installers), and sometimes you get offered, say, 3 wifi drivers because apparently Dell doesn't know which wifi chipset was put into your configuration. Like I said, the idea is great.

Samuel_Michon 13y ago
> All Dell laptops have a sticker with a "service tag" That seems very old-fashioned to me. Why should I have to type in anything at all for the computer to know what its components are? Shouldn't it already know? Apple’s Software Update/Mac App Store knows what computer I use. Even with the BTO Mac’s, the OS knows what components those computers have. The Mac App Store never presents me with software that's not suitable for my computer. I know x86 + Windows has way more possible configurations, but even there, it should be possible to create a report of all the components and send it to Windows Update (AFAIK, it already does that — why are you downloading drivers from DELL’s site?)
- Amadou 13y ago
  Sure, the computer knows the PCI-ID's of everything on the PCI-family of buses. Same for usb. But you presume that the person downloading the drivers is doing it from the same computer. If it needs a driver for its network interface, then that is going to be a problem.

dustingetz 13y ago

bigco websites are generally bad not due to technical incompetence, but because it is difficult to organize collaboration between hundreds of teams, each with their own incentives and requirements.

zmonkeyz 13y ago

The bay trail tablet looks pretty nice so far as well.

nnash 13y ago

Just out of curiosity why didn't you give up and order elsewhere? There are countless sites to buy computers from, even dell computers like the one you eventually received.

bluedino 13y ago
You don't really have much of a choice, assuming you're a business. Dell, HP, maybe Lenovo. Lenovo and HP's business websites were a disaster for the longest time, they basically forced you to go through a VAR, and Dell had such a huge price advantage that it didn't make sense to go with anyone else.

kunai 13y ago

Currently, Lenovo and Apple are the only two profitable consumer laptop manufacturers. It's pretty easy to see why; Apple is iterating and refining to the max with the new MacBooks, and Lenovo continues to push out innovative and seamlessly designed consumer products (much to the chagrin of ThinkPad traditionalists like me), like the new Yoga 2 Pro, ThinkPad Yoga, and Helix. There's a reason customer satisfaction is high with these two brands. If Dell can bring his company back, 1997-Apple style, we might see a resurgence in its popularity (which peaked in the mid-2000s), giving us three major consumer notebook player. This is a good time.

DharmaPolice 13y ago

Agree on the Dell Website, it's atrocious. Trying to get prices on servers a couple of months ago was agonisingly slow. Somehow managed to crash my browser repeatedly too (we're stuck on IE7 at work).

bluedino 13y ago
For servers, you might as well just call a rep because the price they are going to give is going to be 20-40% below the price on Dell's website.