Since March 2005 I have been using a Dell computer that was state of the art when I purchased it. It was the latest and greatest, affording me more memory, more hard drive space, and a neat operating system that was far beyond the Microsoft 95/98/2000 that I had been used to using on previous and work computers. It has served me very well; I love the machine dearly, but it is getting time to replace it, and so the replacement process has started.
The replacement process isn't something that I'm looking forward to. That means taking apart my computer infrastructure here and reconnecting it. It means transferring files from the Dell onto CDs, which will then be used to transfer them to the new computer. And it means having to work with Windows 8.1. I'm hoping that the new OS will be just as user-friendly as XP was, and if I had my druthers I'd still be using XP. Trouble is, is that Microsoft has decided to end support of XP, which is what drove my replacing the Dell. And let's be honest.....the Dell doesn't handle the browsers as efficiently as it used to, and if I run Google Earth then that really ties up my CPU resources.
Purchasing the replacement has become an adventure of sorts in and of itself, and will be the subject of what follows.
I started thinking about the replacement a few weeks ago. I had it in mind to order from Dell again, who pleased me back in 2005, but I also felt the need to visit Best Buy to see what they could do for me. (It could have been worse....I could have gone to Fry's Electronics in the Bay Area, and I have a story for them, as does every engineer who's spent time in Silicon Valley.) So I waltzed into the Best Buy on Broadway, over near Wilmot, to gather some intelligence.
Now Best Buy really isn't my favorite firm to do business with. Circuit City, years ago, used to be much better, but Circuit City decided to fire every sales agent who knew his or her stuff so that they could hire cheaper replacements, and they've long since ridden the bankruptcy horse off into the sunset. Anyway, Best Buy, I figured, would be a decent place to gather some intelligence....and.....what if I came across a good deal?
Well I saw what I thought were good deals.....and they seemed like good deals, until I started asking some questions from their salesman. He was likely a college kid working part time who knew some things about computers, and he might have even been an engineering major, but I wasn't getting any good vibes from this guy. Oh, I want Microsoft installed? That's an extra $140. Oh, I want a monitor? Another $140. Oh, I want this? I want that? They had that too, but it wasn't included in the price. All I was getting was a box that held a hard drive and some RAM, and it might even have had an optical drive except that I forgot to ask about that, and that might have been extra too.
I went out of there thinking, OK, I should call Dell. But I spent a couple of days thinking it over, asking some co-workers what they used, and one of them pointed out that our firrm has been using Hewlett-Packard, better known as HP, for years and we never had problems with them. At that time I was thinking that since Dell sold me a good machine nine years ago, they would sell me one now if I wanted one. I was disabused of that notion when I called Dell the very next day.
Before I called Dell, I visited their website during my lunch break in my office, jotted down some notes, and picked out a model that I thought I wanted to own. I then called their toll free number, and I was immediately routed to a menu tree. Fine, I don't really like the damn things, but I navigated thru it, indicating to the robot on the other end that this call was about purchasing a desktop computer. Then I was put on hold.
Then it got better......I was routed to another one of those dreaded call centers in India! I'm thinking OK, maybe these guys are going the way of Earthlink, but I'll play along and see where it goes. The sales agent confirmed that my call was about a desktop computer for home use, and then said he would transfer me to an agent who would help me with this. I'm thinking OK, am I going to get India again? Or am I going to get routed to Texas? I would find out, if I would just hold.
Sitting on hold, like the menu tree, is again a feature that is fast becoming ubiquitous when it comes to trying to get something done over the telephone. And like everywhere else, I was treated to some music, with robotic interruptions reminding me that my call was important, please stay on the line, and the next available agent would be along soon to help me.
I waited some more. The robot female came on again, "your call is very important to us....please continue to hold"....blah blah blah.....yok yok yibble yibble and then some more canned music.
Pretty soon I'm thinking, I sure am waiting a long time to get rid of some money here. How much longer am I going to be on hold? What will happen if I get thru? Will I once again be talking to "Edward" or "George" or "Houston" with an Indian accent that I can't understand, or, will they drop the call......since like Earthlink, they're trying to drive down the number of customers to a level that they can handle?
I never found out.
I hung up the phone.
They were taking too long.
My lunch break was over and it was time to push forward with one of the several assigned tasks that I have. And, I made the decision to not buy from Dell this time.
I spent some time the next few days researching HP computers. I found that I could order from them, customize a model if I wanted to, and I found a Pavilion model that seemed like it would fit the bill. One terabyte of hard drive space. Optical drive. Six USB ports, with two of them on the front. Windows 8.1 and a fourth generation Intel processor.
I made the call last week. I was forced to go thru the menu tree, and after a hold time of maybe fifteen seconds at the most, I was talking to a most welcome American voice that I later learned belonged to someone in Boise, Idaho. He knew his stuff and he intelligently answered all my questions. Yes, the machine would do this. It would do that. And with the software package and monitor, it came out to a price that I was willing to pay. So, I placed the order.
It's not going to arrive all at once like the Dell did, but I will know when it will arrive, and I can even arrange with Fedex, a preferred delivery time (it will have to be signed for). And, I might be spending an evening or two, getting it up and running. The important thing though, is that I have a peace of mind about this purchase; a peace of mind that I knew I wasn't going to get from Best Buy, and probably not from Dell......though I won't ever know about peace of mind using Dell since they can't be bothered to hire people to pick up the phones to close a sale.
In the meantime, I'll be using my laptop beginning Tuesday, for the next few days, as that the CenturyLink modem also has contained within it, a wireless router. And, I'm glad to say that not once have I had a net outage from my new ISP.
Once that's all set up and running, I can then start thinking about my next new toy.
Don't forget to pet a dog or a cat.
No comments:
Post a Comment