After literally spending hours and hours on the telephone  over a period of several weeks trying to get someone at Dell to find or replace my son's laptop they lost (sent to wrong address), and being assured  by several customer service representatives all over the country that they would take care of the problem (then never hearing from them again) I for one am not a bit saddened that Dell's profits are down.

   Disappointed in Dell

I've got 4 dells networked at home (3 pc's and a laptop) and i have zero problems.  Are they the best?  no.  Cheapest?  no.  Most customizable?  no again.  But they're solid, dependable machines.  I wish Dell the best of luck enduring well into the future.

Dell is in trouble because Microsoft has forced them to sell only Windows Vista, which is universally dispised.  Losing the right to bundle XP on their computers was a fatal blow

No surprise Dell sucks!

I bought a Dell XPS and it was supposed to be super-duper.  I have had nothing but trouble from day 1.  I call and it takes 2 or 3 hours to get something done and I find something else wrong the next day.  I wanted to send it back but you are only promised satisfaction for 30 days I guess.  My 30 days had passed and I couldn't return it.  I've set it back to factory setting 3 times.  I dreaded calling Dell again.  I finally fixed everything myself and I'm a 60 year old secretary.  I swore off Dell after this catastrophie.

I find Dell to be a good company and there service over the phone takes time but is the best. I have three dells at home and I call and they are on the money.

I wish them the best for a company that has come into our homes and changed the way we buy.

To me Dell is the second worst company I have ever dealt with.  I bought my first Dell about 4 weeks ago.  I ordered it with a video card that would work with two

VGA monitors.  I paid $65 extra for this ability.  When the computer arrived it did not have the adapter needed to work with 2 monitors.  I called Dell and spent 4 hours on the phone and was transferred 17 times and disconnected 3 times.  I was told the new adapter would cost $35 plus shipping.  I finally, after so much trouble reached a department that told me they would ship me the necessary adapter but it would take approx. 16 days, they didn't have any in stock.  I found one on e-bay for $5 and $5 shipping.   The next day I received an adapter from

Dell.  They were exceeding my expectations.  It was the wrong part.  The Dell adapter on e-bay was also the wrong adapter.  The computer is now sitting in a corner in my junk room.  Nice Computer that wont do what I need it to do. After 17 times of dealing with people in India, I asked to speak to an American, and was told I would have to buy a service contract at $200+ in order to speak to an American that I could deal with better after 17 transfers and dropped calls and 4 hours of wasted time. After giving a negative survey there was no follow up.

I DON'T UNDERSTAND ALOT OF THE NEGTIVE THINGS ABOUT DELL, I HAVE TWO DELL XPS DESK TOP COMPUTERS AN WHEN I NEED HELP THEY HAVE A SPECIAL SECTION FOR XPS OWNERS, NOT INDIA BUT A GOOD OLD AMERICAN TECH. THAT ARE VARY SHARP AN NEVER TALKED TO INDIA AFTER I PURCHASED A XPS.

Well, I am buying my third Dell but not from Dell, but off of e-Bay.  This 1.6 Gig P4, wonder machine with 1 Gig of RAM and 60 Gig HDD does not come with Vista but it does come with XP, a serial as well as  parallel port.  

My first and second custom PCs were Gateways, back when Gateway was "the best."  Then I bought two Dells because they were the best.  Now?  I am buying Sony's, I know... the just recalled 440,000 because of wiring problems.  Why did I go back to a used Dell?  You guessed it, XP and serial/parallel ports.

I see the issues with Dell,  being new technologies, "the almighty dollar" ( stockholders, sub-standard componets, off-shore support) with Vista being the coup-de-grace.  I remember when everybody bitched and moaned about XP, just like they did with Me, Windowe 98, 98 SE, 95, 3.11 and 3.1.  For those of us who started with 8088 processors, DOS 3.3, 640 k, 5 1/2" floppy drives,  no hard drives, and Hercules graphic cards (circa 1988) we have come along way.

Unfortunately, today Dell is at the top of the "failuer" list.  This list is long and distinguished... IBM, Gateway, HP, Compaq, Texas Instruments, Commador have all been there.  As has Ford, GM, Chrysler, RCA, Zenith, Magnavox, Firestone to mention a few.

Being older I have the prespective of history, I am looking back and choosing the technologies I need.  My new (new to me) laptop comes with technologies I can use and at a lower price (but twice the weight)  of the new mini-9.    

Here are some perals of wisdom... buy what meets your "real needs," not what someone tells you need.  You'll be $$$$ ahead

I own two dell desktops and a laptop, recently had a problem with my laptop called dell, and was told  i had to setup a pay for answer account that would cost me money even though my laptop is only 37 days old, go figure. So I googled, my problem, and searched smart computing Q & A forum, solved the problem myself,

thanks, dell.