Review on Dell by Phil Hoston

Dell are among the world's leading technology companies helping to transform people's lives with extraordinary capabilities. At least that is what they say, on their several websites. I decided to opt for a new computer in 2018. As a sports betting pro for more than 10 years, I always have three major tickboxes that need to be filled, when it comes to buying new hardware:

First, offer me the best possible live-streaming quality. No lagging. No slow-down, even when watching up to 5 games at the same time, with multiple displays involved.

Second, I do not need much - but I do need Excel and the Browser to work fluently, while watching the games, too.

Third, do not charge me for stuff I do not require - I won't work on graphic design, I won't pay for insanely good audio.



Those three things were exactly what I told the guy on the phone - I called the Dell hotline. Being out of the computer nerdy business for ages at that time, I thought my desires were not as far away from reality and relatively easy to fulfill. I can you tell that much: I was wrong.

I ended up ordering two monitors, a bunch of cables and two screens, which was exactly what I wanted to buy. Delivery took forever but finally reached its destination, and I opened the package.



I set up the hardware, turned on the monitors and got the thing going. After around 5 minutes, when installing the usual stuff (which is actually supposed to be fun, since everything is new and clean), I realized, that this computer - which was supposed to only tick three boxes - was lagging. It was legging. Literally in use for the first time of its IT hardware life, it started lagging when I did basic things, e.g. starting the Google Chrome browser while having a setup installing stuff. How could that be?



Turns out it got worse, when I actually wanted to watch several games at the same time, while keeping spreadsheets and browser tabs open. I was, honestly, super clear on what my expectations were on the phone. Fast, enough RAM, good graphic card. None of it seem to work. After trying to solve the issue (which was tough, since the setup was totally new and no things could be cleaned or repaired), I figured that the maximum performance was two HD streams at the same time, with one browser tap open and one excel application running. It did not make the whole computer useless, but since I waited an eternity for shipping, this was just super disappointing.



I ended up paying 1.2k EUR for this, and it got slower every month. After two years, eventually, I did not use it any more, since I did not want to buy further hardware.



Bottom line: Do not trust random service guys from a company, when it comes to special needs and requirements. Build up your own knowledge for hardware. Since then, Dell is dead to me.