Why is Dell so cheap? (and some other question)

I want to buy a notebook before September when the new school year start.
I know it is 4 month away but I want start looking now and get the best deal.
I have compared notebook price from retail stores, online store, Ebay, and Dell notebooks is the cheapest by far. Dell is about 20% – 30% even compare to those on sale notebooks in Bestbuy.
My question is does this mean Dell notebook have bad quality compare to other brand notebooks?????
I have heard bad stories about dell computers and their servers…..

My friend told me that computer price drop the most is before September when students are buying computer for school and Christmas time. Is this true??? Should I buy just before school start?

My last question is when will the new model of E1505/6400 that can install better Graphic card come out? (ati x1600 maybe??)[/SIZE]

 

I think one of the main reasons for dell being cheaper than most other brands is because they dont deal with 3rd party distributers, they sell direct to the customers which allows them to offer a cheaper price to the consumer.

 

Think of Walmart. Walmart sell things to you cheaply because they buy it by the boatload. Dell can sell computers cheaply because they buy eleventy bajillion parts at once.

 

Economies of scale is one - they buy everything and sell everything in bulk so they pass the "savings" onto consumers. That doesn't mean they buy the best parts.

 

They don't have large inventory or don't have to deal with storage?

 

because of the economies of scale that we are talking about, dell, along with all the other OEMs must buy the same parts as every other manufacturer because only a small handful of manufacturers can supply the dells, sonys, ibms, etc, with the amount of motherboards, lcds, hard drives, ram, etc. that they need on a daily basis.

 

because Dell is smart

when they sell you the laptop they are actually losing money but how it works is by the time it ships, the parts they are buying have gone down in price considerably. it sounds retarded but it's how most companies operate. also they make a TON and I mean a TON of money on the bogus warranties. you have to realise in one years time most of the hardware on your laptop can be purchased for probably a similar amount as if you had spent on the warranty itself. paying 300-500$ + on warranties is just the worst invesment you can make.

 

In addition, Dell uses the lowest cost available or cheapest video cards for almost all of their lineups minus the XPS M170 laptops.

 

And the "limited edition" E1705 with the 7800 Go!

 

If you can wait until Late August to purchase, you will have the latest and greatest for about 3 months until the next great processor and video card come out in December.

Dell is aggressively selling laptops at up to $750 off of $1999 computers.

Watch out for links that may package 3 year in home warranties or other stuff. Try copying the coupon codes and accessing the Dell site directly. Educational and Institutional 'discounts' will include 2-3 year warranties but will be heavily discounted. In the process you are paying for a warranty where instead you can be upgrading to the next grade of processor, RAM, or HD space/RPM speed.

 

It comes down to their direct sales and the fact that they are so huge and have deals with businesses.

Its hard to say when the best time is to buy-last time I did was in august 2002 just in time to have some artificially expensive samsung ram included in my PC ahh pricefixing! I now have crucial ram in my dell

Dell is the best buy in terms of costs and I'd say they are good but usually not excellent machines with the exception of the XPS line.

 

Plus outsource tech support as well as no in store over heads oh and also bungling competitors like gateway

 

Why is Dell cheap??? Have one look, one touch of their previous grey plastic inspirons and you will know why. The cheapest, dirtiest and most rotten plastic ever available on the planet was used on it, its beyond pathetic. And they usd to sell it for only a few hundred dollars cheaper then HP!!!! Can you imagine the startling profit those cheeeepo dells made at probably 30% the production cost of other competing laptops.

The new line of inspirons are much better when compared to the older ones in terms of construction quality, my only complain now is that they look DARN UGLY. The only good system now seams to be the new Latitudes. They look promising and putting Dell back on the track of stiff competetion is really producing better results.

 

Because the before school rush is one of the biggest selling periods, all notebook manufactures are very aggressive on price. I'd suggest August. Do your research before then and jump when the right price is offered. Beware of the shipping lead time.

Unlike desktop PC's you cannot in most cases swap notebook graphics. For example, when you buy the E1505 with the intregrated 945GMA, the connector for the two ATI graphics cards is not even soldered to the MB.

Hermit