why is dell inspiron so cheap?

dell offers 35% or $750 almost on a daily basis which makes they inspirons one of the cheapest out... im not complaining cuz as a student, dell is the only thing i can afford for a performance laptop... now im just curious, what makes it so cheap??? is it just as good as other brands, like fujitsu or toshiba???

 

I wish Dell had screens and keyboards like those guys, then I would be confused why is Dell so "cheap".

 

Dell systems really arent cheap without the coupon, and people who didnt do any shopping pay the full price, and those who did do research get the coupon, so think of it like an reward or something.

 

Another reason is that dell is a well-known manufacturer and one of the top brands in computers/laptops. Besides, when those dell commercials came out (the "you're getting a dell, dude"), it seems like everyone wanted a dell.

 

My INspiron 700m was 1900 then with Tax (I live in Canada) It was like 2200$. That ain't cheap, and htey're all like that, all of the Dell laptops. I find that it is a veyr good product though, maybe because I don't have that much experience with other machines.

 

thats because you bought it in canada... i live in vancouver but there's no way im gonna order it here, knowing that i could pay 500+ less for the same configuration just an hour and a half drive away on the other side of the border...

 

why are dells cheap?

volume volume volume. Also exclusive contracts. Heck the exclusive contract that Intel signed with Dell basically guarantees Dell to get Intel's chips at far better price than any of Dell's competitor can ever hope to get!

When you are the absolute industry leader, you can afford to undercut others.

cheers,

scheiss

 

Dell is not cheap in other country! It is so expensive in Malaysia and Singapore.

Without the coupon, they are expensive.

It may seem cheap to us because Dell sell volumes here and also the currency exchange rate to our advantage.

 

What are you going to do? Drive across the border, set up camp for 2 weeks, phone up dell and have them ship it to your car?

Hehe, sorry for the sarcasm, its early and i need sleep!

 

Referring to the intel contract, no wonder they have so much headroom. Not only do they get a deal on the processors but they overprice them by a near infinite amount.

 

Yea, it's not a big secret that the primary reason Dell can't go AMD is because their contract with Intel prohibits them to get anything else. And you wonder why AMD is sueing Intel for monopolistic practices...

cheers,

yass

 

that...

or have dell shipped it over to a friend's house...

but anyway i have changed my mind in gettin a dell after reading up on some AMD turion 64 reviews... i cant find a reason to pick an intel machine over one equipped wit a faster n cheaper 64-bit turion, since power consumption is not my top concern...

now i have my eyes locked on the acer ferrari 4000... boy is that design sexy

 

how many times can you get a 17 inch wuxga screen with
pentium m 750 1.86ghz
1.25gigs of ddr2 sdram
60gb hd
geforce 6800 go 256mb video card

for under $1600 with tax?

 

dell is just using the coupons as a ploy to raise revenue by targeting some of the latent demand. there is very little profit from $700 notebooks but it looks good on the final line if they have higher revenue. That way, their factories don't go to waste and they break even with the factory investment. Also, they are saturating the market with their notebooks and helping themselves build brand name.

 

I wonder what the profit margin is for Dell, and for other manufacturers for that matter.

 

I don't believe they are making a huge profit, but it's decent enough so that when they sell these laptops like hotcakes with these generous coupons, they still break even. It's probably around 200-300 per laptop, maybe less, probably more than that. I'm just giving conservative estimates. HP insures their laptops when they ship it out for 500, when they sell the laptop for about 1000....but that was for a laptop built in China. With a Malaysian built machine, profit margins are probably less, but quality is slightly higher...which is beneficial for both the manufacturer and consumer.

 

Let us consider a $1500 notebook with a $750 coupon:
A List of Parts - My Estimated Cost for Dell

Intel 1.6GHz FSB 533MHz - $175 minus $25 rebate minus dell loyalty = $130
40GB 5400 RPM Hard Drive - $40
Sony 8X DVDRW - $40
6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery - $20
ATI X300 GPU + 64MB worth Memory Chips - $50
256MB DDR2 Ram Module - $12
Print Circuit Board/Capacitors/Resistors - $35
Two Heatpipes and Heatsinks - $10
Centripetal Blower - $3
Plastic For Casing - $15
Screen - $125
Power Supply - $15
Shipping - $20 since dell mass ships
Technical Support - $25
Assembly - $25

Total: $540
other costs for dell is if you screw up your computer and needs replacement which would cost dell about 75 bucks a pop.

So dell doesn't really earn money off of coupon buyers...the profit can easily disappear if the stupid customer get the computer broken.
Only when people pay $1200 for that configuration can we see some nice $300 profits. The rule of thumb is that if the good doesn't have a bloated price (designer, advertised too hell etc etc), they usually cost 60% of what you pay for it.

 

Two words: volume buying

Since Dell sells the most notebooks, they're able to purchase everything at a lower cost than their competitors (like Wal-mart). But like Wal-mart, price dictates what the Inspirons are made of, not quality (Fujitsu and IBM work the other way around, which is why their notebooks can't match Dells on price).

 

Really? It's kinda ironic then that both IBM and Dell are made (well, used to anyway, not sure about Leveno now) by the same ODM named Quanta.

I'm very certain Fujitsu also uses an ODM, probably Quanta as well, but most companies try to hide as best as they can the fact that they uses ODM. As to profit margins -- such data is easily obtainable since Dell is a public company.

EDIT: Just checked, Dell's last-year revenue is $51.05B, their last-year net-income is $3.25B, give them a profit margin of 6.4%.

Sure that seems not very high compared to Micro$oft's profit margin of 28.89%, but it's quite good if you compare it to HP's 4.31%, and downright astronomical if you compare it to Gateway's -11.17% profit margin... lol

BTW IBM's profit margin is at 8%+, because they really can't be classified as a hardware company anymore -- they are more of a "service" company.

cheers,

yass

 

How is that ironic? It's the same as buying a car. Many auto manufacturers base their luxury and mainstream brands off the same platforms (Toyota Camry and Lexus ES330 or Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator come to mind) but if you look at the numbers, the luxury brands are always more reliable than their mainstream counterparts.

The same thing can be applied to notebooks. Even if Quanta did make notebooks for many companies, they could dictate the quality by the price and the time they put into it. Dell could say they want the notebooks built as cheaply as possible, while IBM and Fujitsu might say they want quality to be a priority. And what are you trying to say by quoting the finances of tech companies? I wasn't trying to say that Dell is unprofitable at all, just that they can buy parts cheaper because of economies of scale.

Oh btw, didn't LG make notebooks for IBM? I thought that's why their non-compete agreement just ended this year.

 

I quoted financial figures because someone was talking about it.

I don't know about LG, but I'm very certain that Quanta used to make IBM notebooks.

First of all, every luxuary car owner can attest that the luxuary brands are NOT always more reliable... lol Jaguars(aka: Ford) are some of the worst built cars in the world(just like... well, Ford in general...), bimmers aren't bulletproof either, and don't get me started on Audi... lol The only reliable luxuary brands are the Japanese ones and the tri-star -- Lexus being the best, the reason? It's made by Toyota. Sticking some expensive leather, give it a more attractive skin, and price it at a premium doesn't suddenly improve its quality -- you get the *perception* of improvement, but really it's a false sense of security. Jaguar's horrible because it's built by Ford, Lexus is good because it's built by Toyota, not the other way around.

That being said, this really isn't a good analogy. As Lexus and Toyota are both under the same parent company -- Toyota. I.E. Toyota doesn't outsource the manufacturing to lets say GM to make their cars. This is more akin to say that there's a difference between Dell Latitude and Dell Inspiron -- because well, they are 2 different lines in the same company. However...

Quanta is an independent ODM -- the biggest in the world for notebook in fact. Not only do they control product quality, they oftentimes go as far as design the bulk of the notebooks that the OEMs sell. For instance they've publicly stated that they did the bulk of the design work for Apple's iBook. Under one roof everything is done to the same ISO standard, the only difference is probably in QC at the OEM end. As to materials -- rest assured that almost everything inside is going to be made in China, regardless of who the OEM is.

I'm just speaking from experience that this perceived difference in quality is an illusion nowdays. I've had both Dells and IBMs, and in terms of longivity, they are about the same. In fact, my Dell latitude that I've had since 1997 is still in pefect working condition, battery and all, but not my IBM that I bought 3-4 years ago -- the battery refused to hold a charge. Almost ALL my friends who have IBMs complain about the same exact thing -- battery sucks. Do I like their fit and finish? yes. Are they better than Dell? yea definitely -- Dells are super-ugly. But therefore IBMs are better built? hmm. no I don't think so. It's just my opinion.

cheers,

yass

 

First of all, I didn't say that all luxury brands are reliable; the key words are that they are more reliable than their mainstream counterparts. Perhaps you should take a look at the JD Powers Initial Quality surveys and see where the brands stack up.

Let's say Quanta makes the Inspiron and the Thinkpad lines. How is that any different from GM producing the Pontiac and Cadillac lines? Both are making two different products off of similar parts. And in case you didn't know this, automakers also collaborate on building platforms and engines (Toyota Matrix and Pontiac Vibe is an example). According to your logic, since they share the same engine and components, they should have the same quality, which they don't.

Every manufacturer has lemons in their products. If they didn't, most consumers would never buy anything else. Keep in mind that the number of Dells and IBM you've owned do not truly represent the norm for these two companies. And when I said quality, I was referring to it in the holistic sense - looks, build, reliability, fit and finish.

 

It's completely different, because both Pontiac and Cadillac BELONG TO GM! Inspiron is a trademark of Dell, and Thinkpad is a trademark of IBM, Dell and IBM does NOT BELONG TO QUANTA.

In this instance, Quanta is merely the ODM. GM is *NOT* the ODM of Pontiac/Cadillac -- GM is the owner, and manufacturer of these brands, and the liability lies with GM. Quanta just makes computers under OTHER companies brand name, they do NOT have any liabilities to the consumer -- these other OEMs (i.e. IBM or Dell, does). Your GM analogy is more like Dell with it's 2 lines of products: the Inspiron line and the Latitude line.

Ahh but I disagree -- they DO essentially have the same quality. My gf has a Matrix that she adores, and I've test drove it and the Vibe. I'd say for all essentiall purposes they ARE the same. The interior layout is exactly the same, the engine layout is exactly the same. The exterior skin is different, but that's merely cosmetics. The only reason why she got the Matrix was because it looked better (which I agree).

By that logic, NOBODY would own enough of either of these to be able to justify anything. Considering that Dell sells over 140,000 units a DAY, and IBM, although of much less volume, still a quite substantial amount I'd imagine. The few complaints you see online or read about, simply doesn't matter. I'm not saying IBMs are bad or whatnot, I'm merely saying that the perception that they are of higher quality than Dell, or anybody else (well, other than the craptacular Toshiba), is somewhat misled. You are going to hear more complaints from Dell, because they sell a lot more than others. They are cheaper due to a variety of reasons -- least of which is quality. As to IBM being a business machine and Dell being "homely" -- the simple fact is that Dell sells FAR more units to institutions and businesses than probably IBM and the rest of the OEMs combined! Dell's core business is *institutional* buyers and NOT home buyers.

cheers,

yass

 

I hope you didn't forget to read my first post because now you're talking as if I said that Dell sells more computers simply because it has lower quality.

 

hey hmm where do you guys get those cupons?
i want some too lol

 

When you're reading this, scroll up to the top and look at the tabs. First should say Home. Look at the 5th tab and that should lead you to the coupons.

 

No, I was referring to the common perception that IBM = higher quality because it's more expensive or whatever reason.

I'm simply point out the fact that IBM and Dell were, and probably still will be, built from the same plant, rolling off the same assembly line next to each other, manufactured to the same ISO standard by the ODM.

What has selling more computer to do with lower quality? I don't think I ever made that reference, implicit or explicit, in my posts.

cheers,

yass

 

ahh icic thanks thanks lol
damn so theres no cupons for latitude ?

 

Yeah, Dell doesn't offer coupons for the latitudes. They take the discounts directly off the latitude and also off free upgrades.

There is also coupons listed on our main page ( Notebook and Tech Deals ), as well as the sticky on this forum ( Dell Coupons) that might have additional coupons for other parts of Dell's site like Electronics and Accessories.

 

Also I talked with Dell small business and I asked them specifically why there are always coupons for the Insprion series. well southerngirl is correct about all the coupons and that. But here is what also must be known. Dell Latitudes are built of higher quality components than the inspiron line. The Dell Latitude cases themselves are built of a metal tri compound, I believe mainly magnesium. Dell Latitudes are bought at higher prices, as most of them are made by Quanta. The Dell US salesman told me that he would only get a Latitude.

Quote from Dell's Website "Latitude vs. InspironTM
Dell offers notebook systems that meet a wide range of needs. Dell Inspiron notebooks are ideal for individuals and home users who demand fast performance and the latest technology at an aggressive price, without the need for long product lifecycles and managed transitions."

Read this http://www1.us.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/solutions/en/why_latitude?c=us&l=en&s=gen