Why You Should Not Buy Name Brand Computers
The Obsolescence goes in WAY Before the Name goes
On
© Copyright 1995-2003 Mitchell G
Theophila. All Rights Reserved.
That pretty logo with the familiar name on
those computers at the local discount outlet hides lots of things you wouldn’t think
you were getting. Weird designs. Shoddy parts. Manufacturing shortcuts. Hidden
interdependencies. Expensive replacement parts that sell for three to four times their
stock equivalent.
This article exposes what’s really inside the name-brand computer -
and why you don’t want one!
Name brand computers.
When the big boys build a computer, they call on their in-house engineers to design a
system that meets two sets of goals: those set by marketing and those set by accounting.
Now salesmen and accountants are fine folks, but I doubt that either are qualified to
spec out your computer.
The goals set by marketing are great, as far as they go. They want their box to be hot,
so they write specifications for speed, capacity, connectivity, or the hot resource du
jour. It’s gotta have a burst pipeline and a Pention Extreme! And a connection to the
InterWeb! And a 600x CD-ROM!
Lost in the hoopla are features we want in our computers: little things like
'serviceability' and 'value'.
Value is lost because what's optimal for marketing isn't optimal for the consumer.
For instance, for many years, anything faster than a 12x CD ROM drive could outrun
anything to which it was attached; but the whole time, new brand-name computers were being
built with CD ROM drives of 24x, 48x and faster .. at least twice what was needed for
optimal performance. Why pay for more than you could ever use? But none of the
brand-name people wanted to market a PC with a 12x CD ROM against a competitor's otherwise
equivalent model with a faster CD drive.
Serviceability is, for instance, where you are able to customize your computer hardware
to suit the job you want it to perform. Adding a SCSI card, a network adapter, a USB
device or a cash drawer shouldn't be a big project.
The accountants’ goals are significantly less dramatic, but no less important to
the company: the machine has to be built as cheaply as possible.
Note that no one concerned with customer satisfaction has yet appeared on the scene.
When the engineers get the specifications, they have to make lots of design tradeoffs,
to get the best feature set into the computer for the lowest price. They often keep
hardware costs down by cutting corners.
For instance, when an engineer knows that his part will always be in the presence of
certain other (company) parts, he can assume those company parts are there, rely on those
parts being there ... in short, design his parts to work with only the company parts. This
eases the requirements, and lowers the costs, for his designs.. but the dependencies
assumed in the designs don’t always get documented.
Another tendency: to package things strangely. If it cuts costs, do it. Several
manufacturers combine i/o jacks -- mouse, serial port, keyboard -- in the same part. This
greatly reduces fabrication costs. But jacks are subject to stress, and sometimes require
replacement. These manufacturer’s systems require that you replace all the ports if
one fails, for a price in the hundreds of dollars -- but these parts individually packaged
cost in the tens of dollars.
Another tendency: to leave it out if it’s not in the spec, even if it’s
something the users will need. Often, anything that’s not essential to minimal
computer operation is stripped from the product. At one time, a major computer
manufacturer featured 486 systems with no external cache. While such systems will run,
they’ll run slowly because the 486 architecture was designed to use external cache;
the 486 can’t run optimally without it. But don’t worry: you can buy (often
custom) external cache from this manufacturer as an add-on option.
These machines are OK if used as-is but they upgrade with difficulty. And once out of
warranty, they’re usually not worth the trouble of repairing them!
Many mass-produced or ‘name brand’ systems include software. While there are
sometimes attractive titles in the offerings, they are often one or more release levels
old. Another favorite ploy: include ‘demo’ versions of software packages with
the computer to drum up after-market software sales.
Systems with ‘pre-installed’ software sometimes don’t come with
installation disks, making it impossible to reinstall the product if it should become
necessary. Some vendors of systems with pre-installed software have a method for you to
make your own installation disks from the pre-loaded software, but you’ve still got
to go to the trouble of doing so.
Summary
Name brand computers:
Are built cheap.
Have weird designs, that are cost-effective for their manufacturers because of
quantity.
Are "disposable" : not designed for upgrade, or difficult to upgrade.
Are hard to repair, as it is often difficult to find affordable replacement parts.
Include software that is usually several versions old or just enticing demo packages.
When preinstalled you usually don’t get the installation disks.
Clones
The term "Clone" originally described computers designed to imitate the first
IBM PCs. The manufacturers of these "Clones", such as Compaq, are now the
builders of the name brand PC's we so strenuously advise against buying.
Today a clone means any non-name-brand PC. However, "cloneness" by
itself isn't any proof of quality. Some clone manufacturers aren’t very good.
The bigger ones, e.g., mail order places, etc., fall victim to the same problems that the
name brands have. use care!
What We Recommend
The computers that we recommend are those built and warranted by your quality local supplier!
They are built from commodity, name-brand parts that are intentionally upgradable,
interchangeable, and optimally configurable. (Note that while name brand systems
are to be avoided, name brand parts are a requirement!) Your
supplier will build a reliable system with these because it is too expensive for her or
him to warrant anything else.
After enough upgrades, you can assemble the castoff name-brand parts into a whole
'nother computer and give it to the kids! (or the parents!)
Look for a supplier who has been in business for a while and whose offerings are
up-to-date.
MGT Computer Solutions uses and recommends computers from MAI Computing Inc.
© Copyright 1995-2003 Mitchell G Theophila.
All Rights Reserved.
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