Not surprisingly, right now, lots of families and individuals are thinking of what hardware to buy for back to school before the new year/ college semester kicks off. We recently rolled out a Back to School area on Dell.com. Since that time it's garnered some attention from a few sites like Electronista, Maximum PC and CNET.
In those posts (and comments to them), people are focusing on whether or not our charts are a true apples to apples comparison based on components like processors, hard drives and graphics cards. I understand the desire to dig into the component details because they are important to a lot of customers out there. That said, the real point of this is that Dell offers great value and choice compared to Apple.
At
the same time, there was some good feedback in those blog posts and comments.
And we used some of that feedback to update the chart. For the sake of
transparency, we call out the clock speed of the processors that are featured
in the Dell systems. We added the wireless N option on the Zino HD, we included
the Apple Student Discount, plus a few other things. It's
also not just about hardware itself. For example, the Dell studio laptops offer
six color options, and all our laptops come standard with one year of LoJack's
anti-theft protection, while the desktops include 15 months of McAfee Security Center.
Click on the green image below to see the updated laptop comparison chart:
or click on the blue image below, then click the Desktops tab to see the updated desktop comparison one:
We're
asking customers to think before they purchase. Think about what the system
will be used for and what features are the most important. In my opinion, while
Apple does make solid products, in most cases, you are going to pay a premium.
And that premium can be several hundred dollars or more.
Once
seen as a luxury, PCs are quickly becoming a fundamental tool that
students and educators rely on to help them stay get ahead and stay
there. For those who missed Amy Bivin's post full of excellent Back
to School buying tips, if you are about to pull the trigger
on a new system soon, it's worth a look
College
students want a PC that can keep up with their workload, but also be their
escape portal when they are ready to relax and recharge, whether its gaming,
watching movies or streaming internet radio. Their PCs better have HD displays,
great audio solutions and enough horsepower to handle advance multitasking, or
maybe a little pre-exam Mafia II play,
all common features across most of the PCs we included on our charts.
And, of all our customers, student appreciate the Design Studio option to
personalize laptop with a unique look so that it won't likely be mistaken for
someone else's, which is why we teamed up with the
folks at Threadless. We sought to work with them for two
reasons: 1) tons of college students are active in their community and 2) They
represent one of the best examples of crowdsourcing. Another cool source of information that some of you may not
be aware of is DellUniversity.com.
It's a site that makes it easy to find your school (Go Longhorns!) to find
discounts and configurations that your school's guidelines for laptops and
desktops.
Click on the image below to go there:
