I had a horrible experience with a Dell laptop a few years ago. I bought it because of the price/specs combination, but it had so many problems.
The problems started with the purchase. My credit card had a security feature where they texted me to ask about a large purchase, and I had to be transferred to 3 or 4 different departments calling Dell sales support trying to get them to recharge my card. Then, I had to deal with the computer itself.
The webcam was horrible, at an odd angle, and it displayed weird horizontal line artifacts that made me look like I'm on a bad 90s CRT monitor. The speakers were extremely glitchy until about a year of driver upgrades. The built-in microphone never worked without making me sound like a robot. The headphone jack never worked well, either.
The final straw was last month, when I tried to join a Zoom call from my personal computer for the first time in a few years. I installed Zoom, connected my external webcam and headphones, and Zoom crashed. Then, the Windows audio driver itself crashed. I restarted, and Bluetooth wouldn't come up for me to connect my headphones. Finally, after another restart, I was able to do a Zoom call with my external webcam and headphones.
It was comically bad. I bought an M1 MacBook Pro the next weekend, and it's the best computer I've ever had.
It's unfortunate, because I had a great experience with a Dell desktop in the mid 2000s, but their problems are really unacceptable. Stay away from Dell.
The problems started with the purchase. My credit card had a security feature where they texted me to ask about a large purchase, and I had to be transferred to 3 or 4 different departments calling Dell sales support trying to get them to recharge my card. Then, I had to deal with the computer itself.
The webcam was horrible, at an odd angle, and it displayed weird horizontal line artifacts that made me look like I'm on a bad 90s CRT monitor. The speakers were extremely glitchy until about a year of driver upgrades. The built-in microphone never worked without making me sound like a robot. The headphone jack never worked well, either.
The final straw was last month, when I tried to join a Zoom call from my personal computer for the first time in a few years. I installed Zoom, connected my external webcam and headphones, and Zoom crashed. Then, the Windows audio driver itself crashed. I restarted, and Bluetooth wouldn't come up for me to connect my headphones. Finally, after another restart, I was able to do a Zoom call with my external webcam and headphones.
It was comically bad. I bought an M1 MacBook Pro the next weekend, and it's the best computer I've ever had.
It's unfortunate, because I had a great experience with a Dell desktop in the mid 2000s, but their problems are really unacceptable. Stay away from Dell.