No Dell Or HP/Compaq Please - If You Ask Me

In the shortest way I can come up with here the reasons why I currently recommend to stay away from Dell and HP/Compaq computers.

At the time of writing about 5 or 6 months ago Hewlett Packard (HP) announced publicly that they want to sell their complete PC computer business. The price tag was quoted as US $ 11.2 Billion.

Not only their back then CEO lost his job over this publicity blunder, no, 6 or 8 weeks later, after a new CEO got hired, HP declared "No, we changed our mind, we want to keep our PC computer business".

In November/December 2004 IBM announced that they were selling their PC computer business to an until then almost unknown company in China named Lenovo. I remember very well the confusion that ensued. It took years until all was sorted out and we slowly learned to trust the new brand Lenovo.

I would accept a personal wager that HP is still talking about selling their PC business, but now behind closed doors. With the IBM/Lenovo story in mind I can not recommend to buy from HP, a manufacturer that may not be around anymore in maybe less than one year.


Dell is a slightly different story. Please read this article on my blog and follow the link I have there to the New York Times article about a class action lawsuit against Dell. After reading this you will understand why in good conscience I can not recommend to buy a computer from Dell, a company with a proven history of lying to their customers and of shirting well-grounded warranty claims as company policy.

As usual I welcome comments and suggestions right here in the blog. Thank you in advance.

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