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Build More Durable Products

430 points posted to New Product Ideas, Simplify IT by aikiwolfie 11/28/07

I would like Dell to build more durable products. Something that will last a minimum of 5 years.

And by "minimum" I mean exactly that. The product shouldn't die a death after 5years and 3 seconds. Dell should be building goods that last.

cosmichellion
11/28/07
"I would like Dell to stop building more durable products".

You want them to "stop"? lol Ok, I'm just giving you a hard time but I know why you mean and it's a great idea. I have dells that have lasted 5+ years (desktops). However, with the way technology changes, anything i've had that long is pretty much junk anyway and I either give it away, donate, or sell it if I have money to upgrade. My inspiron e1705 is coming up on 2 years and it is still holding up well for a laptop but i'm making room for my m1530 and selling it to my brother. It'll never make it to year 5 in his hands. =)
aikiwolfie
11/28/07
I get confused sometimes. :op But this idea worryingly has 80 points LOL. Time for an edit me thinks.
jdelidc
11/28/07
i use my machines for 10 years, unless they just really really suck
aikiwolfie
11/29/07
I still have my original 486 PC. And it still works.
bbr
12/14/07
Ive had my machine for 6 years so far.
Dell dimension.

I would like to see tt made EASY to replace parts though, such as CPU, Memory etc, instead of having to flip open the entire box, just plug n play items easy like swapping a USB stick.
jdelidc
12/17/07
mine is. and it's a year old. takes maybe a minute to swap ram and 5 minutes to take the cpu out (never actually done it but took it out to clean the dust off it)
vardanian
Jan 19
Guys I guess today's laptops have 2 year to stay ideal tool. After that you better sell it and buy the fresh one. I guess DELL makes the quality products, but they predict the durability. Anyways I think my Inspiron 6400 is not the best one, especially the lcd panel's hinge. Though it will be nice laptop over the years...
aikiwolfie
Jan 19
I don't think I'll ever buy a Dell laptop. The vibe I'm getting from people on IdeaStorm tells me it's just not a worth while investment.

For anybody who owns a laptop please explain what is it that you are doing now that you didn't do two or three years ago with a laptop? Why do these machines need to be replaced so often? Wear and tear through rough handling? That's an argument for insisting on better build quality. A new "port" comes onto the market? That's just a weak excuse to buy a new toy. It can't handle Windows Vista? Do you actually need Windows Vista?
jdelidc
Jan 19
halo 2. & other games. gotta have vista for it. although personally, i'll never run windows again on a laptop. can't stand wating for those small hard drives (by small, in centimeters) while the processor sits there with a glass of kool-aid under an umbrella, board stiff
aikiwolfie
Jan 20
Fair enough. But gaming laptops aside? Why is there a need to continuously buy the same product every couple of years?
jdelidc
Jan 20
other than games there really ain't unless it breaks..... so why the crud did i demote? i guess another wrong click
fargo
Jan 20
what I want to see is a new gaming pc with a more normal size case not like the huge xps720, maybe like the
xps420 case or a tad bigger.It would have the intel x38 chipset and the latest processors with the customers
choice in mind on additonal hardware with a choice of xp or vista. but the most improtant thing in my mind
would be at least a 800w psu to handle todays and furture grafics.
vardanian
Jan 20
What about wireless usb, new technologies that come out very fast? Old laptop is a good typewriter. At least every 5 years the enterprize users need to change the whole software infrastructure. Games are the least... we have playstations and wiis for that!
aikiwolfie
Jan 20
Honestly for a gaming rig I'd be pushing for a 1Kw PSU and a quad core CPU with 8GB of RAM possibly more. Maybe 16GB, just to be safe. Triple SLI is now a reality without having to do some weird voodoo dance to make it work. I bet stable quad SLI won't be far behind. I wonder how ATI plan to match that?
jdelidc
Jan 20
how about a pair of quad cores with liquid cooling
aikiwolfie
Jan 21
You can have a pair of quad core Xeons in the Mac Pro. ;)
jdelidc
Jan 21
it's also in some of the servers but dell should make a desktop like that
aikiwolfie
Jan 21
I don't think they'd be able to sell it. You basically need to get a mortgage and sell a kidney to get a fully speced Mac Pro. PCs that powerful don't come cheap.
jorge
Jan 28
Durability reduces sales over time. Not a good Dell idea.
aikiwolfie
Jan 28
Which is why Dell needs to get into the upgrade market ;o)
winoffice
Mar 13
Dell's products already last 5 years and even more. I have Dell PCs which were made even more than a decade ago, and they still work.
aikiwolfie
Mar 13
winoffice are you deliberately resurrecting all my old threads just to make negative comments? Reminds of the story about Bill Gates throwing a tantrum because EA told him where to go when he tried to buy them out on the run up to the Xbox release. But hey some of these ideas were reasonably popular considering IS was fairly quiet at the time. A few more votes would be nice though.
bbr
Mar 17
My dell is still working just fine.
Though we got a few pcs at the office, the main thing that keeps breaking is the hard disks... quite odd.
out of about 10 machines, 3 of them have a hard disk that broke down after about 2 years.
 
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