I need to find some new PCs for the small business I work for.

I would suggest at least getting a quote from a small computer company in your town. They can usually build you some decent machines with warranties and provide on-site service. Dell is generally good but I've seen some real problems with their provisioning (not enough RAM, etc).

Can you tell us about your problems dealing with Dell that make it a deal breaker? This will help with suggesting an alternative.

Call Dell back and mention that you're interested in starting a Pro Support relationship. That's the key here - it's an entirely different phone number and set of people who support you. Pro Support gets you excellent on-site hardware maintenance with a very quick turnaround and people who actually know what the hell they're doing.

Regarding the problems with Dell, we used to be happy with them, but their service and quality seems to have declined. We got a laptop from them recently. The motherboard failed only about 4 months after we got it while on the road, so the user had to just buy a new laptop from a store near the airport just to have something for his meeting that day. Attempts to get someone from Dell to come and fix it after he got back were disastrous. They kept either sending people who didn't know what they were doing, or who weren't given the parts they needed. When they did get the part, we found out that they wouldn't even give us a new motherboard; they would only use one that had been refurbished. It ended up taking them 3 weeks, and I had to fight them every step of the way to get them to even show up. To make matters perfect, the user of this laptop is our company's president, who was about to meet with a big client before the laptop failed. Needless to say, he now has some strong thoughts on the advisability of buying a Dell, and I have to say that I agree. So, what I need from a PC maker that Dell can't provide is reliability and efficient service for repairs.

odinsdream, Thanks, but Dell is ruled out. see my entry above.

Thanks for clarifying - I can understand why you want to go elsewhere even if this hasn't been our experience here with a business account and business support. Have you looked at HP? Through the business store the standard warranty seems to be 3 years onsite, next business day, 3 years parts and 3 years labor and includes free telephone support 24 x 7. HP have been reliable for us although they are typically 10-20% more expensive than Dell (this is a guesstimate based on my experience of buying desktops and servers)

I've never had a problem with Dell PC's, at work or at home. I've owned and worked with quite a few. Dell laptop and netbook, yep, both had issues. The Toshiba laptop I had at one job sucked, literally, had to prop it up to get the fan to quiet down a bit.

Lenovo/ThinkPad? HP/Compaq? Besides Dell's business lines (Latitude, Optiplex, etc.), those are the brands that I tend to think of when looking at small business PCs. But I've tended to buy Dell, so I don't have particular experience with the other companies. In any case, you should pay for the fancier support contracts, especially if you may be trying to get warranty support away from your office. In this later case, a local hardware vendor may not be able to help.

I got a http://www.velocitymicro.com/category.php?cid=20 for work after I decided I'd never buy anything from Dell again. It may have been a little pricier - I didn't compare - but it's been excellent. No crapware pre-installed, no weird inexplicable problems. I can't say anything about their support because I've never needed it, but if I was buying a new PC, I'd go there first. And their salespeople seemed very good - it's probably worth a call to request prices for several units. Good luck,