Guys ! I need help choosing a dell system.

I have a 13 year old Dell Inspiron 9300 [17inch], an 8 year old Dell Inspiron 1545 [15inch] & an 18 month old Dell Inspiron 7779 [17inch].
- The oldest & the newest are solidly made and have metal casings.
- The 8 year old has a plastic casing and cracks have developed that I have taped up effectively.
- On the 8 year old one, I have also had to make & fit replacement rubber feet because the originals wore out and blocked the vents causing overheating crashes.
- On both the 13 & 8 year old ones, I have been inside to replace parts without difficulty.
- Both the 13 & 8 year old ones have had hinge-loosening problems that have forced me to dismantle the screen so I can tighten all the hinge nuts. The Dell website now boasts that they test hinges a million times.

A friend of mine has a Dell Latitude E6500 that is probably about 5 years old.
- He has also experienced cracks that have had to be taped up.

I suggest that you can only make an informed decision by searching for reports of the experiences of users of the particular models you are considering.

- Dell Support are not completely useless all of the time and if you enjoy having people hang up the phone on you then you will enjoy owning a Dell. I spent a year unsuccessfully asking Dell support to sell me a replacement battery for my Dell Inspiron 7779 [it has an internal battery which is generally not stocked by resellers].
- I have an HP printer and have had a better experience of dealing with HP Support - they have eventually responded to my questions by going away and finding somebody who knew the answer. Their equipment costs more but providing tech support is an expensive undertaking for any business.
- I also understand that users rate HP Support much more highly then Dell Support but I have not searched for such rankings for a couple of years now and they can change radically each year.

Best of luck,
Denis

I've lived and worked in the Austin, TX, area for over 40 years. I've been buying Dells since Dell got started in the late 1980s. They are not perfect machines, and some of them are better than others. Right now, I own 3 Dell machines: one hybrid tablet, one convertible tablet, and one All-in-One. All were purchased (or received as a gift from Dell) in 2012 or 2013. All are still running fairly well. Of all the major brands, I like only Lenovo better (I've owned laptops or PCs from Acer, Asus, Fujitsu, HP, LG, MSI, Sony, and Toshiba as well). I also wrote laptop reviews for Tom's Hardware for about 5 years in the early 2000s.

FWIW, I agree with the advice from Denis ( @Try3 ) who recommends that you buy based on professional and user reviews of the specific Dell models that interest you. Dells vary a LOT from make to make and model to model, so it pays to spend some time researching and pondering your choices closely and carefully.

HTH,
--Ed--