I got an interesting comment on my Dell Hell post, from GH who writes:

Well, it appears consumers are making their choices known:

http://www.techspot.com/news/23261-hp-surpasses-dell-in-3q-shipments.html

I’ve also heard that the high & mighty Michael Dell has come out of retirement, returned to his former company and plans to turn things around. Time will tell, and in my opinion, this will be a rather hefty undertaking. Dell’s reputation has really gone down the drain these past couple of years.

I continue to sell Sony, HP and Apple computers in my business….staying completely away from Dell.

Michael Dell came out of retirement in January and has supposedly made big steps to improve their customer service (including a recent layoff of 8,000 employees) and other things that led to hp overtaking them in sales towards the end of last year. Sadly for them (not that they care about lil ol me), I bought a new laptop a few weeks ago after my hubby’s was stolen (I love it - his gets stolen and *I* get a new laptop - coolness!), and just so happened to pick an hp. Aaron had recommended hp a long time ago (before he became a Mac fanboy), so that was my first look and final choice. It didn’t hurt that it was super cool and all white (special edition) and had a built in webcam and microphone (all the Mac features I have been envious of without none of the PITA of changing to an unknown OS).

So, good luck to Dell in making improvements, I hope they do. But the convenience of being able to run out and purchase and take home immediately an hp far outshines the 2-3 weeks of waiting for a Dell, and certainly the bad taste that still sits in my mouth from our experience with Dell’s customer service. What used to be a household of 5 Dells and 4 Dell cheerleaders now sits at two remaining Dells living out the end of their useful lives, one Lenovo, one Gateway and one hp. Lenovo and hp have the Jones fanclub at this point. Partially because Lenovo sent out a HAWT tech guy to the house one day. Ha - I am so easily swayed.

Now, I hope hp’s customer service doesn’t go the way of Dell’s. And I really hope I never have problems with my laptop so I don’t ever have to find out how it compares. And at the very least, I hope they send out hot tech guys.