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A couple of days ago, my friend told me of her interests to buy a Dell PC and seeked my opinion. I gave her the green light, telling her that there should be no problem and Dell online are always offering great value.
Then I went to Dell Malaysia website itself to see what they have to offer.
I spotted this model - Dell Inspiron 530 , not bad for someone who just need to surf the web and chat online.
This is the actual specifications before any customization.
Since her budget is RM2000, I thought it would be better if I see what upgrade options are available so I clicked on 'Customize now' and I got the shock of my life.
The upgrades are way too expensive, even upgrading to an 'obselete' processor is priced 2 times more expensive than how much it would have cost in Lowyat Plaza. And it's an 'upgrade', not buying a new one.
The processor bundled with Dell Inspiron 530 is Intel(R) Pentium(R) Dual-Core E2200. Upgrading to an obselete processor - E6700 cost a bomb - RM2448 for a processor upgrade! I thought I saw RM244.80 but it's actually RM2448!
And the processor upgrade to E8500 is RM1296 when the current retail price is only RM685 at shops in Lowyat Plaza! Look at the picture below to see how the upgrades are priced and compare them with the retail price of a shop in Lowyat Plaza
And I thought maybe there's a mistake somewhere so I clicked on the Live Chat and within seconds a Dell representative was there. To read the chat log between the Dell representative and me as well as other parts which were priced exhorbitantl, click read more.
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While waiting for the 'error' to be fixed. I decided to see other upgrade options, and it seems like everything else is way overpriced.
And it seems like all the upgrades are overpriced
RAM and Monitor upgrade
And now compare it with the extract from the pricelist of PC Zone in Lowyat Plaza
And next, graphics card upgrade
A check with ModernoPC.com reveals that they are selling HD 4850 512MB DDR3, a much more powerful graphics card at RM599 only.
So I tried to upgrade the basic Inspiron 530 with all the most expensive upgrades, and this is what I got.
The last I recalled, inflation rate was 7.7% only, never knew Dell upgrade price is 100-200% more expensive than the market price.
I asked Mun Yew , if I were to build a gaming PC with RM5.8k, what should I get and he gave me this
| Intel Core i7 i920 |
1080 |
| Asus P6T Deluxe (bundle with 3GB DDR3) |
1490 |
| 1TB Seagate SATA2 HDD |
390 |
| 20x Pioneer SATA DVDRW |
90 |
| 512MB Sapphire HD 4870 |
899 |
| CoolerMaster HAF932 Casing |
499 |
| 650W Corsair TX PSU |
440 |
| Total: |
4888 |
| Windows Vista Home Premium OEM |
289 |
| Samsung 2233SW LCD |
585 |
| Microsoft Desktop Set |
55 |
| Total (CPU + LCD + KB & MSE): |
5817 |
What are you waitng for, they have 'Dell special promotions' going on 
Disclaimer : I'm not saying you should not buy Dell, Dell has been offering great value and after sales support, but buyers must becareful when upgrading as you can read above, the upgrade are priced ridiculously. If you end up upgrading too much, you might as well opt for a higher end Dell computer and upgrade from there.
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