achill co mayo ireland tel: 098 43786 email:

We then compared the Dell PC with branded PCs advertised by two County Mayo computer shops.

Both brand PCs advertised were older Pentium 4 HT systems with Microsoft XP home edition. The P4 HT processor was the forerunner to the Intel Dual Core and would now be about three years old. Processing speeds double every eighteen months, so three years is a long time in processor evolution time. The Pentium 4 HT does not quite match the speed or energy ratings of the more modern Intel Core Duo. Microsoft have also replaced XP with the more secure Vista operating system. Therefore XP is now on death row when it comes to support and updates from Microsoft. How long more, only Microsoft knows.

The branded systems also came with smaller flat screen monitors less hard disk space and one came with only 512MB RAM ( less than a quarter of the memory of the new Dell ). This was now a slightly unfair comparison as the branded computers were obviously older lower spec machines. Both systems were not bad, just dated.

Therefore is was suprising that the price of both branded computers was much more than that of the Dell Vostro. One was advertised at €395.71 more ( presumably the difference would be the price of the all in one printer which was included, although a slightly better model retails with Argos for €44.99 so there is still roughly a €350.72 difference ).

The other computer was advertised at €775 more. For that price you could have bought 2 Dell Vostro PCs and still have €172 left over to buy a printer.

It may be the case that both stores have not updated their web sites for a while and these may be out of date prices. As far as building a clone PC to the same spec and price as a Dell, it can not be done.

At the end of the day when the customer is buying a new computer , they make the best decision in purchasing based on their knowledge & information. If they are not familiar with the under the bonnet technology they can not really make an informed decision on what they are buying and may end up paying more for less.

Agtek does not build and sell it's own computers because we can not compete with the quality and price of a Dell PC. If the customer requires, we can build a computer to a modern specification and still beat the other computer suppliers in County Mayo on price. We do not keep stock, therefore the prices we get you are the latest competitive prices of our suppliers and are not marked up to cover last years dust gatherers.

We do recommend and resell Dell. We also offer a free consultancy service for buying your own Dell system online. This service is free if you connect to Dell website via the links in this website.

To find out more contact us today. To see Dell's latest offers click here.

*Microsoft and Microsoft Windows are registered trademarks of the Microsoft Corporation in the United States and other countries