What is our primary use case?
Dell Business Laptops are primarily used in my organization within the legal area, accounting, the entire administrative part, and the use of Office suite tools and VPN. As a services consulting firm, we utilize these devices for everything related to delivering results to clients according to their needs, whether legal, accounting, financial, or insurance.
How has it helped my organization?
Dell Business Laptops have positively impacted my organization in that I chose the brand when I became manager because I considered that the after-sales support, such as technical support for spare parts, gave me an advantage in warranties and in ensuring that the purchases made were guaranteed and that the company would not have to spend additional money. By acquiring a quality product I avoid expenses that could affect both productivity and finances. By getting a quick response, I can effectively guarantee business continuity, the durability of the devices, and scalability if necessary, in case these are not enough. I can speak about certain models, which at the time were Latitude. I could scale the models and at that point get the best performance, and obviously it shows because we, as the technical support area, get fewer calls and can focus on planning other activities.
People and departments are happy with the performance and the speed with which tasks and deliverables are completed, and maintenance is minimal.
What is most valuable?
The best features that Dell Business Laptops offer, in my opinion, are the ergonomic design, the layout of the keys, and the backlit keyboard in the case of executive devices. They have also been good in terms of performance, especially because they are devices that are used constantly and not for home use. The performance required for administrative, accounting, or heavy-use tasks has helped me meet these standards and have fast machines.
The ergonomic design and the backlit keyboard have impacted my team's productivity in that it has to do with the user's comfort. The ergonomic keyboard is comfortable to work with when pressing the keys and, in addition, in dark spaces, the backlit keyboard helps a great deal to improve visibility and avoid strain or fatigue. The screen size and the screen technology have been quite essential so that the user can have high performance and little fatigue.
What needs improvement?
I would like to add that the design and materials must always be high performance. Lately, they have declined, but I trust that the brand can get back to designing devices that are durable and also contain enough technology to be fast and, above all, have a long lifespan.
Dell Business Laptops could improve on the materials used in the devices and especially the after-sales support. This is mainly important so that there is no delay in case any of the devices comes with a defect.
There is no other improvement I consider necessary for Dell Business Laptops besides the ones I already mentioned.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Dell Business Laptops for around twelve years.
How are customer service and support?
My experience with Dell Business Laptops customer support was very successful from about 2014 when we started buying Dell devices until 2023. Honestly, there was no reason for me to think about other companies. I took over the area as manager, so that was even more in my favor. Everyone worked comfortably and smoothly, but there was a decline. The same reason why I had to drop HP is what also made me think about not going back to Dell. In that regard it has declined quite a bit. They became very bureaucratic, in a way that instead of helping me, it hinders things, and in that respect it really left me a very bitter experience.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Before deciding on Dell, I evaluated other brands, such as HP, and precisely the reason I discarded HP was the poor after-sales service. Once the sales were made, if a device failed and was still under warranty, it was extremely exhausting to try to get them to fix the problem. This caused delays and pressures which, although they had nothing to do with me in terms of the solution, in the end I have to be the face.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My experience with the price, implementation costs, and licenses of Dell Business Laptops is that right now with the increase in the cost of RAM and solid-state drives, it has become quite excessive. Devices, especially in the Latitude line, have gone up in price a lot. I somehow have to find a way to keep acquiring these devices. They have become very expensive, and it has honestly made it a bit difficult for me. Given the conditions in the country and many companies, I cannot make the same decision I made four or five years ago when it was a bit easier to make bulk purchases.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I considered other options or solutions before choosing Dell Business Laptops, but there were not many because I cannot choose consumer brands. At that time it was simply HP or Dell or IBM. IBM, honestly, I never had in mind. I was already working with HP. IBM never appealed to me due to another experience I had, in which I was neither the leader nor the decision-maker. I went directly with Dell, in addition to experiences I had already had in other institutions.
What other advice do I have?
The specific challenges I was looking to solve by choosing Dell for my organization were to have reliable devices that, in addition to being durable, practical, and comfortable, also have after-sales support that can back me up in case they fail.
With the reduction of calls to technical support, it is not that it affects productivity directly, on the contrary, it benefits it because by having stable, durable, well-designed, and above all comfortable devices, the user almost never calls us. As technical support, we can think about and focus on other initiatives.
My main priorities when selecting laptops for my organization are design, technology, and the most important thing for me is after-sales support. Because it can be a very attractive device in design and at a good price, but if after-sales support, when it comes to a warranty, is going to be problematic and instead of helping it makes things worse, then it is definitely something I will not choose.
The specific Dell Business Laptops line I am using or evaluating is Latitude. We acquired XPS at one point, but my entire organizational setup is based on Dell Latitude devices and on the local servers PowerEdge.
I have noticed direct financial savings thanks to the use of Dell Business Laptops, such as a longer useful life of the devices and lower technical support costs. A device that lasts longer and that can also be scalable automatically impacts my organization by allowing me to create an environment where I can improve with the best costs.
Concrete examples of how these savings have benefited my company include a reduction in operating costs. I am given a budget and within that budget for issues of failures or incident prevention, that is where we spend the least and we spend more on improvement projects. There are fewer device purchases, in the sense that I can make a planned budget for upgrades due to obsolescence but no longer due to emergencies. The savings in technical support are obvious because I do not have to pay extra beyond what we already have in-house in terms of knowledge.
My advice to others who are considering using Dell Business Laptops is that they carefully consider the after-sales support so that, in a warranty situation, the solution they tried to implement does not end up becoming a headache.
I hope they can once again focus on those characteristics for which they have been an excellent brand for many years, so that if I had to choose again at some point, I would know that they have gone back to the roots that made them strong. This review has an overall rating of eight point five out of ten.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.