question about Mesh

[magusZeal]

this is my first post, sorry if its in the wrong part of the forum.

Ive been looking to get a new gaming PC, ive looked at dell xps, alienware, vadim, scan, but ive noticed that Mesh are much cheaper compared to all of these. Mesh seem to give the same components for a much better price.

I looked at the Mesh Elite Titan
www .meshcomputers.com/Default.aspx?PAGE=PRODUCTVIEWPAGE&USG=PRODUCT&ENT=PRODUCT&KEY=185572
(upgrading the graphics card to 768MB nVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX).

So i just wanted to get all your opinions on the company, are they reliable, worth buying from, or should i look elsewhere.

[staffsMike]

in the care part of the forum there is a mesh section so you should probably have a good read from there.

They are highly regarded in general but do have some customer service issues I beleive.

[Lucio]

I've considered buying from MESH as well, but the thing that put me off was their customer service record. Whilst I've not had first hand experience, there does seem to be some quite severe re-occuring problems that crop on the threads in the MESH section such as missing items, wrong items delivered and almost everyone refers to a long wait on the phone system. Personally I'd pay a bit for more some customer service.

For comparison, the problems that crop up in the Scan section tend to be shipping problems, late deliveries or queries about faulty items.

[silentvoice]

Not saying Mesh aren't any good because I've never used them but other places to look into are Evesham (I've heard good things about them but are slightly more expensive) and Gladiator Computers (which I saw in CustomPC - the Trident CPC6600 won an award. Take a look at the forums for feeback but it seems a good spec for the price and the 8800GTS is a £70 upgrade.

Also I'm surprised Dell have stuck a 8800GTX card in their 9200 range (e-code 305-D04927r):

- Intel E6600 Processor
- 2048MB DDR2 667MHz
- 500GB Serial ATA RAID 0 Stripe
- 768MB GeForce 8800GTX
- X-Fi Xtreme Music
- 16x DVD+/-RW & 16x DVD Drives
- 13-in-1 Media Card Reader
- Dell 22" Black Wide Flat Panel
etc.

£1,199 inc del & VAT

[Blitzen]

They might be cheap but there is ALWAYS a reason when companies are!!

Personally....i wouldnt buy anything from them if it was half price.

When i build a PC for myself i know its right. You have no idea who or what for that matter, a company uses to build their machines.

Get yourself the parts and build yourself. THe warranties, most of the time, arent worth the paper they are written on and all parts have individual warranties for RMA's anyway.

All down to personal opinion but thats mine!

Also I'm surprised Dell have stuck a 8800GTX card in their 9200 range (e-code 305-D04927r):

- Intel E6600 Processor
- 2048MB DDR2 667MHz
- 500GB Serial ATA RAID 0 Stripe
- 768MB GeForce 8800GTX
- X-Fi Xtreme Music
- 16x DVD+/-RW & 16x DVD Drives
- 13-in-1 Media Card Reader
- Dell 22" Black Wide Flat Panel
etc.

£1,199 inc del & VAT

I dunno what kind of warranty you received with that but on parts alone that is expensive.

[staffsMike]

£180 E6600
£100 RAM
2 x 500gb drives £120
GTX £350
x-fi £50
Motherboard £50 +
Screen £180
DVD writer £20

case, psu, card reader £80 +

total = £1130+

all approx.

If that has a 3 year warranty its a pretty good deal..if it hasn't it does kind of suck

[silentvoice]

I dunno what kind of warranty you received with that but on parts alone that is expensive.

1 year warranty but I don't know about it being pricey. If you price up all the components including the OS, I get over £1,199. But even so, whether a Dell computer is right for you is another matter .

[staffsMike]

The shame of a 1 year warranty is you're better off buying the parts as most come with at least 3 years..

[silentvoice]

That's true.

But I've found that most components that fail, tend to do so early on in their life (with the exception of perhaps graphics cards). If it gets through 1 year without any problems, chances are it'll last 3.

[magusZeal]

Also I'm surprised Dell have stuck a 8800GTX card in their 9200 range (e-code 305-D04927r):

- Intel E6600 Processor
- 2048MB DDR2 667MHz
- 500GB Serial ATA RAID 0 Stripe
- 768MB GeForce 8800GTX
- X-Fi Xtreme Music
- 16x DVD+/-RW & 16x DVD Drives
- 13-in-1 Media Card Reader
- Dell 22" Black Wide Flat Panel
etc.

£1,199 inc del & VAT

cool..but what does the XPS have that this doesn't, i selected those components above on the XPS and it came up to around £1700...without the 22" Flat Panel

[amjedm]

I wouldn't buy from Mesh after reading the comments in their Care forum.

Also wouldn't buy from Alienware - a guy at work has just had a very bad experience with them. They only listened up when he threatened to take legal action. At first the Tech Support guy was laughing at the threat of legal action but he shut up when he found it wasn't a joke.

I would trust the other companies in your original post but also include Evesham on your shortlist.

[gmcc]

Mesh (or Dell) in my opinion are best avoided. Much better to build yourself, you will have complete control over every component and as blitzen said all will have individual warranties.

I am just doing this myself, the easter delivery times are killing me. If you're worried about taking this route just look on these forums for guides and help about how to do it, you won't regret it

[silentvoice]

cool..but what does the XPS have that this doesn't, i selected those components above on the XPS and it came up to around £1700...without the 22" Flat Panel

I think the main differences are the XPS 710 has:

- An aluminium case
- NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI motherboard (as opposed to an Intel 965)
- A 750W power supply (or is this 1KW now?)
- Better airflow / cooling
- 'Premium Support'

There was a 10% discount voucher floating about a while ago but at the prices they charge on the XPS range, I'm not sure it makes much difference.

If you feel confident in building one though, I'd seriously consider that (like other people have suggested). You will be able to customise your build a lot more and it will be easier to upgrade in the future than a Dell.

[Lucio]

That Dell offer is actually quite tempting, it's slightly cheaper than buying the components from decent brand names. Not to mention that the £1,199 price includes wirless 5.1 speakers (which I can't find for less than £150).

Is it just technological elitism that blinds us to a perfectly good computer package?

[staffsMike]

lack of overclocking potential and annoying proprietory cables stops me buying them as it hinders upgrades.

It's kind of like comparing a flame grilled aberdeen angus burger..to a doner kebab.. you only eat the kebab when you dont know what the hell you're doing