Made In China??

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@Sartori wrote:

Hello

Got my new 8250 today and all looked well except a couple of things. Whats with all the Made In China components?? I mean really can't Dell keep a little business in the states or don't we know how to make an electrical cord. sheez......

The shipping box had a pretty good dent in it so thought I had better look inside the tower before I fired it up too make sure everything was secure. All looked fine except the Made in china sticker on the fan duct, sheez.... and I noticed that the geforce card has a heat sink on it instead of a fan. I was let to belive that all the Geforce cards had fans on them too.

Besides that everything seemed to be okay.

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Hi,

Welcome to the wonderful world of OEM.
Don't just blame Dell for this. All the major computer makers do the same.

Boost the Benchmarks to sell the system. Because everyone knows a better benchmark means a better computer. Right?

Install OEM cards and such to save $1 here and 25cents there. Because no one wants to pay more for a Dell than another system with the same benchmarks. Right?

Contract most of the telephone support in India even if a Dell owner in Texas can't understand a word that is being said. Because support is what puts the most money on the system price tag, and no one wants to pay more for their system. Right?

It's not just Dell.
And every time anyone complains about a "fair" price being too high it makes all this that much worse.

Mis Dos Centavos,
Darrell
Helping Dell talkers here since 1997
Memory upgrade information Find the -
"How much can my system hold"
"What kind is it", and other memory information.

Message Edited by Thereal-dbk4297 on 12-03-2002 09:04 PM

Get a clue, buddy.  Global economy.  Dell is an American company that pays American wages to its American employees, and contracts globally to people who work for pennies.  As soon as American workers are willing to earn third-world wages, they can compete with China in making plastic fan ducts. 

I don't really know what your complaint is here.  Do you think the Chinese parts are of inferior quality?  Or is this just a vague sense of xenophobia?  Enjoy your computer, and you can always add a fan to the graphics card if it's too quiet for you.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm .. my 4550 case has a sticker inside that says made in Mexico.

Anyhow ... it sounds like you got the 420 video board ... the Ti4200 Geforce boards had a fan but you can't get them anymore.

Practically all Electronic components are made somewhere else, no matter what brand name is on the component.  Look at TI or whoever's chips and you will find practially all are made somewhere other than the continental US. 

The US is now basically a consumer and service economy.  Along with lower priced labor, other countries do not have the environmental protection laws that US has (or had, depending on how you view the current administrations relaxing of rules) and they can produce the items at a considerably lower cost than it can be produced in the US.

Dell is no different than any other company, and it's been going on for many years - not something that just happened or changed in the last couple of years.  I remember getting IBM keyboards for commercial 3270 type terminals back in the mid late 80's and the keybords were not US made.  In fact I had several IBM 3745 "big iron" comm processors and IBM's plant for those is in England. 

Message Edited by fireberd on 12-04-2002 06:19 AM

I don't know if this is still the case, but I believe older Dell notebook designs came from Compal of Taiwan.  My Inspiron 3200 has Made in Taiwan written on the bottom.  Taiwan of course isn't technically a country :D

My Compaq iPAQ Pocket PC also has Made in Taiwan on the back, as is the Dell's new Pcoket PC.  Somehow, the Made in Taiwan and Made in China labels do not conjure up an image of quality as much as Made in Japan does.  Where I live Made in Japan audio equipment and cameras command a slightly higher premium than the same models made elsewhere.

Is this what they mean by "Global Economy"?

Message Edited by esquire on 12-05-2002 03:42 AM

Well you have to remember, dell purcahses oem hardware from manufactorers like crucial, western digital, and so on which are made elsewhere....  Dell really doesn't have a choice when it comes to that, because they don't make their own computer hardware....  they buy the hardware from companies like crucial (which is made elsewhere), and then is shipped to dell's warehouse where it is assembled here in the US or elsewhere...  If dell didn't purchase the hardware, then they would be considered as a manufactorer because they would have to make their own products just to make a computer, which that will drive the prices even higher.. 

Sartori,

This is getting a bit repetitive (I'm not a huge fan of U.S. dependence on Chinese hardware), but you basically have two choices: look for a computer with 100% U.S.-made components (lotsaluck) or enjoy what you have. Nixon opened up China. Republicans love China. Democrats love China. Only a small minority of Americans care that China may not have our best interests at heart enough to stop buying Chinese. We ain't going back to the '50s. Cheap Chinese goods are one of the pillars of U.S. consumerism.

Hi,

I just thought I would add this to the discussion.
http://www.unionlabel.org/cgi-bin/newsrch.cfm

Mis Dos Centavos,
Darrell
Helping Dell talkers here since 1997
Memory upgrade information Find the -
"How much can my system hold"
"What kind is it", and other memory information.

Hello

Well, stupid me I guess.....for thinking that I was getting an American made computer. You know I do realize our dependance on Chinese made products but I guess it just caught me by surprise with the Made in China stickers all over the place. When I think of Dell I think oh.... America tis of thee....my bad:)  I do and will enjoy my new Dell too the fullest, i'm going on 4 years now with my old XPS R450 and its still going on strong. It will be semi-retired, going to try a little networking so will be fun.

Anyway it was fun reading all the replies and I didn't know I was somebodys "buddy".

Thanks,,,

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@Sartori wrote:

Hello

Well, stupid me I guess.....for thinking that I was getting an American made computer. You know I do realize our dependance on Chinese made products but I guess it just caught me by surprise with the Made in China stickers all over the place. When I think of Dell I think oh.... America tis of thee....my bad:)  Anyway it was fun reading all the replies and I didn't know I was somebodys "buddy".

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It's a figure of speech--I was peeved because you seemed so dissatisfied with this fact (everything seemed fine except the Made in China stickers).  The reason for that dissatisfaction seemed to me born either of ignorance or of a casual xenophobia you expected everyone to share.  I figured you either didn't understand that the computer you bought needed to be filled with the products of developing nations in order to be delivered to you at the insanely low prices computers (like many consumer goods) command these days, or you were uncomfortable with that fact and preferred to demean their labor in order to distract yourself. 

By the way, you still don't get it:  your computer was made in America (Texas, I believe, right?  what's more "American"), out of parts and components largely manufactured abroad.  (America, incidentally, is not "made in America" in any simple sense.)

True, but you were talking about parts, i.e., sourcing, while I was really referring to the fact that even the design of the whole product comes from somewhere else as well, which is rebadging, with a difference.