Dell specialize in PCs and computer related products as well as other media devices.  They are a multinational conglomerate who think big – but does their site rise to their heady standards?

They have lots of information pages to support customers but you need the patience of a saint to wait for these to load and many of them fail to open at all.

The online shopping cart is treated by Dell as an additional place to exploit sales.

We looked at a flat screen TV and were sent through consecutive screens promoting wall mounts, stands, gaming consoles, insurance, speakers, blu ray players and all range of products, before finally arriving at the purchasing page.  However, other products did appear to have easier routes to the checkout and just contained a prompt for recommended items which all appeared to be useful additional purchases.

Aside from their over zealous promotions policy, the shopping cart has a far more serious fault – it has an annoying habit of failing to load or taking overly long to materialize.

Dell have a community area to their site which encompasses a blog, forum, groups and wikis.  This is well-used and a great feature, giving customers additional support and information.

They are also linked in to Facebook and Twitter and their blog has an RSS feed.

Dell’s site contains product, order and topic support. They also have paid support options, such as services to set up and tune in your TV, speed up your computer or set up a PC and wireless network.