gt0159a@prism.gatech.EDU (LEVINSON,MARC LOUIS) (06/15/90)
This posting is for my co-op company; please respond to my school e-mail address
I am considering buying a new 386 clone. Zeos and Swan have
very enticing specs and prices. Has anybody had experience with either of these
two companies (good/bad)?
Both have the 1 year warranty/tech support with available on-site parts
replacement by TRW. I have been pleased with TRW for the maint contracts
on all the AT&T machines in the office. The DELL has a similar service/
warranty policy using Xerox for parts replacement. DELL's tech support has been
EXCELLENT, but the Xerox rep in Jacksonvill is pretty clueless about PC clones -
he's used to copiers.
DELL provides superb user diagnostics with their machines, most companies say
they provide diags then ship a machine with AMI bios diags (pretty poor). I
know most people think a clone is a clone, but I have found vendor diags for
such machines as AT&T, IBM, Compaq and DELL to be very useful. How extensive
are the diags from Swan and Zeos?
Doccumentation usually gets worse as the machines get cheaper. How good is the
*new* Zeos doc book? What is the extent of Swan's docs? My concern is a
generic doc pamphlet plus the user guides for all the name brand components
in the box. PC Brand does this and it is practically useless.
I have gotten good response from both Swan and Zeos when requesting more info
by phone. Their tech reps also seem competent (for answering pre-sale tech
questions). I see both of these companies as DELL copycats, except Swan seems
to have more of a CompuAdd image. I don't want to buy a machinne from an
unstable startup clonemaker. Zeos actually builds (OK, designs or specs) some
proprietary boards. To me, this means a serious commitment. Swan (correct me
if I am wrong) assembles off the shelf components. What kind of response/
feeling have other netreaders gotten from these companies?
Any and all comments about these companies would be appreciated.
e-mail: gt0159@prism.gatech.edu
Thanks, Marc
--
LEVINSON,MARC LOUIS
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
uucp: ...!{allegra,amd,hplabs,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!prism!gt0159a
ARPA: gt0159a@prism.gatech.edu or marc@isye.gatech.eduttak@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Timothy Takahashi) (06/15/90)
In article <10491@hydra.gatech.EDU> gt0159a@prism.gatech.EDU (LEVINSON,MARC LOUIS) writes: >I am considering buying a new 386 clone. Zeos and Swan have >very enticing specs and prices. Has anybody had experience with either of these >two companies (good/bad)? I have an Oct. 1989 Swan 386sx machine and my father (after my good luck) has a Feb 1990 machine. Mine has been completely trouble free, my fathers has a different motherboard (with IDE drive support) that would generate intermittant DISK NOT READY errors under IBM PC-DOS 3.3 (works fine under PC-DOC 4.0). Mine has a MFM-disk controller that has been troublefree. Both machines sucessfully run Windows 3.0 under /386 mode (unlike some other clones) >Doccumentation usually gets worse as the machines get cheaper. How good is the >*new* Zeos doc book? What is the extent of Swan's docs? My concern is a Swan has an *excellent* manual *VERY* professional (much better than the docs that came with the 1987 Zentih Z-386 (a computer worth its weight in trash). >I have gotten good response from both Swan and Zeos when requesting more info >by phone. Their tech reps also seem competent (for answering pre-sale tech >questions). I Tech support from Swan has been Excellent, i had some subtle questions (could ram configured as extended ram on an above-board be converted to expanded ram using the phoenix-bios drivers supplied with the machine - answer no) that were handled quite competantly. The sales staff was courteous and efficient. >LEVINSON,MARC LOUIS >Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332 tim takahashi