When I found the lease program, that pretty much sealed the deal. Taking a page from the auto industry, Dell Computer has started a lease program for home users. While a number of companies lease computers to business users, Dell is the first computermaker to offer such an option for home PCs. Consumers sign a two-year lease and pay the first and last month's installments up front. They have the option at the end of the lease to buy the computer, based on a blue book value, or return it.
Total costs are slightly higher than if someone purchased the machine outright.
Westrope, who does urban design and architecture work as well as teaching, says one factor in his decision to lease was a concern that the Pentium II chip was going to become obsolete. He doesn't plan to buy the system at the end of the lease. Lease customers can have their systems customized, just as people who are buying. Dell says it started the program this summer because that's what its customers, concerned about system obsolescence, said they wanted. Initial reaction to the program has been good, Reid says.