OEM stands for Original Equipment Manufacturer. This means that a component (mostly chipsets and PCB’s in our case) was purchased by a computer manufacturer from a chipset or Printed Circuitry Board manufacturer and integrated in a branded system (Laptop or Computer).
Examples:
For example, if your HP*, Dell*, IBM* (or whichever brand) computer has an AMD* or Intel* processor inside, if your processor fails, you will not call AMD* or Intel* for warranty and technical support. You will call the computer manufacturer and ask them to provide you with technical support, software or drivers.
It is just like when you buy a refrigerator branded by Atlas* and it has a Samsung* engine. If the engine stops working, you will not go to Samsung* you will call Atlas*.
Many folks do the other way and they end up being frustrated and upset because they do not receive technical support or replacements.
Why?
Well, big companies would rather sell thousands of items to another company at a lower price than sell small quantities to end-users.
What is Retail?
Retail items are products designed for the end-users. Intended to be sold one-by-one and in this case, for retail (boxed items) technical support is provided by the item manufacturer.
The difference.
The difference between OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) and Retail products might be huge, unlike many end-users think, the OEM’s actually modify both hardware and software provided by the manufacturer to better integrate them into their systems.
If you buy a laptop system that has a wireless network card integrated, the manufacturer of the whole system may have modified the frequency and the voltage of the card to grant more battery life to your laptop.
If this is the case, you cannot use the drivers that are available from the manufacturer of the wireless network card with the integrated wireless network adapter.
It might never work.
Or it may work and give you some performance issues.
Or it may crash. Anyway, you get the idea.
What is the advantage of buying OEM versus Retail?
You will take advantage of all the features that the Retail product has. The OEM/ODM might leave out or modify the features.
You will get support from the manufacturer of the product. This means that you will be able to get support for advanced features of the advanced features. Also, warranty wise, the manufacturer might be a better choice.
OEM software.
OEM software, especially OEM Operating Systems, are sometimes designed to work only with the system they are bundled with.
I would not advise you to purchase OEM software. You might end up having some software that does not work or software with limited functions.
Personally, I would prefer freeware or buying the software I need.
Before upgrading your branded laptop, I strongly recommend you to contact the system manufacturer, provide as many technical information on the product you wish to purchase and ask them if they recommend you to upgrade. Otherwise you might end up purchasing some add-in card or memory that does not even work with your system…
Note:If you are here because you have a problem with your OEM product, contact the system manufacturer. If you have a Retail product, contact the manufacturer of the product.
If your item came as part of an OEM system and you connected it in some other machine, configuration, just forget it…
*Names mentioned in this document are property of their respective owners.
1 comments:
I've gotten tired of receiving those spam letters from international bankers who need your help in transferring funds internationally. The problem is the reason that those emails are still sent years after the first one peeked its ugly head - people are ignorent and think that they may actually have inhereted a large sum of money. Even worse, when an international lottery commission notifies you that you just won 60 gazillion euros, most people have a difficult time saying "ehh, its a fake" without knowing for sure. A surefire way to determine if it is in fact fake or real is to check their email address from which the original email is sent. There are numerous email research websites out there that will perform the research for you at any given time of the day or night for a small fee. IMO, its worth spending $20 to ensure you've made the right choice, as opposed to waste thousands of dollars and sacrifice your identity.
How to find someone's email address
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