Next laptop I'm buying locally, 1st & last Dell

[Crazy Dave]

I've had good luck over the years buying online but recently I bought a new Dell Inspiron and the display is going bad after only three months. It would have been so much easier just to drive down the road and speak with a repair tech than being on the phone for an hour with somebody 7000 miles away. At least I still have a four year old HP laptop for a backup that's still running as good as the day I bought it.

This will be my first and last Dell for me. You shouldn't send in a new laptop for repairs, you're supposed to send in old laptops for repair.

[MrCoffee]

1. Dell laptops suck ass

i have a piece of crap Dell Inspirion. the CD drive went bad within 3 months, and Dell dicked around on getting the repair paperwork or whatever in order, so that when they finally got around to it, it was another 3 months before i had my computer back.

Dell is crap.

[graywarrior]

2. Same thing happened to my Dell desktop

I was actually looking at the laptops at a kiosk Dell had at the mall. They had a great price, $900+ not including Microsoft Office and I considered buying one. After reading this, I may do what I wanted originally and get a MAC.

[Crazy Dave]

6. It seemed like a good price online.

But once delivered it looks cheap, feels cheap, the performance isn't what it should be based on the hardware configuration and the display gets worse every day.

[graywarrior]

8. Makes you want to find them and beat the living crap out of them, don't it?

[Crazy Dave]

10. Or shove the wide-side where the sun don't shine

;)

[Crazy Dave]

5. I was afraid of that, waiting about 3 months

At first I told the guy that I'd really like to just send it back, even if it hit me with a big loss, but that wasn't an option. I'm waiting on a call back right now that might be in about....two months? Based on your experience.

[LynneSin]

3. Michael Dell - Bush Pioneer Club member. Nuff said

:D

[Crazy Dave]

9. Damn!

Wish I'd have known that sooner. Your pretty good on stuff like that LynneSin. You pointed another company out to me one time with Bush ties. :thumbsup:

[mainegreen]

4. Dell's only good products are their higher end servers.

Their home line is crap across the board.

[LaurenG]

7. Never buy a dell anything, IMHO

I had one and it was broken the second time I turned it on. I wanted to send it back but they wouldn't hear of it. Since then I've heard from several friends and relatives about similar happenings.

[Crabby Appleton]

11. I work in tech support in a large corporation

that uses Dell. Dell's hardware quality has become horrible over the last three years or so. Have had a very high rate of serious hardware failures the last 3 years, had to replace about half of the motherboards in 2.5 to 3 year old GX270s; bad capacitors on the motherboards. Big corporate spenders (like my company) get a different Dell tech number than regular consumers, but quality of support varies and is slipping again; we only call for hardware issues at my facility.

I will not purchase Dell products when it's my money.

My last two home PCs are HP, a compaq notebook prior to those, and a NEC notebook, all have had no hardware problems. I usually use a home PC or notebook for about 4 years then replace, but I have a 6-7 year old HP that I still run occasionally that has some special software that will only run on an older OS.

( on edit )

Received 10 new PCs at work last month, one DOA, a few smelled like they'd been in a fire, a bad hard drive in another; all on new equipment.

[jobycom]

12. I buy computers for a small company, and have had the same experience

We don't figure out what's wrong with the main board, we just either replace it or replace the whole computer. Dell used to be good. Now I've gone to other brands. Dell isn't the worst (Compaq is), but they have gone down a lot.

[unsavedtrash]

13. my SO had to send hers back for repairs after two months.

mother board went "poof" out of the blue. But it was picked up, repaired, and returned in three days.
I thought she was being paranoid saving her in progress thesis on three computers. Well, shows what I know.

[lildreamer316]

For future reference:

don't forget that HP bought out Compaq.
We are all HP here........

[lildreamer316]

14. dupe

[THUNDER HANDS]

15. i've never had a problem with my Dell

I've had it 8 months with no problems. I only use it for the internet and word processing and the occasional movie, though.

[Writer]

16. Buy HP.

I have a terrific Pavillion dv1000. Wonderful computer and it helped me complete grad school! Dells are proprietary systems cheaply thrown together so they can sell them on the cheap to customers. Never a good buy.

[trof]

17. 3 words: "Made in India".

[Ravenseye]

18. Buy Local

I agree with pretty much everything said about this thread. Dell has really sucked of late. I have some older Dell's I use as file servers from about 6 years go that still run just fine with no issues, but every one I've seen from the last 3-4 years has been really poor.

I've only had one experience with HP and it was fine.

Still, that said, it's best to buy local. These days you'll only pay a smidgen more. Find a local tech shop, usually listed in the yellow pages, or do a search online for your locality. Computer repair will bring up hits. Those people can build you a computer to spec, just like customizing a dell, but they'll use good parts, and they'll do it themselves.

Then if anything goes wrong you can call them up. "Hey Mike, my computer is acting funny."

Though most likely it'll be fine for years.

Plus you get to support local business.

[Crazy Dave]

23. I've always built my own desktops

Using universal, non-proprietary parts. If a video card goes bad, no problem. Just run to Office Depot, Comp USA, online overnight etc. But as far as laptops with their integrated micro components I've always bought instead of built. Toshiba, NEC and HP. My old HP laptop (4 years) still runs very well hardware-wise, a little slow with the newer memory hog applications. All the laptops I've owned I've never had to send in for repairs. This is my first time for that.

[grizmaster]

19. I'm on my second Dell laptop and they've both been great

the first one I bought about 5 years ago and the guy who bought it from me just resold it (still working fantastic) and got himself another Dell (which he loves).

My second is a little over a year old (Inspiron 9300 with the best screen they offered and most of the bells and whistles) and I've yet to have as much as a hiccup of trouble from it.

And I constantly get compliments on the graphics quality when I'm out and about with it, which is often.

[Mutley]

20. My Dell desktop isn't bad

But then, I only use it for the internets and writing papers. :P

[petronius]

21. My old Dells are working great (5+ yo desktop and ~3 yo notebook),

but the last notebook (bought in Feb 2005) was a lemon. The LCD died after 13 months (1 month after the warranty period :grr:) and now the power supply is dead. I'm thinking HP for the next one; Dell is on my shitlist...

[mockmonkey]

22. Dell Service sucks

You might as well talk into your shoe than to call Dell. I spent 2 hours trying to get them to understand that I needed a replacement CD-Rom (mine was broken) so that I could replace my drivers. They kept telling me to go to Dell.com and just download them. They couldn't understand that I couldn't do that without the driver for the modem.

It's just as well. I'm still waiting for a part (on back order) for 3 months now. I actually found the part elsewhere.

Did I mention their website sucks too?

My next computer will be from Apple.

[bleedingheart]

24. don't get me started...I had a problem with the keyboard on my Dell

laptop at work...only 8 mos old.

I was clearly a hardware problem and yet I have to be on the phone with this guy in India who is reading a script to me and everyhing he is saying makes no sense in terms of repairing the problem...but he has his "script" to go through until I get transferred to another guy who then tells me a repair guy will be sent to fix it ...(this was a work laptop...thus the personal service).