Finished with Dell, for good.

R

rflcptr

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Mar 27, 2008
Messages
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After being rudely treated and hung up on by a member of their "Escalations Team" after dealing with support since March 7 over recurring problems with my replacement of a replacement laptop, I will no longer purchase or recommend products from this company. The endless circles of their technical support, hours of phone calling, and the last straw that was the most recent call is all I will tolerate. :)

Specs in sig. The issues are overheating, throttling, very distorted sound from the speakers, a very poor quality LCD, and terribad webcam. These are still reproduced after an on-site tech replaced the motherboard, palmrest (speakers), and LCD (with webcam). They want to do the same with a depot repair or identical replacement system. :rolleyes:
 
I'm with you, that's BS. Fortunately Apple has great support and at this point they'd have replaced it with a new/upgraded machine.

Did you purchase from Dell Home or Dell Business?
 
Is Dell Home still the outsourced support? I know the Business pages are US based English-First-Language support people and people generally *love* dealing with them.
 
Yep, outsourced. I've tried everything from email, chat, and phone support. Not sure where to go at this point, haha.
 
Yeah, I'd have shot myself at this point probably.

If you're really done, sell the machine and pick up another brand, it's not worth having to call them back and go through Hell again. I've done that for a few items whose support I've had issues with.
 
Similar experience with terrible support with my new XPS 15, had on-site next day warranty repair and it took them 1 month to get it fixed. During mid-terms. Unacceptable.

Sold the piece of crap it was on CL and bought a Thinkpad with US based Priority support.
 
They gave me a 1640 to replace a troubled m1530. Kind of a "f-you" if you ask me, given how many problems these machines have. Only because I'm not a tech n00b and thanks to the helpful people at NBR does this 1640 even work. I'd say manage your thermals/heat with software, but you have many more problems.

Dump them, get something else. Make sure they know they've lost a customer.
 
Pay with a credit card? Lemon law apply? Its worth a shot... dial that 800 number on the back of your card and tell them you've been given the run around forever over this laptop, blah, blah, blah...
 
Suggest looking into Asus, Sager, Toshiba laptops for better reliability. Stay away from Dell and HP, they stink.
 
biggles said:
Suggest looking into Asus, Sager, Toshiba laptops for better reliability. Stay away from Dell and HP, they stink.
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And Thinkpads, if you want a tank that is. Dropped my T420 3 feet onto a tile floor and it slid a few more feet, not a scratch on it.
 
Support from Dell's Business side is much better from my experience. I haven't had that many issues either though with my equipment.

I had to fix a friend's HP (consumer division) laptop once (it was a recall issue) and was extremely pleased with the support. I was connected to outsourced support going through the typical BS, but was eventually able to get an overnight box sent to me for free, sent the laptop in, and received the fix laptop very quickly. I marked several small dots with a sharpie on different parts of the laptop to see what they did change. Some parts were replaced completely, some weren't... but problem was solved.

I'll be getting a thinkpad x220 later this year and I've yet to see how Lenovo's support will possibly be like. I don't plan on ordering any of the extended warranties or support.

It's sad to hear about your poor time with Dell support... but that's something I'd expect from consumer support and not from business.
 
Dell just took my 2007 XPS gen 2 laptop back which was a replacement for the Gen 1 and is either fixing the 2 8700 GT Video cards in it or giving me a new PC due to a lawsuit against Nvidia for faulty GPUs (Which I found out about by a member out here thank you sir I forget your name). I have been way happier than I was with Alienware who I contacted over a weekend my warranty was up and they took the call the following week and said my warranty was expired (Before Dell bought them). Same problem video card failed. It seems the high end/gaming laptops have had GPU issues for many years now and it still persists unfortunately. But Dell is one of the better CS companies I have dealt with IMO.
 
Dell FTW, but you gotta call to a correct department, otherwise you might get in trouble dealing with clueless indians.
 
Maybe more companies could follow the Apple model: Sell fools half the computer at twice the price. Because its half the computer, there's less things to go wrong. Because the price is twice as much, there's lots of resources for customer support.
 
Umm Apple owns the tablet market and thats the direction most everyday user for home and business is going. If you care to make money you better buy some Apple stock. 100 million tablets+ will probably be sold this year Apple will sell half ~50 million. My prediction is this year is a revolution in the PC industry and half the PC/Laptop companies selling equipment go under. And it shakes the world economy. If not this year next for sure because tablet sales will be in the 100s of millions the PC now the tablet has reached VCR/DVR status you touch it it works no maintenance.
 
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eth3ton said:
+1 on the Thinkpads. Love my 14" Edge!
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I have a Dell XPS m1530...worked great for me but without the paranoid "oh when will my gpu fail due to it being from nividia" mindset.

Next laptop will be a fully built IBM Thinkpad.
They are just excellent!
 
Stone Cold said:
Maybe more companies could follow the Apple model: Sell fools half the computer at twice the price. Because its half the computer, there's less things to go wrong. Because the price is twice as much, there's lots of resources for customer support.
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/agree, that's basically their model.

Falcon_CMH said:
Umm Apple owns the tablet market and thats the direction most everyday user for home and business is going. If you care to make money you better buy some Apple stock. 100 million tablets+ will probably be sold this year Apple will sell half ~50 million. My prediction is this year is a revolution in the PC industry and half the PC/Laptop companies selling equipment go under. And it shakes the world economy. If not this year next for sure because tablet sales will be in the 100s of millions the PC now the tablet has reached VCR/DVR status you touch it it works no maintenance.
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What does that have to do with what Stone Cold posted?

Can't wait for my android honeycomb-based Asus Transformer by the way!

I bought a Lenovo Y560 and it's been rock-solid with a Radeon Mobility HD 5730... great build quality and specs at a great price. I'd tend to avoid Dell nowadays for their computers, I haven't had any good experiences with their support ever but especially more recently.
 
I was just pointing out Apple's focus and the market too is tablet's not PCs. So his point is kinda mute about Apple PCs.

I hope your ASUS Android performs to date they all suck performance wise. If any one can make it perform I trust ASUS. Their EEE Windows slate is bad azz.
 
Falcon_CMH said:
I was just pointing out Apple's focus and the market too is tablet's not PCs. So his point is kinda mute about Apple PCs.

I hope your ASUS Android performs to date they all suck performance wise. If any one can make it perform I trust ASUS. Their EEE Windows slate is bad azz.
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Reviews are incredibly positive so far :D from launch software reviews on anandtech & computershopper etc.
 
never had a problem with Dell Support......Stuido 1440 is still running strong (me friend has it) and my studio 1558 has been repaired twice now with no isses and both were next day parts delivery.

of couse the studio was a home laptop but i bought it under my business account......
 
I've had my XPS 1645 for over a year and <3 it. I have a different board with the HD 4670 installed and a 1080p RGB LCD (8GB, i7 720QM, BD drive). The screen is bea-u-ti-ful. I've never had throttling or overheating issues with it, and I do everything on it including video encoding. It's essentially been my primary system 95% of the time since I received it.
 
I've owned - that's me personally - probably 30+ Dells in the past 3 years or so, all laptops, all basically purchased from pawn shops (go figure) and then a) cleaned up and redone for resale and b) checked for the Dell CompleteCare warranty coverage. If I encountered one outside of warranty, it was put up for sale. If it was still under warranty with at least 6 months of coverage, then I'd 1) transfer the warranty to my name and 2) put it up for sale with that information in hand to increase the value somewhat.

Of the 30+ laptops I've had, not one has ever given me any problem after purchase, although 3 of them weren't in the best cosmetic shape one could hope for. 2 of those were still under the warranty so after the ownership transfer I called up and requested service for the replacement parts (LCD bezel and battery cover on one, LCD bezel, bottom cover, and palm rest on the other). Parts were sent out at my request - they were going to send a tech onsite to do the swapouts but I can do it myself and it won't count against me for warranty purposes (helps to have a few friends at Dell these days).

But overall they are by far my favorite brand of laptop to own - that meaning the Latitude line from Dell. I found a Precision M4400 recently but passed on it since it wouldn't complete the diagnostics in the pawn shop - all the machines I've had did pass, that's why I bought 'em. Don't make a lot on the sales but, every little bit helps.

Aside from ThinkPads, and some of the older HP workstation laptops (I really don't like the EliteBooks, nor the ProBooks, I like the older style machines like the 6510p, etc), Dell has been the best supportive laptop maker so far. I don't like what they've done with the new Latitude and Precision lineup, however, so I'll be using this D830 of mine for as long as possible before getting anything else.

Just my $.02... and more
 
pxc said:
I've had my XPS 1645 for over a year and <3 it. I have a different board with the HD 4670 installed and a 1080p RGB LCD (8GB, i7 720QM, BD drive). The screen is bea-u-ti-ful. I've never had throttling or overheating issues with it, and I do everything on it including video encoding. It's essentially been my primary system 95% of the time since I received it.
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Mine also only lasts ~1 hour on battery, and the fan never stops running, even at idle. The system's throttling only stops after a reboot. The viewing angles and color accuracy are ridiculous on this LCD. Unless my line of sight is perpendicular to the horizontal and ~60 degrees from the top of the screen, colors wash out. I'm glad to hear there are decent experiences with these things, but it hasn't been the same for me. :p Their support needs serious work, regardless.
 
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pxc said:
I've had my XPS 1645 for over a year and <3 it. I have a different board with the HD 4670 installed and a 1080p RGB LCD (8GB, i7 720QM, BD drive). The screen is bea-u-ti-ful. I've never had throttling or overheating issues with it, and I do everything on it including video encoding. It's essentially been my primary system 95% of the time since I received it.
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You, sir are fortunate. I have to use ThrottleStop, voltage management and AS5 to keep my 1640 usable. I don't mind, but the average consumer is going to have no idea what is causing his/her laptop to perform like crap and he/she will be pissed.

My E1505 was a tank, and I sold it in perfectly usable condition to another person (screen was perfect, but the casing had scuffs). Lasted four years of college without a problem, though I did use up four batteries in the process (the 9-cells, mind).
 
I have experience with Dell Business support and I must say they are great. I can imagine the Home support being less than stellar though...
 
Got a friendly call from Dell today saying they were readying an XPS 15 for me. Gen 1 or 2, dunno, I guess I'll see how it goes. :) Def a positive turnaround. At this point, though, I'm still pretty much looking at Thinkpads or MBPs.
 
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dvsaura said:
don't go with toshiba, their customer support is really slow too.
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The one thing I don't like about Toshiba is their asinine model number scheme. There's a different model number for each machine based on every piece of hardware (or seemingly). Instead of "XPS 16" with options (CPU, RAM, videocard, screen) each combination of all of the above gets its own designator. Talk about confusing!
 
My thinkpad randomly didn't work the other day. I called them and was connected to customer support in Tennessee (they make a point of telling you it's American support). Was off the phone literally five minutes later. The next morning a pre-paid overnight box appeared at my door. Was picked up from my doorstep that afternoon.

Two business days later I had my T400 back with a new motherboard, new LCD (I complained about wavy lines on solid colors), new keyboard (I had ripped off the arrow key while trying to clean it), and new case. It's freaking brand new.

Just unbeatable support.
 
As an aside, glancing at Dell's very own XPS 15 gallery has me reassured:

fail.jpg


:p
 
Dells are garbage. Macs or Lenovos are all I can really recommend in good conscience. Both have great build quality and excellent (and AMERICAN) customer support. Sure they cost more, but you get what you pay for.

Otherwise, buy everything else at your own risk unless you're a business customer with a dedicated rep.
 
Dell home support blows, the dell business laptops/support is where its at, they have always fixed the pc's/laptops at my work within 2 business days.
 
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