Considering This Laptop?

Hey people,

I'm considering an M11x with the i5 but I have some questions regarding the laptop itself..

Is the build quality good? Is it sturdy? I'll be lugging it to and from college every day and don't want a flimsy thing. I heard some horror stories about the hinges breaking and dust in the screen which made me begin looking for alternatives...

Has anyone had an M11x for some time now? I read on the Dell forums that notebooks have a 30% fail rate on hardware in the first three years...is this just a ploy to get you to purchase 3 years of insurance or does it hold truth?

About the insurance on the M11x, if you went with the 1 year plan upon purchase is there an option to extend that after the year has run out? Anyone had to contact support, are they helpful?

Finally is the keyboard easy to use and is the battery decent? I'll need to do a fair amount of typing on it in class so I need they keyboard to be fairly comfortable, and the battery when performing normal tasks (word processing, web browser) needs to last at least 3-4 hours.

Thanks for any replies, and sorry for the game of twenty questions! Anything else you'd like to add about the M11x would be greatly appreciated, I think reading all the complaints on forums has made me a little hesitant.

 

The 30% failure in 3 years is the result of a survey done by squaretrade. So a decent warranty is importent imo.

About extending your warranty with dell: my friend (we live in Belgium btw, in case it would make a difference) asked the same question from a dell rep.
Before you can extend your warranty, they will check your system to see if everything is still working right (to avoid that people extend it only after something has happened). I don't remember how they would do that though.

Can't answer your question about the hinges because I don't own an m11x but personnaly I would never risk buying a unit that has such a known error (with much regret because I really like its design and its hardware).

 

Interesting, but surely if you refreshed your warranty to extend another year whilst still having a month left on your current insurance they wouldn't need to check your system? I may have to contact Dell about this... definitely not willing to buy a laptop at such a price without knowing I'm insured.

 

It's usually cheaper to buy extended warranty at the time of purchase.
Get 3 year minimum.

Build quality is pretty solid except the well known hinge issue which is covered by warranty.

 

you should easily get that battery life although i dont know if you need the m11x since you did not say anything about gaming but maybe you do

also i find the keyboard very nice

 

Well 3 years brings the price up to £1,159 at £140 per year which is way more than I intend to pay at once.

 

Yes, it will be used for gaming if I purchase it...these were just general questions I had about the system.

 

It's either that, or you end up with broken system with no warranty coverage. I've seen too many ppl complaining about broken system AFTER warranty has expired. Dell warranty is about only extended warranty I get, and it's worth it in my experience.

 

Knowing the existence of the hinge issue, I would definitly purchase the best warranty for the m11x, for like 3-4 years. With a bit of luck they'll grow tired of fixing your hinges (if you should have this problem) and might give you an entire new model after a few years when a new model will be released...or atleast you'll be able to enjoy a functional model for your entire warranty period.

 

Very true. There's a reason why I spent over 1k (cost me alot more since both systems were replaced from older models) extending my M11 and M17's warranty until 2015. It damn sure hurts now, but I know it will pay off down the road.

 

Yeah I understand where your coming from, and I'm not for one minute considering buying something at this price without sufficient and extendible coverage.