Will you buy a Dell again?

After all the issues with the nVidia graphic cards, will you buy a Dell again? I know that it is not entirely Dell's fault here but so far they have not been helpful in getting my XPS 1330 fixed again.

My computer died last week although it was only casually used for Internet browsing and office applications. What I'm more frustrated about is Dell's Support (or better lack of thereof) in getting this fixed.

IMHO, Dell should replace all laptops that could be affected given they sold a faulty product. I'm surprised not to see a lawsuit against Dell in regards to that matter. Dell only provide a software patch as a solution which however isn't really a fix.

My conclusion is that I just wasted over EUR 1000 for a faulty product that still doesn't work. Therefore, I will never buy a Dell again!

What about you guys???

 

I have nothing but the best to say about Dell's business support, it is very very good.

Support for consumer machines tends to be worse (in Dell and in other brands). I will buy Dell again.

 

I've been totally satisfied with my Dell purchases in the past and always had great support, I tend to buy business machines. That said, a person I work with owns the XPS M1330 and it's had problems twice, a tech came out the next day to fix it each time under warranty, can't beat that.

No company is immune to issues and slip ups in service support, not Dell, HP, Acer, or even Apple. You just can't paint a complete picture with one stroke of the brush as they say, so one case of a bad experience does not mean every will have the same and one good experience is not representative of what everyone will get either.

 

I agree. My E6400 is not without its flaws, but I will buy Dell again because their support has been fantastic. They have twice fixed issues under warranty, no charge, no hassle, no questions asked. I call, next day they come and fix it.

When I upgrade, I will choose a Dell over an eventually better-spec'd laptop of another brand because I know Dell delivers on their warranty support.

Important note: this is valid in Europe, and as far as I know in the US Dell's support is good too. I have heard for example that in Australia and Asia Dell's support isn't good.

 

I would. What originally got me to buy Dell 2 years ago with my 1520 was the outlet. Dell's outlook appears to be cheaper than other places' outlet. After is out of warranty, I can get parts on ebay pretty cheap to fix it (which is nice).

 

Well, I don't have any major issues with Dell, but I'm not sure if I want to go down the Dell route again. Dell has great customer service, and a good price, but their quality control doesn't seem to be that great.

Overheating with the m1330s, and now this mess of a studio xps. My last dell had a crappy screen on it.

My next purchase (how many years in the future) will probably go towards the best quality I can get for my money. Dell is great with support, but the quality isn't that good.

 

dell is a hit or miss

 

As quite a few know I'm unhappy with the poor level of customer service and conniving bull from Dell sales since it has gone overseas for UK customers. Dell was once good when it was UK based for UK customers but not any more.

Warranty seems to be the only good thing about them these days, that point where a technician is sent out but thats a sub contractor IT technician from another company but I have seen many instances where the customers system has been damaged in some way from it being repaired.

 

i've been happy so far with my dell

knew all the good and bad stuff of my m1330 before buying, and it has lived up so far to what i expected

 

well, ive also had bad, and i mean VERY BAD experiences with tech support, BUT! i would buy dell again, why? because they are awesome machines, and they offer great prices, although now i would consider looking at the latitudes, witch people are really happy with them ( yeah im VERY happy with my m1530 ) but the latitudes are better built, and when you travel, you need a computer that can stand *some* hits and twists ( stuffing it into the front seat anyone? hehe)

so yeah, dells are nice machines, and i do hope i can get a new one free because of my 4yr warranty when mine starts to die..

 

well, had a m1210 and m1330, all had problems, of course the infamous nvidia problem struck my m1330 at some point, but before that i had just too many repairs on these new machines, quality control is BS, design is terrible, of course support is great, but i dont buy a computer to keep calling up customer care and get the guy to come to my house every now and then to replace something that fails. also i pay lots of money for a brand new computer, i dont like parts in my new computer to be replaced with refurbished parts. yep, dell replaces all parts with refurbished ones...

went the apple route and never looked back. although i pay a premium, i love the OS and the hardware is amazing, top notch design and innovation. i agree all brands arent immune to problems, even apple, but the probability is much less. besides, apples customer service is also top notch. speaking about customer service, i know of ppl who have had bad experiences with both dell and apple, depends on who you get attending you too.

 

My last three laptops have been from Toshiba, Sony, and now Dell.. i would buy from any of them again. Although, probably not Toshiba since the highend units from Dell and Sony are better... I would buy a Toshiba for a friend.

 

I would. I wouldn't buy Sony again. That experience was less pleasant than going to the dentist.

 

Hey I actually like my dentist.

Although I remember my Sony Desktop and that came with 2 hours worth of uninstall crapware (that was before I learned about clean installs.... 5 years ago?)

 

I would buy a Dell, but the initial price would need to be low enough to offset the virtually non-existent warranty.

 

Nope. I bought my $2200 xps m1330 expecting it to be of execellent quality and instead, it has had way too many problems
I've gone through 1 replacement laptop and 3 mobo replacements

I might be unlucky but, I'm not buying a dell again. Just my 2 cents.

 

I wouldnt buy a run of the mill Sony, since they are nothing special. But, their high-end line is unbeatable.. like the TT, TZ, Z... maybe their FW or SR.

Ive had my TZ for about 1.5 yrs and there still isnt much on the market that comes close to it (the TT does, of course).

 

How do you manage to spend $2200 on a m1330??

 

i think the real question is why the heck would someone spend $2200 on a m1330

 

Dell is the only Company my family and extended family buy from for computers

 

I buy from who ever is selling me the best product at the right price. If it's Dell, I'll buy from Dell. If it's HP, I'm buying from HP.

I have no preference seeing as pleasant and unpleasant experiences are possible with any manufacturer.

 

I won't. While the XPS M1330 was nice for a while, over-heating is still an issue, customer support is clueless, and Dell won't replace a battery that only works at half capacity 10 months from purchase. This, combined with the fact that they treat Indian customers like second-rate customers bothers me.

 

My last 3 laptops, 1 PC and my wife's laptop have all come from Dell. I didn't used to rate them that much, but these days I really like them.

I tend to buy every 12 months or so, especially when there's a buy now pay 12 months option.

I like the customised option and the easy way to save and pay for them.

Customer services for private / home users is useless, the foreign call centre tends to cause more in frustration than it does solve issues. However if you use the business call centre it's located in the UK and they're very helpful. It makes me wonder, why use a UK centre for business users and a foreign one for home users? Obviously business users are more valued and need to be taken care of due to the larger amounts of money involved. Just a shame it's that way because solving the CS issues would make Dell a top retailer.

Dell financial services isn't bad. I've had issues with their customer services in the past at the Irish call centre, but I've also had a couple of other times in contact with them that have gone fine.

All in all I'll certainly buy Dell again unless someone starts offering decent customisation and 12 month finance deals with decent machines being supplied.

 

Short answer: Yes.

Still lovin' my 1530, and my Mini 9 Netbook...
(and, no prob's with the 8600 GPU, on my 1530)

Looking forward to my next Dell purchase!


Cin

 

i probably will not as they have closed down the UK plants and shifted it to Poland. Meaning slower build time and who knows what

 

I would buy another Dell.

While I've had three issues with my m1330, Dell sent a tech out to my home to repair the laptop.

While I'd prefer NO problems, I have never experienced a computer company which has sent a technician out to fix my laptop! I've always had to pack the computer up, drive to UPS, then wait a week or more for it to be repaired and shipped back.

I just hope it stays working! Had a tech out Mar. 31, and the computer on April 15th wouldn't turn on! Dell came out two days later and fixed it.

Guess it's good news bad news... while I'd obviously MUCH prefer NO PROBLEMS, the fact Dell comes out to make the repairs keeps me pretty happy!

(My laptop also runs MUCH cooler now... they didn't just change out the motherboard, but also the head sink)

 

I would definately buy dell again. I really like dells, and most people I know also like dells. Pretty funny when I think of it, no one I know prefers apple. I've now owned 3 dell laptops, my first 2 were inspirons (8500 and 1505), then I got an HP last december, hated it and sold it in feb. using those funds for my SXPS13. All my dell laptops have been well built, only problems I've had with hardware were either user abuse (my son tore arpart the keyboard for my 1505) or age (after 3 years one of the ram chips in my 8500 stopped working), and both times dell replaced and repaired the computers under warrantee (even the 1505 wich I did tell them my son broke it). While dealing with the foriegn cs can sometimes be really agrivating, for the most part you eventually wind up getting good service.

 

I'm on my 4th motherboard, 2nd HDD, 2nd LCD and 2nd wireless card. Build quality is also pretty poor. But, the customer service and next day on-site replacement service is excellent.

I would buy Dell again, but only 6 months after a new laptop has been on the market to see if the problems are worth buying from them. I bought my 1330 the week it came out.

 

They used to put the kit together in Ireland, now it's put together in Poland. I don't see the problem there though? In my experience, delivery time is still the same and my last laptop arrived very quickly, compared to previous laptops that were made in Ireland.

So I wouldn't let this put you off.

 

Mine came from Poland. Arrived in 5 days (Dell told me to expect 7), and in good condition except for a minor cosmetic flaw, which Dell promptly fixed with no hassle.

 

No.

It has nothing to do with Dell, I'm just never buying a prefab computer ever again.

 

Dells entire UK operation is India call center for home or business, was the person you spoke to English? are you sure?

I've spoken to Dell business sales and just like home sales they use fake names to make themselves sound English. I've come across someone who can't even speak proper english and one has the name HARRY PASCAL. Another one has the name SHERYL LONG!! and I know this for fact are trained to pop comments into the conversation about whats happening in the UK in the news i.e "credit crunch" etc etc, they are given English newspapers and that's where they get it from. They also have English lessons to make themselves sound English.

If I'm very very wrong about the whole of Dells UK operation being India based I'd be interested in a phone number to this business sales place where your speaking to English Dell sales.

The only time I have spoken to proper English or shall we say people that are closer to home is when I was making an absolute stink about how crap Dell is now plus other issues I have had and that was an Irish woman and also when I wanted to cancel an order and that was an irish guy. The rest were conniving useless India based call center people.

Something else for fact, Dell Logistics in Ireland is laying loads of people off, I know this because an Irish college of mine his brother works for them actually at that place over there.

 

That's unfortunate DELL boy. I can say for a fact that here in Finland, Dell's business support is with Finns. Of course, no other country speaks their language, so they don't really have a choice... lucky me I guess (most Finns know enough English, it's really quite amazing considering they don't have that much immigration).

 

That's how it should be and yeah I know other European countries are not so effected when it comes to call centers being overseas so much as British. I'm not even British myself but the last thing I want is inferior customer service a million miles away and some arse hole on the other end either not providing a decent level of service or support or even trying to feed me bull crap about a product or even trying to rip me off when it comes to purchasing something or lying to me about something even which I find all to often, I find this all the time with them Indian call centers and in particular Dell.

I know this guy who's wife is the IT manager of the NHS and she deals with Dell and that large contract. I'll see if it's an Indian call center they deal with.

Dell UK head office is only like 20 minutes from me, even they made loads of redundancies, I'm pretty sure Dells entire UK operation is indian call center only for a handful of people in the UK.

 

I agree with your whole post, except for insulting the guys who work at those Indian call centers. They're just doing their job and are probably paid a lot worse than me or you. You should insult/curse Dell itself and its bigshot executives who only think of profit. Just like all other brands.

Welcome to capitalism...

 

Depends on what is on the market I have a Dell 1420 and it is solid (but had problems with Vista before SP1)

Dell has a very good business class notebook and I would love to have one.

 

You got to experience it to understand the full extent of what I exactly I mean.

There is quite a few big UK companies that have actually pulled customer service back into the UK after the shear amount of complaints about Indian call centers like the mobile network O2 being a good example, all their customer service is UK based now again.

As a customer you really wouldn't want to be fed complete bull, you wouldn't like to be made to go round in circles with something for hours on the telephone, you wouldn't want the telephone being hung up on you as a customer, you wouldn't like being spoken down to rudely when your the customer, you would like to speak to someone who can answer your questions or provide the service which you expect i.e something that should be very very simple. This is the kind of rubbish I have experienced and know ALOT of other people that have experience the same and thats with Dell.

Also you wouldn't want something like this to happen with your credit card details after you have made a purchase or paid for something.

This happened at a Symantec indian call center (the makers of Norton recently) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7953401.stm

It's good symantec are looking at shutting that call center down. Not the sort of thing you expect from a "Security" vendor!

Dell used to be good when it was UK based for UK customers.

 

Simply....in a heartbeat.......ive had nothing but positive dealings with dell and would definatly look to them in the future.

 

Although that credit card fraud story is terrifying, I would say the vast majority of Indian call center operators are honest, no? Whether they provide good service or not is another question...

 

No. My 1340 is great but it took three tries from Dell to get a working computer from them. The customer support is the breaker for me though. It was more than terrible more than half the time.

 

A very honest answer from me on that is no. Seriously the amount of times an Indian call center operator has tried lying to me, giving me misleading information about something or you simply had to ask them to please repeat what they just said as you can't understand them is unreal that is why I absolutely detest dealing with them.

Heres another one for you, I spoke to a couple Dell sales people enquiring about the Studio XPS, basically they both were trying to sale me the damn thing when all I wanted was some more information on the product. One offered me a price and sent me a quote, I eventually placed an order after deciding, the other Dell Sales rep finds out and phones me up telling me if I cancel that order he'll offer a better price (yes he's undercutting his colleague) afterwords offering me a pittance less, the order goes through and guess what? Wrong OS in the config and wrong wifi card. Another order gets placed and at this point I tell him I'm going abroad soon and will only order now if it can be delivered before I go away (in 2 weeks time) otherwise I'll have to order later when I return. Yes yes of course it can be delivered we are Dell business sales and can prioritize your order, order is placed and then guess what? he can't guarantee delivery. I canceled that order... who needs to be messed about like that I certainly don't.

The fake names are laughable as well. So if you have a problem and you telephoned back and said "I spoke to so and so on whatever date" they could simply say noone by that name works here as the name they gave is fake.....

 

Well, I'll have to believe your grim picture because I have never dealt with Dell UK And by your description, it just plain sucks.

And yes, it's scary to think that all customer service is like that...

 

It used to be good when it was UK based that is all I can say.

 

To respond to the title, yes. I will most certainly buy from Dell again. There's virtually no arguing that Dell makes some of the best and most well-priced computers on the market.

The only reason I would ever have second thoughts is the absolutely dismal support and customer service I've experienced.

I own a Studio 15 notebook, which has the standard Indian call center support since I didn't opt to pay hundreds of extra dollars for real support. To this date, they've not helped me with any of the issues I've had with this thing (and believe me, they are numerous). Literally every time, I ended up just posting here on these forums, and the helpful members here (who don't even get paid to do this) were infinitely more helpful than anybody I ever spoke to at Dell.

Poor support is not quite enough to be a deal-breaker for me, but it's really a shame for a company as big and well-known as Dell to provide such a joke excuse for support.

Those of us who buy Inspirons are Dell customers just the same as those who buy Studios, XPS's, Studio XPS's, Vostros, Latitudes, and Precisions, are we not? The whole concept of different support categories is a joke, if you ask me. Why should I get mediocre support because I spent a few hundred less on my computer than someone else, or because I don't work for a small business?

 

Absolutely positive. I used to work in IT and when placing an order for 3 large, expensive, servers I was given a dedicated account handler who handled our order and he was certainly not in a foreign call centre. All orders went though this person and all contact was with this person, he wasn't reading scripts, he wasn't trained to sound like anything, he was in the UK.

I'm aware of such tricks, however this was certainly not the case when I was ordering the servers.

I wouldn't say 'very very wrong', but I would suggest that perhaps we've had different experiences. If you're wanting to label that as being wrong then OK, but I'm not normally that mean

I'm not sure what the differences were with you not getting a UK based person, but it may be that the company I used to work for was rather large and spent a hell of a lot of money on kit and as such they didn't want to annoy them or get things wrong.

It may be that you're a small business user or home business user? That could be the only reason I can think of at the moment as to why you didn't get a UK rep like I certainly did.

Unfortunately it was just over 2 years ago (I no longer work in IT), so I don't have the number any longer. However I'm pretty sure I just called the usual UK customer service number initially and was passed through a few options, possibly transferred once or twice and from the second call onwards I had a direct dial telephone number to the person who handled our orders, service issues and pretty much anything else Dellwise.

It sounds like you've had a bad experience with them. I must admit that I am not chuffed with the home user customer services, but business side was spot on. It's just a shame they can't use them for both sides and treat home users with the same level of importance as business users.

That would tie in with the reports that Dell's moving it's operation from Ireland to Poland. There's plenty of stories on the net about it, including one on the official Dell site.

 

On a related note, I had an Inspiron before my XPS laptop and can state without any doubt at all that although the XPS is higher spec and faster, the Inspiron was a lot better build quality.

This was my earlier point. When playing with large expensive orders in my previous job I got UK people on the phone through the Dell business side, however when I'm ordering at home it's like I'm not as valued because I get a call centre abroad that's cheaper to provide and offers a lot less in terms of service in my view. I can only put this down to cost cutting, but it makes me feel like expensive business is more important to them than the every day customer.

Home business and home users will get call centres abroad, big business gets a UK person at the end of the line. Shouldn't we all get a UK based person if it's considered that big business is important enough to have one? Why offer a cheaper less effective version for the small business and home user customers?

 

Ok I've managed to find out that for small medium business it deafinetly is all Indian call center. As for large corporate oraganisations I'm still to find out who the likes of the NHS use these days is it Indian call center or someone from Dell UK head office in Bracknell (only 20 minutes away. I know a couple people at Microsoft UK (Reading in Berkshire) aswell, will see if they have any dealings with ordering systems from Dell and if it's Indian call center for them.

As for the bad experience I ALWAYS have a bad experience with Dell these days from customer service and sales in India. They are simply full of s***.

 

Well I can assure you that just over 2 years ago, when ordering servers for my previous employer, I was dealt with by a person in the UK. We were given a dedicated account handler and it was a massive difference to the experiences I've had as a UK home customer since.

 

I've bought a dozen or so Dells for myself and others over the years and always been happy with them - obviously since I kept buying more! With the purcahse of this 1530, I'm done with Dell. They did do me right in the end with all the work they had to do, but I wish I had the money again to buy an Asus instead.
Most certainly my last one.

 

I would say yes;
D420
D830
Mini 9
XPS M1330
XPS M1730
No unresolved issues with any of them.