Inspiron 17

My 1 year and 10 month old Acer 9300 laptop bit the dust and two techies have told me that the motherboard is toast so to make a long story short I just bought a new Inspiron 17 on-line which should be delivered tomorrow (Wdnesday November 3). Being a technopeasant I had to rely on opinions of people I know who have or have had Dell products and the over-all opinion was positive but I've also heard that they aren't what they used to be. I'm also anxious because some opinions on this site expressed not positive comments on Dell warranty support which may or may not be true. Anybody out there have any opinions on the Dell Inspiron 17?

 

I don't have experience with the Inspiron 17 but I have with Dell products since 1998. Yes as a general rule their products are not what they use to be in terms of durability or quality. They still offer good products but you'll have to pony up.

I have a Vostro 1700 which was built like a tank but the subsequent Vostro's are not as good in terms of build quality. Still let's put it perspective. You'll probably sick of looking at your laptop before it's time to retire it.

 

On the contrary, I think Dell's build quality has gotten better over the years.

If you bought an Inspiron based off a Latitude C-Series, it had a largely plastic chassis with a metal brace in the back to which the display connected.

If you bought an Inspiron based off an early Latitude D-Series, that had a metal frame with a plastic shell - better, but still somewhat flimsy.

Nowadays they're almost all built on a single-piece, magnesium-alloy chassis with a plastic palmrest... it's much better than what it used to be.

We've got an 1420 in the family, and it's way more sturdy than the 500m I had back in the day.