Tales of Interest! Inspiron 1505, and the mysterious disappearance of TrueLife

Before I begin, I'm new here... I've lurked without an account for a while, and I would like to thank everyone here for all the great information that lead to my first notebook purchase.

I think some of you might find my recent Dell experience interesting.

To begin, I've never personally owned a notebook PC (until now), but everyone around me does. Been into building computers since forever, and while my poor desktop has been limping along with upgrades and careful tweaking of the OS's, I finally got tired of being anchored to my office room. Being a crazy night owl, I often get to see the Dell Outlet right as it gets updated with a flood of new systems... strangely, it frequently happens around 3AM CST... maybe it's being done from India, I don't know.

Anyways, I had a gut feeling about checking Dell... I logged on, and caught the outlet update before most. They had a couple of the skeleton sub-$400 systems (like B130s and poorly equipped 1501s). I wouldn't have minded a B130... grossly underpowered, but strangely problem-free, from the ones I've worked on. But I lost a chance at those by being slow on the draw, so I went up a price bracket, and found a strange entry. 1505, scratch and dent, Core Duo 2350, 1gb ram at 667, x1400, WXGA, Intel wireless, but no bluetooth. OS loaded was Vista Home Premium (barf). $589.

I had a good feeling about it. The price seemed fair... more bang for the buck compared to other things in the price bracket. Yonah's not so new, but decent. So I nabbed it.

Living close to Dell means paying tax, but 3-5 shipping gets here in 2 days, which is kind of nice. So in 2 days, it showed.

Now, it's important to note here... I don't know how many of you have skimmed their outlet, but they usually explicitly say if a LCD has the reflective "TrueLife" coating or not, in the initial system description.

Well, things have changed. I flipped open the notebook, and while it had no real scratch or dent, it had the glossiest screen I ever did see. I really was expecting matte finish, since it didn't mention TrueLife anywhere when I ordered. It was marked "Refurbished", but Dell seems to do that to just about anything they sell that isn't new. And strangely, it had one of those 10-dollar snap-on pretty covers, which I couldn't find in the packing list. Snazzy.

Getting back on point... I have a really hard time with glossy LCDs, at least at the usual laptop viewing distance... the anti-glare coating on my glasses doesn't mix well with the refraction angles of the screen, and I end up with a splitting headache. Traditional matte finish gives my eyes a great rest (beats CRTs), which is why I was pretty crestfallen to see the glossy screen.

So I started looking into what went wrong. First, I noticed that Dell's configurator for Inspirons no longer uses the terminology "TrueLife". They now refer to screens as "glossy" or "anti-glare". Uh-oh. I checked the detailed equipment list, which I could have scrutinized better at checkout. This was duplicated on my packing list, and here's what it said:

TF229 - Module, Liquid Crystal Display, 15.4WX, Quanta Display Incorporated, GWVA, 6400

Glare wide viewing angle... reflective coating. Crap.

But this is odd--Quanta, not AUO? TF229? Throw "TF229" and "Dell" into Google... nothing. It's not a recognized part number for a 1505 display, ever. Is it a 1520 display? Or is it ancient?

Behold, my mystery system... a grab bag of parts from the four corners of the Dell warehouse. A leftover Core Duo... a mysterious Quanta panel... a gig of seemingly new ram, and a fancy blue coverplate. Vista Home Premium, not Basic.

Intrigued, I went into my Warranty page on Dell, to see a detailed breakdown of what Dell had on file for this system. And here's where the real screwiness starts.

The warranty page lists two sets of warranties--my 1 year of junk support, and then five years of "Complete Care", coupled with next-business-day service, et cetera. The start date on those? Mid-June, this year. So now, I'm really wondering where the heck this system came from... unopened box return, perhaps? And are they going to update their warranty database... or can I get a piece of that 5-year-warranty action?

Anyways, I decide to contact Dell, and express my displeasure over receiving a glossy screen when it wasn't clearly labeled as such when ordering. I realized I probably wasn't going to be able to con them out of a screen replacement on an outlet notebook, but maybe I'd get some store credit or something.

So I opted for the Dell Chat... the IRC of customer service. Same as the phone service, really... a little quicker, and the Indian accent doesn't come through in text messages. After the usual dance of verification, I was informed by the confused CS rep that the TF229 was a " matte-finish TrueLife panel" ("The best of both worlds, Egg-shen"), and that since I ordered from the outlet, I was stuck with two options--full refund, restocking fee waived... or $50 in Dell Monopoly money. I said I needed to think about the decision, and they did the usual--reference number and e-mail for when I wanted to talk turkey.

So I filed that away, and filled out a "wrong part" form as well, just to see if I get a better deal from a different person. I know there's matte-finish aftermarket LCDs out there, and since I've kind of fallen in love with Frankenstein's notebook, I'll likely buy one, swap out, and try to sell the Quanta display to make up the loss. I'm sure there's more to come in this story... I'm gonna check out the panel when I remove it, and run some system diagnostics... I wanna see if it actually kicks back as a Quanta, or as a AU Optronics.

I just find the whole thing kind of interesting... I really don't mind dealing with Dell, since I know just what quirkiness to expect. They supply all the schools around here, and they're certainly not an evil company... just bumbling and inconsistent.

Hope this entertains and informs... I know now not to trust the abridged "System Specifications" popup from Dell Outlet, anymore. Gotta check those details...

 

5 years complete cover? And you are even thinking of returning that system? Dell will have supplied you 3 more computers before the warranty's over, each better than the last.

 

If you google Quanta and dell without the part number, you'll see that tha Quanta is apparently a much sought after replacement screen. Maybe you should buy a glare filter and consider yourself lucky.

 

love the story, nicely written I gotta +repu for that

 

Progress update!

Dell is gonna credit me $50. But the 5 years complete care disappeared from my account. ;_;

Burn-in went well, and dual-boot Fedora 7/WinXP reload is going smoothly. Vista is easy on the eyes, but buggy. Gonna try getting Compiz Fusion to work with my x1400, so I can get the pretty effects back.

Ordered a replacement screen--another Quanta, just the non-glossy revision. I like these Quanta displays. I will take some photos and show before/after screen replacement, just in case anyone's interested.

-Q