Wanted to post my experiences with Dell

Hello all, I just wanted to share my experiences and trials with Dell.

I have owned a Dell Inspiron 6400 for a little under two years now, and I have been consistently dissappointed. Granted there are some saving graces to the laptop, but overall my experience has left me with a bitter taste in my mouth.

I chose Dell because I wanted to pick a laptop with some flexibility, and I didn't want to pick a pre-configured and likely overpriced model from a retail store. I settled on the 6400 and picked the Geforce Go 7300 GPU, as I was anticipating playing some light gaming. Initially I was very impressed with the entire package, although it was a bit heavy and clunky, it performed as expected. I upgraded my RAM to 2Gb, because Vista was very slow with just the 1GB it came with.

However, right at the one-year mark, my LCD screen began to show signs of problems. Unfortunately my warranty was only for one year, and I was now stuck with what was likely a 300$ repair. Initially the problem was vertical lines on the LCD, growing one pixel column at a time over a few months. Then the inverter board crapped out, and started flickering, emitting a high-pitched squeal, and half the screen went brown. It became unusable in a portable capacity unless i had a screen to plug into. This alone was enough to irritate me to no end. I was very saddened by this, because I have a friend with a cheap Compaq laptop he's had for 4 years and it's still going fine.

On top of this, after six months of moderate use, the expensive 9-cell battery I bought as an extra decided to die on me as well. But the saga was not over - I was just about to spend 200$ on a new screen for the 6400 when it suddenly and without warning died on me. The AC Adaptor is now dead, and nothing I do can get the laptop to start again. I suspect some sort of surge from the AC adaptor fried the mainboard. Now I have a 1200$ brick sitting on my desk. Will I ever buy from dell again? doubtful.

That's my two cents. Feel free to ask questions!

 

I respect your opinion. At the same time, I would never judge a computer company by one computer experience. My whole family has DELL computers. My brother had a power supply issue which was easily fixed. Other than that we have pretty much problem free. Why? We take care of the computers. No to make any slam on you, but I notice that most people who moan about a certain computer company are impatient and treat their computers like dirt. Yes computers have their defects (Studio 15 Media control buttons, touchpad, etc) but that is not enough to stop me from buying DELL in the future. ALL computers have their issues and it cannot be escaped. You can also always extend your warranty, so the issue of the 1 year warranty expiring is a moot point.

Anyways, whatever you choose, I hope you like it. =)

 

Sounds like you just had some bad luck. I have 6 and 9 year old Dell models that have been used intensively and are still running like new. Yes, the Inspiron 5150 runs very hot due to a design defect, but otherwise, it's really a nice computer. It happens all the time. One experience should not be enough to deter you...

 

That's a really bad spot of luck. I've owned several Dell systems, all of which have chugged along nicely over the course of several years. As JohnByeBye said, it's a bit unfair to denounce Dell forever because of one bad experience. It can happen (and certainly has happened) to every reputable computer company at some point. Dell, HP, Apple, Alienware, Toshiba, ASUS...as hard as they try to prevent it, there's still a few lemons that end up out there in the hands of customers.

 

+1 with everyone,

Computers are computers, it's just like every line up of vehicles, they all have there issues.

With that said, here are your options:

- If it's only the screen and AC adapter + battery, you can buy all that crap brand butt spanking new off Ebay for likely under $200.

- If you wanna get rid of it, throw it up on Ebay, no doubt, anyone with some mild laptop hardware knowledge will be willing to snag it up for a nice amount of money and fix it up for essentially pennies, next to paying full price for a new unit.


It's okay to be upset, anyone would be under those circumstances. But avoid straying down the path "all Dell branded products are just as bad". As you'll rapidly discover when owning different brands, the grass isn't greener on the other side.

Being with Dell is a wise choice, their CS will bend over backwards to keep you happy (on that note, no one start ranting about it being all Indians with no patients and no understanding of English or what not - wake up, ALL phone services now and days are done by people of that culture/region).

Plus, look at this as an advantage in your situation, because Dell machines are so common and well utilized, finding parts cheap is easier then heck. Pop open Ebay one day, Google your model followed by what part you need (just a Ebaying tip, don't buy from anyone with a score below 99.0% and make sure they actually have FEEDBACK).

Step back and consider your options. You can always buy another warranty.

 

Bend over backwards? Hardly.
More like eventually agree to believe that you might actually have an issue and honor their warranty.
Having to spend two hours (timed) on the phone talking to six different people to convince them that they did indeed ship me a laptop with a far lower power video card then they said i did (ok so the first 45 minutes was spent proving that I, and not someone in mexico, owned the laptop i'd just bought from the outlet) does not make me think they're bending over backward. Nor does the 40 minutes i had to spend with the returns department.

Admittedly about 20 minutes of that time was spent telling them the same thing in different ways until it matched the script they use, nobody could understand the concept of it being a different card then specified, they all wanted to use the dead card script.

That said, i got my mom a b130 and it's still chugging along happily, and both mini9's i've acquired work well also (though the ubuntu one can't play youtube videos, and the XP one doesn't get nearly the 4 hours they claim).

 

Many years dealing with dell and there laptops (specifically the inspiron line). Dells price point is better then most but the quality of components is not the greatest imo. There inspiron line has a bunch of issues and the more and more you use the laptop, the more chances some part of it will go bad. I already had to replace the inverter on mine and I use my laptop occasionally.

The other part about Dell that blows chunks is even if you are under warranty, and something on your laptop goes bad, you will get a refurbished part. When my LCD started going dark they sent me a few refurbished monitors back. All of them had dead pixels and there policy is 7 or less and its good to use.

So as I always tell people, dell is cheap but cheap comes at a price in the long run. 4 inspirons 1xe1705, 3xe1505 and my friend also has an e1505. He has had his power supply die.

 

I wanted to say thank you to everyone for their posts and opinions. I took the 6400 to a local and well-established repair place for a free quote; their assessment is that the motherboard is 'faulty' and it will cost 250$ or so to repair.

Now, I am aware that there are a bounty of parts on the web; I was actually contemplating a CPU/GPU overhaul along with a new LCD when the laptop died. I don't think i'm going to salvage the laptop, though. I will likely cannibalize it for the HDD and RAM and then put it on Ebay, to test my luck.

As for Dell customer service, I did try to get some aid from them. Their solution was much costlier to a self-repair, and I didn't really consider getting a new warranty. I had read about LCD recalls on other dell laptop models, as other units were suffering exactly the same vertical line problems that I was. However (of course) my model was not one of the systems included in the recall. I tried to get some leeway from Dell CS, but they weren't going to budge. But hey, didn't hurt to try.

Now, please understand that I was in a bit of an angry mood when I wrote my post. I'm sure most people would be a bit pissed if their 1200$ machine suddenly died after a slew of problems. For the person who mentioned proper care - I had many opportunities while trying to mend my 6400 to learn the inner workings of my laptop, and how to care for it. It is in fact my second of 3 laptops, and I did take good care of it - shock damping carrying sleeve, regular dissasembly and cleaning of the heatsink and fan, dusting, battery maintenance etc. Some things just can't be avoided, and I guess I got a bad mix of parts from the subcontractors.

Now, since posting, I have realised that a suitable replacement is not easily found, at least not one that will do what I need and at the price level i seek. This means I will likely buy a Dell again - I'm looking at the Inspiron 13 at the moment. at least prices have dropped, and I get more for my money than i did 2 years ago.