XPS M1330 Build Quality Issues

Hey all

I've had an XPS M1330 since October last year and I'm not too happy with how its lasted since then. It's taken a lot of damage even though I've been very careful since I got it. I've brought it in and out of college every day, but I've stored it in a Crumpler Gimp sleeve within a Jansport bag which provides a good bit of protection. It hasn't had any falls or knocks and I always bring my bag with me and leave it down carefully. Despite this, I've noticed a good few issues with the laptop:

1) The hinge can't keep the laptop closed properly - the screen flaps up very easily rather than snapping shut
2) The panel at the front that covers the headphone and microphone ports has fallen off a couple of times
3) There's two lines of small vertical marks on the screen that I can't get off
4) The right hand speaker grill is bent out of shape
5) There's a scratch in the middle of the screen
6) There's a scratch above the touchpad
6) A piece of plastic beside the right hinge is bent out of shape
7) There are a number of marks I can't get off on the laptop, such as on the sides of the screen and on the metal part
8) Paint is wearing off the hinges
9) The front part of the lid has buckled upwards slightly

I've posted pictures of some of these problems.

While some of these issues are just cosmetic, others like the hinge problem, front panel and scratch on the screen are extremely annoying. I had intended on keeping the laptop for my 4 years of college but at the moment it really doesn't feel like it's going to last that long.

It seems to me to be build quality issues rather than just wear and tear, since I've been careful with the laptop and haven't had it very long. Has anyone had any similar experiences? And would I have a case for a replacement?

 

Your saying that all of that happened AFTER you got the laptop? If yes, you aren't being as careful with it as you should be.

 

So you scratched your screen and it magically appeared due to poor build quality? Last time i checked, the laptop didn't come with claws...

 

Look in the mirror and determine the blame. All of the pictures you have shown stem from maltreatment of the system. I really don't know how you managed do even damage the speaker grill but can honestly say that it mustn't have been easy.

I don't think that anyone would be wrong in suggesting you shouldnt have anything less than a toughbook for the way you treat your lappy.

The hinge on the right obviously resulted from a drop of the laptop. You are lucky that its still working. You will find the damage on the left rear is a result of the drop on the right. It is a very easy assumption to make from anyone.

Bet your a bit annoyed that you never spent the additional for accidental damage eh...it would still look like new.

 

Wow, I've never seen so many flamers in one post before. You guys really do come to hasty conclusions. The OP may never have dropped it.

Some of the flaws in the pictures look like they may be due to user error, but others are the natural consequences of the way Dell designed this machine. For example, the vertical "teeth" on the screen in the first picture happen if the laptop was built with an LED screen. The screen is so "thin and light" that it is actually very flimsy and can be easily pushed into contact with the keyboard when carrying it around with the lid closed. Aidoscuz, you should be able to wipe those off with the microfiber cloth that came with the system.

My system came with a problem where the little silver pieces that attach to the left and right of the glossy black touch-sensitive panel are wobbly and come off easily. I don't mind too much, but it did bother me that it came like that right out of the box from a new system.

Still, compared to other small laptops, like the Toshiba Satellite U305, the M1330 has great build quality.

 

Azerty,

Did you notice this picture:




or this picture:




Its just an educated guess put the edge on the second picture was forced to the left by the rear plastic after it was dropped on the right, as can be seen in picture 1.

 

Thanks for the reply azerty, I was beginning to lose faith in notebookreview.com...

If you think I haven't been as careful as I should have been with the laptop, that's fine. There's no need to flame me and accuse me of lying.

I can assure you I have never dropped the laptop. I have carried a heavy physics textbook in my bag with the laptop, but I assumed that a thick foam sleeve would be enough to protect it. As I said I've brought it around college a lot but I've always been careful with the bag (careful in my opinion anyway). Maybe I've just over estimated what the laptop can take or maybe I have a naive definition of careful, I don't know. I assumed the laptop could withstand normal student use. If you felt I was wrong in this you could say it without being so aggressive.

Actually it can happen and is because of poor design and build: Have a look at this thread.

I've tried wiping away the marks but they won't come off. They're very stubborn. Thanks again for the understanding reply!

 

Oh...the marks on the screen....

They occur from closing your laptop lid too quickly and with force. I don't understand how you can believe that those marks would come from a cared for system.

My system has been closed and open oh...Im gonna bet a few hundred times....maybe over a thousand since I use it several times a day and it goes everywhere with me.

Just checked...not a mark..with LED.

The build quality is fine. I would honestly side with you if you had shown anything but damage attributed to by the owner. Its all caused by you. There is no damage which you can honestly say is the fault of the manufacturer.

Did you get accidental coverage...complete care?

EDIT: Just to make sure in my assumptions, I enlarged and took a very close look of your system.

It has been dropped and most of your damage states that. Consider the following points, which includes marks you haven't even mentioned:

1. damage on left hinge from the drop is obvious;
2. the right hinge is forced left as a natural consequence from the drop causing misalignment and the resulting damage. Consider and look at the picture closely. This never came this way or happened naturally over the course of time. Its force;
3. Now look at the speaker grill which is also forced right and appears may have come from the same drop. It all fits in;
4. Now you would naturally see the teeth indentations from the drop and;
5. A point you failed to mention but would be an impossible occurence are the horizontal marks on the bottom left side and bottom right side of the monitor edging. The only way these could have occured is through a great deal of effort forcing them down on the hinge cap. I closed my system several times...wait...unless of course;
6. the hinges are misaligned from the original drop which now means the monitor will not sit properly; and then we can add....
7. your mentioning that the lid doesn't close properly or have the resistance to stay closed once shut.

Sorry if you do not agree but everything that you have pointed out logically comes from one occurrence.

This is the same response you will get from Dell and I am sorry to have played the Devil's advocate...but it all falls into place quite simply in the end I guess.

And as far as faith in notebookreview.com, if you wanted a way to fool Dell and get this covered, you should have just asked that. It has nothing to do with the site, but rather, the question asked. Start a new thread. "I dropped my Dell. How can I get this covered?"

 

Can OP claim accidental damage protection, if already purchased?

 

Nope, just a three year warranty. I got that free as I ordered it through someone I know in Dell. They couldn't get anything off Accidental Damage though so I left that, I didn't think I'd need it. Guess I was wrong eh!

 

Don't the marks on the screen happen if your keyboard isn't flat -- or if you carry it in a bookpack with a heavy book that pushes the screen into the keyboard?

I wonder if this could also happen due to a heavy book exerting pressure on the laptop.


Or was it always like that?

I'm not sure about the paint on the barrel hinge, but other people have had problems with paint flaking off of some part of their laptop.

 

It appears to have been a drop or extreme pressure in a bag...Ie: A tpyical student carrying their laptop on a shoulder strapped bag with a bunch of books inside.

**Correction**

Thats why. Those backpacks CAN carry laptops and precious materials, but WHY would you do that... There are LAPTOP BACKPACKS for a reason =D. A laptop sleeve can only take soo much force from a couple of books and you incidently slamming your backpack on a table at your local coffee shop.
**Correction**

Those keyboard outlines on the top of the LCD screen appears to be finger grease + force onto a closed lid to cause those imprints. The hear hinge being dismantled looks like the OP it it against a surface and forgot about it.

Those two are pretty obvious tpyical user created problems. Thats why some people put their terry cloth on top of their keyboard, nicely folded, when the screen is closed and when you are traveling. It reduces the stress between the keyboard and LCD when in a bag or drop of some sort.

The interesting damage in this whole post is the black media buttons above the keyboard. Now that could be quality issues when the OP recieved the laptop, but I can only think of a few ways that part could be dammaged.....

Sorry buddy, your getting no sympathy here. Doesn't look like build quality issues to me, looks like carelessness.

If your wondering, yes I to also go too college, taking 6 classes in the sem equating to 20 total units. I carry around 25 lbs of books and material everyday to class, and there is not a scratch on my laptop.




New User 1st Post: FTW!

 

I wonder if a "friend" of the OP could have knocked it onto the floor by accident when he wasn't around, and then not said anything.

 

Wow, what a condescending reply there Les. If you think the guys' laptop took more physical abuse that he thinks then just say so (eg: the text books probably put more pressureon the laptop than you'd think, the foam case probably doesn't protect as well as you think, etc).

An example of your condescending assumptions:
" I really don't know how you managed do even damage the speaker grill but can honestly say that it mustn't have been easy."

You really have no idea how that grill was actually bent. In fact the right speaker grill in the EXACT same spot on my 1330 developed a bulge (very slight compared to his) in the first week or so, for NO APPARENT reason. Just sitting on a table not being moved, one day I noticed it had appeared. Now it's not severe enough on mine to bother with a replacement but it indicates that there certainly may be some underlying issue that caused and/or contributed to his right speaker grill bend.

Overall, though, I do think the guys laptop went through rougher treatment than he thought which caused some of the wear and tear.

The build of the 1330 is fine, I agree, but not perfect by any means. I could nit pick and find a couple very minor things with mine but none enough that I would expect much better with a replacement.

 

" There is no damage which you can honestly say is the fault of the manufacturer."

You don't know that Les. You are speculating. Don't state that as if it's fact.

There may not have been an actual drop. It may have been a matter of putting the backback down, but the weight/angle of the textbooks caused higher forces/pressure on the laptop than he excpected from just putting the pack down. Perhaps h's used to other brands of laptops that handled the same conitions without issues.

I already mentioned the speaker grill which certainly could be a manufacture issue.

Fanboys are often quick to jump all over people. Perhaps, take a ittle time to explore further the conditions the laptop was put under. Engage the guy in a bit of discussion. Maybe then some of you guys won't come off sounding like ....

Again, I'm not saying you're not bang on with some of your comments regarding the damage, but come on.

Cheers.

 

I don't think so, I'd say I would have noticed it when I first got the laptop.

I'm beginning to think that the main issue I'm having is that I wasn't used to carrying ultraportables around. The M1330 is my first slim and light laptop, before this I had some really old Dell Inspiron and then an Inspiron 6000. They were subjected to a lot more abuse than my current one and never took any particularly noticeable damage. They were both bricks compared to the M1330 though, which is possibly why I mightn't have treated it as carefully as some of the other users here.

That's not to say I've been throwing my backpack into the air and then stamping on it for good measure as Les seems to think. As ZZen rightly pointed out I'd say at least some of the damage came from leaving it down with a load inside, which I wrongly assumed would be OK. Obviously it wasn't and I'll have to rethink how I manage the laptop for the next semester. It's definitely far more helpful to talk about it this way rather than simply make lots of assumptions and accusations.

 

It has nothing to do with being a fanboy. Go back at dell.com and check out my history and you will see I have no hesitations in calling Dell for their weaknesses.

I said it how It appears and if you actually believe that relates to some bulge that "appeared in your laptop after a week", please take a close look at it. It is bent from blunt force and there is nobody that can explain that otherwise. I am not jumping all over anybody except to say, get the truth out and we will figure out what we can do here.

I have been here for awhile and I have had no less than 8 M1330s come through my hands. I am well aware of all of the apparent initial 'design flaws' and don't disagree with any that were brought forward.

The damage I see has all occured after the fact from what appears to be a sudden drop. Even putting it in a laptop bag would not do this, unless of course it was thrown onto a desk where the edge hit the desk.

At the end of the day we need to ask ourselves if we are seeking someone to agree with us or give an objective view. I've been called on my opinion many time and have no problem standing by it.

In this case, I am just showing an easily assumable position that Dell will take.

Could the OP have sent the laptop in for the keyboard marks on the screen void the rest of this damage? Absolutely! Can the OP possibly find a way to get all this covered now? Hmmm difficult but possible and I believe would require excellent penmanship and a real letter to Dell headquarters.

The OP has come here because he or she knows there is a very realistic possibility the warranty will not cover this. Why?

Thats the point I am trying to show the OP. There is a culmination of physical damage that all fits into a simple scenario. You can say it was dropped or hit a desk inside the backpack. All the issues remain.

I apologize for giving an honest viewpoint but, to the OP, do you think that my belief is so far off that of the repair tech (who does this for a living) when he looks at it and decides whether it should be at your cost or Dells?

 

Very fair reply Les.

I actually don't disagree with most of your points and no need to "apologize for giving an honest viewpoint". I believev it was more in the delivery of your post. No need to baby people but no need to have a "tone" to it either, IMO.

The OP seems to have acknowledged that some of my comments may have been applicable in his case.

I still think the speaker grill on the right side may have some inherent weakness or propensity to bulging as it is it somewhat flexible and shows a very slight bulge on mine which can flex up/down.

I also agree that other than the keyboard marks on the screen and maybe the speaker grill, he may have a hard time getting the other wear and tear covered by Dell.

To the OP - perhaps there is a slim hardshell case that you could put the 1330 in, then slip that into your backpack.

Anyone know of any slim hardshell slip-type cases for these thin, more delicate laptops? Something that will protect it while in a backback with textbooks, etc.

 

Which is why this hard constructive talk isn't because what happened, it is because what is going to happen. My fear is that they won't accept the laptop because of the dammages. It depends how you dipict it and if you got the correct accidental warrenty =\

We are not here to get after you, no one is on these fourms (except trolls...grr) just that it doesn't look too good and what we said so far is what they could at worst case situation if a representative or repair technition looks at it