Something to consider when we're raggin on the Dells...

... I know, it's hard sometimes NOT to pick on some of the Dell owners who come in here with pithy quips and no clue about the Toughbook "thing"... they have the latest 1 of a million cookie-cutter Vista-Blister machines & they think they're the schizz-nitz.

BUT... around about the time that Toughbooks were just getting noticed for the first time, Dell released a machine which STILL defines it's niche, and STILL has just as rabid a following as our beloved CF-28s.

I am talking about the FIRST really USEABLE ultraportable notebook; the Latitude L400. These machines were first released over 8 years ago, and even WAY BACK THEN, Dell managed to pack everything you NEED into a 1" thin magnesium alloy chassis with the footprint of a letter size sheet of paper. It provided the user with a 12.1" 1024x768 Trucolor screen, user changeable RAM & HD, & MODEM/NIC/USB/PCMCIA. While its 700mhz soldered-in-place CPU and 256MB max RAM now limit it to use only with relatively lean builds of Windows XP & LINUX tinkering; as with our beloved CF-28s, a 7200 RPM hard drive DOES greatly improve performance; and the single-spindle design means you can squeak 5.5 hours out of a 6-cell pack, all in a 2.5 pound package.

This is why the AirBook is the first laptop I've actually considered buying NEW in the last 3 years...:wink:

mnem
*Steps down off 3 stacked L400s, which together are about as big & heavy as 1 Toughbook*

 

THUNDEROUS applause was heard 'round the world....

 

Note to self -

Must stop picking on Dells.

<trips over stack of L400's - "Who left that here?">

 

*Scuttles after boo badger-like, collecting the L400s*

Mine! Mine! ALLL MINE!

mnem
There, there, my preciouossssss....

 

<Attempts to come up with something witty to append to a reply,
but is too shaken by vision of scuttling bronze dragon clutching L400s to chest..

curls up in ball, fetal-like and commences singing.
"If you can just get your mind together
Then come across to me.."

>

 

Heh.... I've got 'em clapping in one corner, and juddering in the other... MY WORK HERE IS DONE.

mnem
The L400s... Hmmm... sounds like a good name for a barbershop quartet. *Sings along with Boo* "But first, are you experienced? Have you ever been experienced? Well, I have..."

 

Ummm... I considered it...

BOOOOOOOOO Dell.... Did you ever try calling their customer service? They have NO clue what is going on. I haven't had to call a customer service line in years... But I remember way back when... Here's a Toll-Free Number... It goes to India!


Bahhhh.... Yes... I still have a Dell.... I have an old Inspiron 9100 fat, brick-like desktop replacement laptop. It still works... But only after I reformatted it and took off all the Dell crapola! I have built my own desktops for the past 5-6 years and now (pretty much) build my own laptops.

I would NEVER buy another Dell.

 

Speaking about non-toughbook tough notebooks... how many of you guys saw the transformers movie? what's up with the HP that soldier had?

 

Bought my wife a refurbished Dell Latitude D620 for Christmas. When I got back after 6 weeks dredging out of town, loaded it up and bad battery! Not sure if the battery was warranteed or not, but I called Dell, got a very nice lady in Florida, new battery was at my door the following evening. I always shop at their small business side of their web site, maybe that's the difference although there is no difference in price. $625 for Core-duo, 1Gig ram, 1 year warrantee, and none of the "media special" crap.

 

whats wrong with Dell??

I personally build all my desktops custom, but they seem to be great for people who don't want to bother. The quiet cases are pretty good, especially for use as a server that you don't want bothering people.

 

Dewed... have you tried to get hold of ANYONE's customer service lately? Hell, even the local Phone Company is outsourcing to phone banks in India.

I am an HP Premier Onsite PC Tech, and an HP Certified HDTV MasterTech, and a Dell DCSE to round it all out... I think HP is by FAR a superior product to Dell, and I work on BOTH of 'em for a living.

THAT SAID... Dell's "Bargain Basement" PC - whatever it happens to be AT THE MOMENT... is INVARIABLY one of the best deals to be had for a basic PC. PERIOD. I routinely get eMail ads from them offering a decent middle of the road PC for around $430, DELIVERED, WITH a decent LCD monitor. I can just about BUILD an equivalent machine for the figure at which they're selling it complete; and then there's an OS to buy. Now figure the value of ANY PC after the 2 years this el cheapo unit is good for, and tell me you can in good conscience try and sell the average Joe anything more; its absurd. By the time that Dell kakks, it's time to be looking for a more civilised machine anyhow. This is the direction the entire market is taking: towards the generic, disposable console that you use up & throw away.

And you want to talk bad customer support? You can't even buy parts from Panasonic for your Toughbook; you have to go to an "authorized" third party. Imagine what it would be like for an average Joe to try and get anything from Heartland... first, they have to FIND them. Sorry, that never did exactly instill a lot of confidence in me. You and I take it for granted because we're in the industry; we put up with it because the Toughbook is a superior product. Most ordinary people still expect to be able to call the manufacturer and order a new shumwidget for their PC or dooflinkey for their laptop, maybe even a uber-shiny gewgaw bag to put it all in. You can, I almost guarantee, still order a brand new battery, AC adapter, RAM or DVD Drive for your old Latitude direct from Dell; you can still get them for the CPS.

Oh, and BTW - even though I work for HP some of the time... they too have the SAME crappy Outsourced-to-India first-line customer support you're talking about. The only difference is that when the fellow on the other end of the line you can barely understand CAN'T help you, you get kicked over to The States where someone WILL take ownership of your problem, and WILL fix you up, as long as you're still under warranty... sometimes even if you're NOT.

Us rugged individualists are not a large enough segment... we don't make them enough money... so we are not the ones they're selling to. We're going to continue building things the way we want them, because that's the way we are... and they're going to keep right on not caring, because that's the way THEY are. This is, unfortunately, the way of modern business.

mnem
*Now... back to us cranky old farts loving our cranky (crank-powered?) old Toughbooks*:tongue:

 

Yeah... You're right.... They have just pissed me off one too many times. I know that you can't beat their deals... Unless you go to TigerDirect... And they are probably going to be selling Dells too now that companies can buy them ready made.

I just never had a good expereince with them.

Now... About the Panasonic parts... Um... You're right again....

Do you ALWAYS need to be right?

 

Dewed... you wanna talk about DELL PISSING YOU OFF... try being THE FACE OF DELL in the field. Try keeping a professional demeanor when they tell you they won't replace your customer's squealing hard drive just cuz it's still showing OK in SMART. Then YOU have to tell the customer to keep their data backed up religiously against the day it DOES fail... and HOPE it does it quickly, while its still under warranty... Or when Polaroid told me they wouldn't replace a customer's LCD TV unless it had bad pixels the size of a dime, or 14 total overall... or when NEC wouldn't replace a laptop hard drive that failed in a machine just because they had upgraded their own RAM...

I have horror stories as bad or worse from EVERY corporate client I've ever had, not just DELL.

As for being right... well, I've had 40 years experience of doing it the wrong way... I guess by now I should know by example. :wink:

mnem
Age is a very high price to pay for maturity.

 

Piss-poor (at best) customer service is the price we pay for getting consumer electronics so cheap. I'm old enough to remember when you had to pay $600 for a 19" TV. Or $1000+ for a decent component stereo system. Or $500 for an ENTRY LEVEL computer (which didn't even come with so much as a cassette drive.. that was another $100). The point I'm trying to make here is, when we were paying that much, we reasonable expected there to be a repair network for this stuff. Now that everything is dirt cheap, I guess I cant' really fault the makers for not wanting to be bothered by the customers after the sale. Would you expect the grocery store to help you if you brought a half-used roll of toilet paper back, that the perforations stopped working on? of course not. well, its a hard concept for us old-timers to deal with, but consumer electronics is now throwaway garbage, not much different than that roll of toilet paper. Heck, they can't even use lead solder anymore because they EXPECT it all to end up in a landfill!

 

oops, wrong thread....

 

This was PRECISELY my point when I said "This is the direction the entire market is taking: towards the generic, disposable console that you use up & throw away." Every market in this country wants that built-in turnover; hell, if the automakers weren't so busy pricing themselves out of existence on account of having $2 out of every $3 in the price of a car going straight into management salary, they'd be trying to do it too...

mnem
Think of the corporate structure as an inverted Pyramid...