Dell complaints

[pandzer]

Hi there,

I stumbled across the forum out of sheer frustration with my company's decision to go for Dell laptops for our consultants.

Let me tell you a couple of things...
My first encounter with Dell laptops was a Latitude C600, on which the mouse key thingy broke off atfer a few months, before the keyboard started giving me a hard time. I've had three power adaptors failing in the timeframe I was dealing with that notebook (about a year).
Actually, our support contract worked out ok, things got fixed in a timely manner. More on that topic later.

So anyway, the .com bubble burst, the company I worked for ceased to exist, and the next contract waited for me already. And again, I got sooo lucky: My new employer used Latitude C800s for all the consultants.
I've had that one for about 18 months, and here's a quick rundown of what I've encountered:

- laptop doesn't switch on (switching circuit defect)
- several broken power adaptors (not sure if two or three)
- three keyboards (keys falling off, keys ceasing to function)
- harddisk controller failing, overwriting the entire harddisk with random data - this one was the toughest of all, and it happened immediately before I was supposed to teach a course. Go figure. I didn't sleep that night.
- overall manufacturing just sucked... several parts of the case came loose after a while

So, that drama ended about a year ago. When I got my new and shiny D800, I was excited: a *fantastic* display, much nicer keyboard and even good onboard speakers - whew!

The excitement faded however in a rather timely manner:
I peeled off the stupid "Designed for MS Windows" and "intel Inside" stickers, only to find that the glue that was used had left its marks on the surface and now I have a nasty grey spot where the stickers were. Meh.

I've got the second keyboard now, in this one. Last Thursday, the Escape key broke off.
This is the 2nd power supply now, as well. It broke when I was working in the States (I'm normally located in Germany) and well, in that particular case Dell support was *great* - I had a replacement the next day!

Anyhow, the D800 now has a nasty tendency to switch itself off autonomously and it also likes to come up from standby randomly. This produces a good amount of heat, and of course, the batteries are empty then when you actually need them.

Right now, the display/lid is also somewhat floppy - it tilts back and forth a couple of inches, loosely.

So, our management's stance on this is that it doesn't matter when something breaks, because we have a 24/7 super d00per business gold whatever contract.
This cannot be a replacement for manufacturing qualitiy, however. We travel all the time and it's just not possible to wait for 24 hours until things get fixed. Also, one time Dell support announced they'd come between 1000 and 1800, and I stayed at my home office for that. When nobody arrived until 1730, I called again and asked if there was something wrong. I had been flagged as "customer not available" (CNA) when I was actually there, and yes, the doorbell works.

I am not happy with Dell laptops as my workhorses. I've seen great Dell boxes, some of the 19" rack servers are very cool and excellent value for money. Anyhow, for consultants who travel a lot, these Latitude boxes are just not a viable solution.
They may be a good desktop replacement for somebody who rarely transports them, but for me... no. I just got promoted to tech lead, and when the decision on what the next laptops will be comes, I'll throw in my veto if the vote's on Dell again.

So sorry, Dell, but your laptops suck for people who really depend on them.

[sickofdell]