My Piece of Dell: What was I thinking

Thursday, April 10, 2008

What was I thinking

Ok, here was my thought process when I decided to buy a new laptop:

"Hm, I've had an HP laptop for 3 years. It's been good to me, but it's time to replace it. Let's see what deals there are... Oh another HP is around $650. Wow, thats a lot cheaper than the $1500 I paid for the last one. Wait, the newest Dell laptop is on sale for a little over $500! Whoa! A gig of ram, dual core processor... Hm, lets think about this... I've heard bad things about Dell but they've had years to improve and as long as I get a really good warranty, how could I go wrong? A 3 year come to your house the next day and fix it should be all I need in case anything goes wrong. But still, buying a Dell... but it's so cheap... and it looks pretty..."

And thus clever marketing and seductive low prices led me astray and I succumbed to buying a sneaky little Piece of Dell. It pains me to admit that such a foolish train of thought ever traversed my mind, but I do it for the good of others, that they may learn from my mistake.

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About a year ago I purchased a new Inspiron 1501 laptop from Dell (see post entitled: What was I thinking?). It has a problem: It doesn't work.

It does all kinds of strange things; pretty much anything except work the way it should. It freezes in random places (like the cpu-hogging control panel); gives me strange error messages, some of which I've posted here; takes at least a minute to come back from screen saver; flashes strangely on and off while trying to come back from sleep mode; can't handle playing a Youtube video all the way through (its not the internet connection); and an assortment of other strange activities.

I bought a 3 year come-to-your-house-the-next-day -and-fix-it warranty which, by the way, is a total scam. I've called Dell several times and spent hours on the phone. Their answer to any problem I have is, "Oh, it's a software issue. Your warranty only covers hardware. You're going to have to backup all of your personal data and reinstall Vista."

The thing has never worked right and all they can tell me is that it's a software issue; The software they sold to me as a bundle with their product! I finally went ahead and reinstalled Vista and guess what, it still doesn't work right. What they need to do is give me what I paid for - a laptop that works.

Please read (start at the bottom), comment, and pass this along. Spread the word and keep any unsuspecting victim from buying what I so affectionately call a Piece of Dell.