DELL inspiron/dimension

[deejayshakur]

it's back, fyi.

free cd-rw upgrade, rebates on laptops, blah blah blah.

on second look, not as hot as the previous one... tepid deal.

 

[goodoptics]

nice post.

 

[Tweakmeister]

yeah not quite as hot as they used to be.

you'd honestly probably do better buying refurbed or from Ebay (from a *reputable seller folks*)

 

[Lark888]

I ordered one in the last deal. Arrived with defective LCD (new and dead). Best Dell would do is service it under warranty which would require I send it back and wait. Overall service calls were pretty bad including one CSR "explaining" to me that I should expect that units may arrive with defects - as they are made in overseas factories and "sometimes" they are defective BUT Dell would be happy to send me out another one.

I returned it. If that's the best service right out of the box - how is it going to perform 8 months later. Seems that Dell has dropped the concept of Quality. Low cost with lower quality is not a deal.

 

[MisterMe]

Get real dude! It's a given that 5 out of 100 "new" units will have some sort of defect or inop...you were just one of the 5 unlucky people. Also, if you would have seen it through, the warranty service would have entailed a replacement of the defective unit - what's wrong with that? What's a company to do other than replace what's bad? Sounds to me like Dell, the number one computer OEM, was doing it's job perfectly. You got a new, licensed, mega giga hard drive, P4 xxxGhz machine with an LCD flat panel for about $500 and you're bitchin? Do realize in the furture that it seems nothing will make you happy...

Pessimists suck...

 

[trikster2]

Originally posted by: MisterMe
Get real dude! It's a given that 5 out of 100 "new" units will have some sort of defect or inop...you were just one of the 5 unlucky people. Also, if you would have seen it through, the warranty service would have entailed a replacement of the defective unit - what's wrong with that? What's a company to do other than replace what's bad? Sounds to me like Dell, the number one computer OEM, was doing it's job perfectly. You got a new, licensed, mega giga hard drive, P4 xxxGhz machine with an LCD flat panel for about $500 and you're bitchin? Do realize in the furture that it seems nothing will make you happy...

Pessimists suck...

There is pessimism and there is reality:

According to PCMAGAZINE's "reliability survey" dells laptop reliability is not what it used to be.

"This year, Dell is singing a different tune in the notebook space. Last year the company dominated the category, with the only overall A. This year, however, four companies shoot to the top to attain A's, and?surprise!?Dell isn't one of them."
...
"Dell's rapid rise to number one or number two in notebook sales this year (depending on whose polls you read) may be stretching its quality-control lines thin. Dell falls to worse than average on repair frequency, so despite better-than-average scores on every other key measure, the company drops to a B+ for both office and home notebooks as well as overall."

I remember my old rock solid latitude 166 pentium I would beat the heck out of. Brought a ton and not one died.

Latest batch of latitude 810/820/840 are not doing quite as well........

 

[Tommyboy8]

I ordered a refurbished laptop last week... and received it this week on thursday. At the time of the checkout, the price came out to $1480. The laptop was a 600M with centrino technology, 1.3ghz, 384 Ram, 14' SXGA, 32mb ATI 9000, 30 gig hd, 24x CDRW/DVD combo, 3 year mail in with completecare. However, Dell charged me only $1273 on my Dell Account. Regardless, the unit came working perfectly fine, everything seemed new, some of the accessories were not even touched.

Since I got it in perfect working, and $200 less than it was supposed to be, I'm happy!

Go dell.

 

[fr]

Originally posted by: Tommyboy8
I ordered a refurbished laptop last week... and received it this week on thursday. At the time of the checkout, the price came out to $1480. The laptop was a 600M with centrino technology, 1.3ghz, 384 Ram, 14' SXGA, 32mb ATI 9000, 30 gig hd, 24x CDRW/DVD combo, 3 year mail in with completecare. However, Dell charged me only $1273 on my Dell Account. Regardless, the unit came working perfectly fine, everything seemed new, some of the accessories were not even touched.

Since I got it in perfect working, and $200 less than it was supposed to be, I'm happy!

Go dell.

I don't think they can offer CompleteCare in California so they might have taken it off your order. Check your service tag on their support site to see if it still has it.

 

[dethman]

Originally posted by: Tommyboy8
I ordered a refurbished laptop last week... and received it this week on thursday. At the time of the checkout, the price came out to $1480. The laptop was a 600M with centrino technology, 1.3ghz, 384 Ram, 14' SXGA, 32mb ATI 9000, 30 gig hd, 24x CDRW/DVD combo, 3 year mail in with completecare. However, Dell charged me only $1273 on my Dell Account. Regardless, the unit came working perfectly fine, everything seemed new, some of the accessories were not even touched.

Since I got it in perfect working, and $200 less than it was supposed to be, I'm happy!

Go dell.

they're already refurbing 600m's? dang.

 

[crazygerman]

Originally posted by: fr
I don't think they can offer CompleteCare in California...

excuse my ignorance, but can you elaborate on this statement? thanx!

 

[JHawk]

Hey Tommy--I had exactly the opposite experience.Placed order for refurb,even put it on my Dell card and they never could find order. After three e-mails(only one responded to) and two calls with the same--gee sometimes orders just don't go through, I said forget it and bought a Compaq from BB.

I've got two Dell desktops but I'm done with the refurb lappie dep't.

 

[Hawk]

Tommyboy8: I got the exact same thing (maybe with the TrueMobile 1300 instead of the Intel Wireless?) for $1350 and there's gonna be a $250 rebate...oh, but I have the lowest warranty.

 

[cisco]

Hope the one I bought and sold still sealed was working Ok!!
overall I've had great service from Dell, even if you buy a ten year old Dell they provide Free lifetime phone tech support (an old P133 desktop I got needed a bios flash to read large HDS) . I still say Dells one of the best companies I've dealt with.
I like the way HP/Compaq & Toshiba warranty items by serial# not invoice#

 

[CTrain]

Thats not a good deal.

I got the exact same laptop as yours but with a SVGA+ screen for $1300 shipped with a $250 rebate.
Thats $1050 bottom line. If I wanted the 3yrs, it would have been $169 more and that still would have been cheaper than $1273.

 

[Yo2]

Originally posted by: CTrain
Thats not a good deal.

I got the exact same laptop as yours but with a SVGA+ screen for $1300 shipped with a $250 rebate.
Thats $1050 bottom line. If I wanted the 3yrs, it would have been $169 more and that still would have been cheaper than $1273.

Brag and Moan...

 

[OneStepsAhead]

A 5% failure rate is ridiculous! Correcting the problem is simple, but not cheap. It is called QUALITY CONTROL, a.k.a. TESTING.

It is just cheaper to screw over 5 customers than to make sure the computers work.

 

[jbwhite99]

In terms of the CompleteCare discussion, companies like Dell and IBM (IBM sells Thinkpad Protection, don't know if HP sells this type of offering or not) are actually considered Insurance Companies in some states, and therefore have to meet capital requirements, etc. before they can sell these products. It is actually available for sale in about 38-40 states - Arizona isn't, New Jersey, Florida, and most of New England (along with California) are blocked, as well.

In terms of quality, you get what you pay for. I look at the great machines that Dell built in the 80's (as PC's Limited) and early 90's - they'd rather sucker the consumer in with a low price, sell them up big time, and hope the equipment makes it. You are right that 5% is a really bad percentage. Look at Dell's faring in the December issue of PC World magazine - you'll see how far they have fallen (4th in desktops, and about the same in notebooks - neither was an A) - tech support, product quality, etc. This can be explained in one thought - Dell's spokesman (Stephen) had to be on drugs to push their product.

I can't deny that Dell has cheap prices, but Caveat Emptor (Buyer Beware).

 

[sxr7171]

Originally posted by: jbwhite99
In terms of the CompleteCare discussion, companies like Dell and IBM (IBM sells Thinkpad Protection, don't know if HP sells this type of offering or not) are actually considered Insurance Companies in some states, and therefore have to meet capital requirements, etc. before they can sell these products. It is actually available for sale in about 38-40 states - Arizona isn't, New Jersey, Florida, and most of New England (along with California) are blocked, as well. In terms of quality, you get what you pay for. I look at the great machines that Dell built in the 80's (as PC's Limited) and early 90's - they'd rather sucker the consumer in with a low price, sell them up big time, and hope the equipment makes it. You are right that 5% is a really bad percentage. Look at Dell's faring in the December issue of PC World magazine - you'll see how far they have fallen (4th in desktops, and about the same in notebooks - neither was an A) - tech support, product quality, etc. This can be explained in one thought - Dell's spokesman (Stephen) had to be on drugs to push their product. I can't deny that Dell has cheap prices, but Caveat Emptor (Buyer Beware).

It is pity about the drop in quality, but it seems that Dell pricing with all these deals is competitive with crap computers at BB these days. I wish they'd left a single product line for those who will pay a bit more for quality (but not ridiculous Alienware prices).

Anyhow, I have been a loyal Dell desktop buyer, but I can see myself get a Thinkpad for a laptop since I believe they are generally slightly better than Dell's laptop offerings. What is the alternative on the desktop side? Other than building a machine yourself, I don't see an alternative to a Dell desktop that would be acceptable.

 

[gwlam12]

Originally posted by: dethman

Originally posted by: Tommyboy8
I ordered a refurbished laptop last week... and received it this week on thursday. At the time of the checkout, the price came out to $1480. The laptop was a 600M with centrino technology, 1.3ghz, 384 Ram, 14' SXGA, 32mb ATI 9000, 30 gig hd, 24x CDRW/DVD combo, 3 year mail in with completecare. However, Dell charged me only $1273 on my Dell Account. Regardless, the unit came working perfectly fine, everything seemed new, some of the accessories were not even touched.

Since I got it in perfect working, and $200 less than it was supposed to be, I'm happy!

Go dell.

they're already refurbing 600m's? dang.

some refurbs are just returned by customers because they bought the wrong product/configuration. so technically, there are some that are still sealed.

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: gwlam12

Originally posted by: dethman

Originally posted by: Tommyboy8
I ordered a refurbished laptop last week... and received it this week on thursday. At the time of the checkout, the price came out to $1480. The laptop was a 600M with centrino technology, 1.3ghz, 384 Ram, 14' SXGA, 32mb ATI 9000, 30 gig hd, 24x CDRW/DVD combo, 3 year mail in with completecare. However, Dell charged me only $1273 on my Dell Account. Regardless, the unit came working perfectly fine, everything seemed new, some of the accessories were not even touched.

Since I got it in perfect working, and $200 less than it was supposed to be, I'm happy!

Go dell.

they're already refurbing 600m's? dang.

some refurbs are just returned by customers because they bought the wrong product/configuration. so technically, there are some that are still sealed.

most of them, actually. either that or corporate overbuys