Dell Laptops = junk

I'm so disgusted with Dell. I bought one of the Vostro 15" laptops when they first came out. Less than 2 years later the motherboard goes out. Last Christmas (2008), I bought my daughter a 13" XPS. It cost me about $1,000. 16 months later the mother board goes out on it and Dell wants $400 to fix it. Either I have the worst luck in the world when it comes to laptops or there is a problem with Dell's QC. My brother bought a cheap Toshiba 5 years ago and it still works fine. I'm not sure what to do about my daughter's laptop. Is it worth $400 to fix it??

 

i get a new laptop every 2 weeks or so, and im gonna be honest with ya but 75% of the time there is SOMETHING wrong with it like dead pixel, wireless card, DOA, and much others like flickering, keyboard error....

The thing is though, the reason why I get it from dell is usually the price is SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper than that of the competitors, especially with HP, and I think it worth it eventhough sometimes it goes mlafunctioning.

But overall, i am pretty darn satisfied with the tech support to i really dont complain that much even with all that malfunctioning.

i havent used one for more than 2 month so i cannot tell you about in terms of long term. but i guess i rec that you def get at least 2 yr warranty

sometimes people get really lucky too. my first real expensive laptop was the alienware M15x and it was dead on arrival... imagine a person who waited forever to get it, paid huge amount of money, and right out from the box i cannot even have the thing turned on. however i just accepted as it is you know. shxt happens man.

take it easy and try to get extended warranty if you are planning to use it for a long time. that can save you a lot of $$ in the future if you are one of those unlucky folks.

 

I have been completely satisfied with my laptop and service has been good when I had trouble

 

I have had multiply Dell laptops and seen many others that work fine, some people just draw the short stick... alot.

There is no full proof company.

 

Only thing I've ever had break on the 3 Dell laptops I've had was the hard drive on my current one about a month after getting it. Ages: 8 years, 4 years, 1 year. My 1340 is showing more wear than I'd hoped but still works fine.

 

Do you know which component died? Might those notebooks include an nVidia GPU?

I have no complaints about the reliability, so far, about my Dell Latitude E6400 but I have a friend whose M1330 has needed repair twice already within two years due to nVidia GPU failure (fortunately he paid for the 3 year NBD warranty).

John

 

It all depends on your luck. My HP laptop's LCD died out few days after my warranty expired. then after replacing, the graphic card busted (8400gs). It all happened in 2 years. Right now I'm with Dell and I'll see how well it goes.

 

I couldn't be happier with the XPS line. I have one for myself and one for gf. So far so good. Bad luck man

 

All of my Dell laptops have been good Insprion 1520, 1420, XPS 1330

 

Overall I would say I'm happy with Dell's reliability. I've had failures and recalls but had them fixed by dell.

That being said, I won't buy a notebook (of any brand) with anything less than a 3 year NBD warranty.

 

all my family's Inspirons and my XPS are working perfectly. I love this company much ^^

 

buy a warranty. all tech items fail eventually.

 

the thing is this. if your hard drive crashes, you cant really blame dell for it... blame the manufacturer of the hdd

 

That's covered under the nVidia warranty extension.

 

Overall i'm very pleased with Dell laptops. I own five laptops and they all work great and reliability has not been an issue. The only issue that recently came up was my Vostro 1500 had temperature issues and I resolved that by replacing the thermal paste and cleaning out the exhaust system.

I recently purchased a Vostro V13 and I love that little laptop, awesome screen.

 

my two XPS'; m1330 and m1530 have been hell to own, I'm not anal, so I dealed with it and took advantage of the warranty; they gave me 1 year free on my XPS, in the end they sent me an exchange SXPS 16, which I'm selling because I wouldn't want to go through Dell Hindi Hell again.
(On top of that, I don't even live in the USA, so you can just imagine.)

They're not crap, but... you just have to deal with the fact that there are no perfect laptops, to me, the m1530 delivered for its time, but went to crap with the faulty 8600mGT; which 5 exchanges resulted in the same crap, over and over again.
Not that I wouldnt recommend it to ANYONE who's not aiming to game on it.

Dell isnt entirely crap, its the whole experience that bums you down.
I'm going Clevo or MSI this time; but when Dell gets their act straight and design thir XPS line well, I might come back... ( what the heck is up with the heat fan being right in front of the monitor, !??!)

Peace.

 

I think people's expectations are too high when it comes to Dell. If you think Dell is crap, go and get an Asus or another brand. You won't find the experience any better. At least Dell has actual technical support and they send techs out to fix/repair problems. I've just had to send in my laptop to Asus twice in a ridiculously short amount of time. Video card problem first time and the same problem happened again one week after receiving it back. Takes 4 weeks for it to get repaired each time! That in itself makes me want to go back to a Dell (for my main laptop). The only thing holding me back are the GPUs they use. Asus is value for money but their service sucks.

And by the sounds of it, your Vostro and M1330 have suffered from the hands of nVidia's faulty 8M series.

 

i cannot agree with you more. dell has the best service in the planet. even better than i apple i would say. if your apple is broken you need to take it to the store? BS! my friend has a toshiba out for repair and its been 4 weeks and they are still waiting for the replacement part to arrive. BS!

Dell has the best tech support and that is the reason why i only get dell even though almost every time something goes wrong in the first month or so.

 

Dell has taken care of my issues on my lappy.
Though at times, it felt like I had to fight an uphill battle..in the end, things seemed to have worked out.

In the future, I wouldn't be hesitant to purchase another. : )


Cin...

 

We've had several Dell computers and always had good luck with them. Support is really good in my experience and has never failed to fix any issues we've had.

The thing I don't like about them is their ridiculously convoluted website. The amount of choices can seem overwhelming even for a person like myself who considers themselves fairly computer literate. Sometimes buying a Dell feels like buying from a sleazy car salesman with all their specials that seem to change by the minute and having multiple base configurations for the same model computer. I hate having to "play the game" to get the best deal. That's my biggest complaint with Dell.

 

The nVidia 8M series GPU gives a lot of problems, that's for sure. A lot of notebook brands suffer heat issues with these cards. As for the XPS M1730 we're "lucky" the fact that the 8700M/8800M/9800M cards are disconnectable from the mobo. It's just a shame a lot of these cards get fried a lot.

Dell has a great tech/customer support. I always take extra warranty with in home service. This way I can observe the tech like an hawk about his activities.

It's only cause the fact Dell is a awkward company, they aren't always responding accurate on design problems. They're not taking things seriously if you're a complaining individual. You always have to try to organize people to shake them awake and often thats not enough. They're also very stubborn to solve issues. For instance take the M1730 fan issue. At Dell's Idea Storm many of us voted for a new bios to solve the fan issue to prevent our GPU's from dying, without prevail. Dell rather replaces these rigs under warranty for Alienware M17x systems than solve this issue! It looks like different departments inside this organisation don't cooperate, or worse, competing with each other. Better losing money than to admit there are some design issues.

 

the inhome service is def the best thing about dell. and also the price/performance kills any other companies out there in general

 

I dont know what to say no manufacturer is perfect but in my opinion Dell is one of the most reliable brands.

I think you should try calling Dell and demanding that the motherboard be replaced for free or something.

 

i've bought countless number of Dell computers over the years now, I usually change laptop every year and laptop every 1/2 year. Even for the computers that I've kept for 3+ years I haven't had any problems yet. So my experience with Dell is fantastic so far.