Dell XPS M1339 Keyboard Scratches Screen

I'm at the end of my rope. Let me give you an excellent example of why so many end-users are fed-up with Dell:

2 years ago, March 21, 2009, I bought an XPS M1330 for my son’s high school graduation. From the first, every time he opened the laptop, we would see odd marks on the screen. By May, it was clear that the marks were an imprint of the keyboard, and this had gotten so bad that it was hard for him to decipher what was on the screen. We had purchased a 2 year warrantee, so called tech support, and a very nice young man came out and replaced the screen. Within a few months, the same thing happened again, and this time the tech replaced the bezel and the screen. My son went off to college, and the next year when he came home for the summer, he showed me that the screen was badly marked again. Again, the tech came, replaced the bezel, screen, and I believe the hinge that time as well,

Finally, on 2/14 of this year, when I knew that the warrantee was about to run out, I called my son and asked how the screen was. All marked-up again, he said. So I called tech support and told them it was clearly an unfixable problem and that we needed a replacement laptop, as this one would never work correctly. After an hour-and-a-half on the phone with tech and customer support, all in India (and let me assure you, language was a problem, attitude was a problem, lack of knowledge was a bad, bad problem), I agreed to try to have it fixed once more, this time replacing screen, bezel, hinge and keyboard. I was told by at least 5 individuals, including the tech who did this last work, that even if the warrantee ran out, as long as the ticket was open, Dell would fix the problem for free. So the tech went to my son’s dorm and did the work.

I called my son yesterday, and he mentioned that the screen was getting marked-up again, after only 6 weeks.

That day, March 29, 2011, I spent 3 hours on the phone, went to 12 different departments, spoke with 17 different customer “support” reps, was told again and again that though they “didn’t replace this model” (I was given many different reasons for this, none of which made any sense. I’m sure Dell had already spent more on tech support with this issue than a replacement would have cost), since the ticket was still open, they would replace everything again. This, of course, was not an adequate response, as it had already been well proven that this would not fix the problem.

Today, I was the unlucky recipient of a call from Sunny Sharma, a member of the Executive Customer Support Team, a unpleasant and arrogant man, who told me that, not only wouldn’t they replace the computer, they wouldn’t even repair it again since it was now 8 days out of warrantee, despite the ticket still being open. Did the many Dell reps who’d told me an open ticket would assure the problem would be fixed, lie? Mr. Sharma, not at all a sunny man, would have me believe so, and told me that the problems with the screen were nothing but normal wear-and-tear, not a design problem or anything that deserved Dell’s attention. By the way, I was told by 2 techs that this has been a common problem across the model. Obviously, this model should have been recalled, but I guess if Dell won’t pay Americans (10 percent unemployment in the US, and they sent thousands of jobs overseas) to work for them, they’ll be too cheap to properly support their products. He told me that Dell would do nothing to fix the problem. Nothing at all. My son now has an expensive laptop that will be good for nothing but a door stop within 6 months, and Dell has refused to support this product.

 

Why don't you try having your son put a large piece of felt or something in between the keyboard and screen when closed? This will prevent the hard plastic keys from touching the screen.

 

The M1330 was a problem model. Did you not extend the warranty knowing the particular unit was problematic?

 

Could his keyboard have the "bulge"? Neither of my M1330's do this even though there is very little space between the screen and keyboard. Not blaming your son but it would be interesting to know how he is transporting the laptop around. Like books and such pressing against it.