Bought a dell d820, screen is garbage, BIG pictures!

Hey people my first post and a bad one at that, here is what I´ve discovered and the story till now...

Right now I am living in Japan and I needed a new Laptop for Cad/Photoshopping and Poker and decided that the d820 was the best choise for me with its WUXGA screen. I took a trip to Akihabara to have a look at the real thing at the Dell store. A great laptop with a great screen was what I found so I ordered it there right away.

Two weeks later I recieve it and everything seems to be in order right until I take a closer look at the screen. As in many of the other posts I´ve read on this forum, after I noticed the bad screen it is not what i expeceted. The screen is dull, grainy, colors are BAD, bad brightness and there is no depth whatsoever. This screen is heaven and hell in compairison to the one I thought I saw at the store, also I can tell you the one I recieved was the Samsung one. I had a try configuring it with powerstrip but it only got worse.

Therefore I brought with me my new laptop to the store in Akihabara to compare the screens to see if they really were different and the result was as you can guess quite astounding they are not the same in any way. I guess the one they have at display is the LG one because it was quite amazing, images will follow later. Now I asked the store attendant what he thought and he just had to agree though he said he couldn´t do anything, I had to take it up with the support which is quite a hazzle since their English is not top notch and it´s really hard to make your point through mail and phone.

So now to my question, do I have any rights to make this case since what I saw and what I got was not at all the same thing you should get what you think you´re getting or am I wrong?
How should I proceed, try to get the store manager to change the screen they have with mine? Would be the easiest way for everyone also it´s soon to be replaced if I´m not mistaken. Or should I contact support through mail or telefone and try to make my point and get them to change the screen/maker and do you think it will be possible. Because if the screen is like it is now, I just don´t want to keep this computer since I cannot use it as an everyday computer.

So thanks for reading and i appriciate any input you have.

The pictures are quite bad I noticed and I´ll try to take new ones tomorrow with another camera

Mine
http://www.i-imagehost.com/uploads/065e5eca53.jpg
Stores
http://www.i-imagehost.com/uploads/abb792f258.jpg
Comparison good angle mine is the left one as you can see
http://www.i-imagehost.com/uploads/5fa0b34cab.jpg
Comparison bad angle
http://www.i-imagehost.com/uploads/549fdc5750.jpg

 

yup thats a night and day difference right there. if i remembeered correctly; there is few other member here that trying to do the same thing you did (changing the screen for a better one) and the rep said that it is impossible to do that; due to tracking or supply/demand reasons or whatnot...


well anyway; i don't know the law there. but in here; if the product shown/describe doesn't match the delivered good, you can ask for a refund. and don't dell have some sort of 30 day refund policy or something along those line?

 

This is why i dont like the idea of buying from a warehouse... If you bought a different notebook from a brick and mortar place, and you didnt like the screen quality(dead pixels, light leakage, or in this case, general poor quality) you can pretty easily go back and exchange it no questions asked, provided its within the return policy.

 

Yeah you are indeed right wobble987 i did all the research i could before posting this thread, it seems like many others also are disappointed with their screens. Seems quite troublesome yeah but if it's possible in any way i'd be glad. I'll try giving them a call tomorrow and ask what they think, if that doesn't work i'll go to the store and ask them to switch screens or get my money back. Also found an English section in the manual that sais I have 10 days return policy, if for no reason I have to pay freight but if I have a reason it'll be free it seems is it the same in the States?

Cam_86, bought one before and it worked flawlessly but it wasn't a dell Also that's the reason why I went to the store and not ordered from home to see what I would get, this time it was unfortunate though that I didn't get what I "ordered".

If the screen just wasn't this bad i'd be glad to have it, have tried searching Japanese consumer rights and at least it seems that they have to get me a product as good as that one on display from what I can make out of it.

quotation
"The most important point of the Consumer Contract Law is that when a consumer misunderstands or is confused about an important matter due to the sales method or the content of the contract, then the consumer can unconditionally cancel the contract. Situations where the consumer can unconditionally cancel a contract includes where the business engages in the following conduct:

---Misunderstanding
1. Representations which are not true. (Making untrue statements about important facts)
3. Intentionally not informing about disadvantageous facts. (Intentionally not mentioning matters disadvantageous to consumers)"

So that's what I've discerned this far anyways, thanks for the support!

 

you're welcome and good luck!

 

any new pics yet? I also got a D820 with a Samsung SEC3255 WUXGA and it also seems quite dull and not good on color display. Would be cool if you could make some pics from running dead pixel buddy and displaying photos on your d820. I also gonna make some pics will up them later.

 

New update

Called support this afternoon and they transfered me 3 times before someone said they would call me up later. Three hours later they call me and i finally get to speak to the right guy, it was really hard to explain the problem in a way of saying that the screen is faulty and not at the same time so it took 30 minutes just to try and explain. First he wanted to take it away for 2 weeks and check it for problems but since that won't work I now have to try the email support. Since there was no way possible to get an engineer to look at it first hand he said, always these problems.

Since the pictures are kinda bad I need to borrow a camera from a friend for tomorrow and try taking some new better pictures. This is really bothersome I must say, why can't they just change the god damn screen that way they won't have to recharge the laptop!

Well the struggle goes on, and I will do anything possible to get a new screen for it, I tell you it's totally worth it! God getting a little pissed here...

Also looking forward to your pictures and see if they look the same, try using the same background if you have it.

 

maybe the store has the new D830 on display? or is yours D830 as well? the difference is definitely noticeable and i'd be pissed too if dell sent me below par LCD when i paid the same money as everyone else.

edit: maybe the store is using the color calibration thing that was used by the recent D630 reviewer? looks mighty similar to me..

 

Thanks for the support, yep below par is the word =) They might have it on display also but the one i compaired with was the same D820 so I think not, maybe all the new D830 has the same screen. Also I don't think the one they have, had been modified in any way, if so the sales person would probably have showed me after i adressed my issue. Never heard about that calibration thing, I tried myself and it only got worse, I don't think that's the cause it just has to be the bad samsung display.

What is the D630 reviewer thing you are talking about btw?

 

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3750&review=Dell+Latitude+D630




i only mentioned it because the difference seems to be the contrast.

 

For some reason I find with lattitude models, it is not so much the screen quality but screen calibration. I think if you took the screen and got it colour corrected, you may see a big difference.

My work bought a bunch of Dell Desktops with 19 inch monitors, none of which are truely colour corrected.

 

ya im gonna try calibrating it today. Mine got almost none light leakage and the viewing angle seems also to be alright, plus the "dark spot" in the lower right corner is almost not visible (seems like all D820 have a dark spot in that area from what ive read)

I read the LG panels seem to have a better brightness and color but that viewing angle and light leakage, as well as the dark spots are often worse than those on the samsungs so I dont really know if I should risk to get my samsung panel replaced by an lg (or sharp, although i havent read alot about the sharp's). The current one also has zero dead pixels which is another plus.

Do you guys know how it works if a tech comes over to change the panel? Could I say I want the old one back if the new one looks worse? Would give it a try then at least i think.

Still didnt manage to upload the pictures, and my cam also sucks so they arent that good either but ill try to up them later for some comparision.

Final question: What is a good program to calibrate the screens colors? I tried the color settings in nvidia control panel but that seems to be a pain in the ass to figure out how to use that correctly (or calibrate the screen correctly i mean)

 

Well the calibration didnt really make alot of difference so I didnt even take new pics. Here finally the pics i had alrdy taken, the differences arent that good to see. (live it is even easier to see) The laptop seems to have problems especially with red, green and therefore also yellow. (red looks washed out and green is a bit too blue i think)

The display next to it is a iiyama prolite E435s @ 1280x1024 @ 6500k color temp

Here the pics (forgot to take a shot comparing a full blue screen):


Just solid colors:
http://www.i-imagehost.com/uploads/97ff58daa5.jpg
http://www.i-imagehost.com/uploads/961d3f75c4.jpg
http://www.i-imagehost.com/uploads/07f46c189e.jpg
http://www.i-imagehost.com/uploads/e82d608d1b.jpg
http://www.i-imagehost.com/uploads/760ee613cd.jpg
http://www.i-imagehost.com/uploads/441a067afe.jpg
http://www.i-imagehost.com/uploads/e13e28f3d0.jpg
http://www.i-imagehost.com/uploads/5536204d7d.jpg
http://www.i-imagehost.com/uploads/a4b69fd720.jpg
http://www.i-imagehost.com/uploads/c4ce7ad03a.jpg
http://www.i-imagehost.com/uploads/3bd88f8246.jpg
http://www.i-imagehost.com/uploads/1b18a6430c.jpg

Landscape Pictures:
http://www.i-imagehost.com/uploads/5502ebc9ed.jpg
http://www.i-imagehost.com/uploads/38d0eedd2d.jpg