Dell

[tony357 386]

The youngest boy mike purchased an allienware laptop from dell, the screen hinges are too tight and cracking the screen where the hinges are and the hinge seperates.

dell tech told him that the allienware laptops do not have a warranty,that he has to pay 200.00 up front and for parts when completed..

when the customer service rep looked up the laptop she tried selling him extended warranty and told him it had 6 months original warranty left, so what good would the extended warranty be if they do not cover the original purchase warranty, I told that dot head the war was on and every forum i can get on will have this complaint about their warranty. The laptop was not cheap either, at 1000.00 to purchase.the laptop works very good other than the hinges seperating..

[Destinydog 9]

Im sure using derogatory terms such as "dot head" takes away from your priamry complaint. I would suggest climbing the technical support chain at dell until you recieve someone capable of helping, i have had a similar problem with dell but eventually they made good on it.

[Krdshrk 3,877]

I deal with Dell all the time - my company's a reseller. The home/consumer line of products has pretty bad warranty/quality, but the business line is exceptional

[lunker 274]

The company I work for used to be exclusively Dell, but has moved on to other brands of laptops and workstations. Its experiences with recently made Dell laptops has not been good. Quality seems to have gone downhill.

[Krdshrk 3,877]

The company I work for used to be exclusively Dell, but has moved on to other brands of laptops and workstations. Its experiences with recently made Dell laptops has not been good. Quality seems to have gone downhill.

Were you buying their Inspiron line, Vostro line, or Latitude line?

 

I deal with hundreds of Dells - almost all are of the Optiplex and Latitude lines, as well as PowerEdge servers. We have some failures sometimes but the support and parts replacement is almost always good.

[67gtonut 847]

I wouldnt touch a Dell...

[Malsua 1,422]

Have you considered adjusting the hinges?

 

If you take the plastics off, the hinge will be exposed. Some are adjustable.

[vladtepes 1,060]

we get tons of computers in for repair all the time.. a lot dells.. but mostly virus issues.. most dells seem to work fine.. is it at all possible he might have been a little rough with it? hinges don't normally just break..

[mikeyboyeee 66]

Yes their home based stuff warranty sucks, but their biz is excellent.

 

I was an compaqw shop, but when HP bought them, they turned to sh!t.

I am now a Dell shop and have been happy with the hardware, service and pricing.

 

My Dell rep beats pricing on everything, not just on Dell products. No one can touch them price wise and I am very happy with their biz support the few times I actually needed it (failed Hard drives mostly-that they didn't even produce).

[tony357 386]

I was given this link, so dell knows all about this problem..

Exact same problem he has.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m11x/502633-fixing-m11x-weak-hinge-creaking-cracking-problem-screen-opened.html

[bbk 188]

Ugh, another case of Dell-Alienware stuff being shoddy. Unfortunately I don't have any sage advice to offer. My experience was that I use to work mutually with Alienware (when it was an independent company) when it helped with some sponsor events and whatnot, but we immediately dropped ties when Dell bought them out. Not that Dell is a terrible company (there is far worse), but corporate America > quality.

 

My suggestion is like another person's. If you aren't having luck with customer support, take it to corporate and badger them until they provide something that you would be happy with.

[madmnk78 3]

Were you buying their Inspiron line, Vostro line, or Latitude line?

 

I deal with hundreds of Dells - almost all are of the Optiplex and Latitude lines, as well as PowerEdge servers. We have some failures sometimes but the support and parts replacement is almost always good.

 

 

I'd stay far away from the consumer dell lines - Inspiron, and Vostro. We're a mostly dell shop (Poweredge's are being phased out in favor of Cisco UCS, but Optiplex and lattitude for the user community) - no higher failure rate than any other manufacturer, and their business support tends to be rather good.

[Tom-NJ2AS 31]

I used to build all my own PC's. Now it just isn't cheaper. Went with a couple of Dell's, no real problems. Service on Dell's always sucked, business side too. I now am a firm supporter of Gateway's. no issues at all and support is top notch .( From my experience)

[lunker 274]

I used to build all my own PC's. Now it just isn't cheaper. Went with a couple of Dell's, no real problems. Service on Dell's always sucked, business side too. I now am a firm supporter of Gateway's. no issues at all and support is top notch .( From my experience)

 

I used to not like Gateway because they used proprietary EVERYTHING. I couldn't use a Kingston memory stick, I needed a Gateway stick, and so forth. I don't know how they are these days.

[Krdshrk 3,877]

Gateway still exists? I can't stand them either for support/hardware/etc.

[JonF 79]

Buy a Packard Bell next time, you'll be much happier.

[Shug 4]

I'll never buy a Dell laptop again. They absolutely suck in every way.

 

 

Actually the desktops suck also. My next computer purchase will be a HP.

[Steve_G 51]

Screw Dell and HP!!! Dell is about to close their last plant in the US. All of their products will be made and assembled in China. My wife works for HP, she's one of a very few Americans that still has a support job that hasn't been outsourced to India.

[SoR 4]

Dell has great LCDs and I'd probably get a desktop PC if I decided not to build one just because they're dirt cheap with all the coupons.

For laptops I exclusively buy Lenovo (formerly IBM). They have their issues too (case likes to crack) but so far I've gone through 6 or 7 of them over the past 12 years and overall I love them. The service stuff I do myself because dealing with customer service is a PITA and shipping sometimes costs more than buying parts yourself. If you got a lemon (bad main board or screen), then I assume you'd have to ship the whole unit back but if it's out of warrenty, Ebay and then other resellers may be a better option for replacement parts.

[Krdshrk 3,877]

I'll never buy a Dell laptop again. They absolutely suck in every way.

Actually the desktops suck also. My next computer purchase will be a HP.

Again - which line did you buy? Inspiron? Home line is SUCK. I specifically buy the business line.... Even for personal use.

 

 

Screw Dell and HP!!! Dell is about to close their last plant in the US. All of their products will be made and assembled in China. My wife works for HP, she's one of a very few Americans that still has a support job that hasn't been outsourced to India.

Uh - From every single Dell box with a computer I've seen, they all say "Made in Malaysia". Nothing's been made in the US for a while. Dell support is also in the US - there are call centers all around the country. I love getting the tech ladies with the southern accent

 

 

For laptops I exclusively buy Lenovo (formerly IBM). They have their issues too (case likes to crack) but so far I've gone through 6 or 7 of them over the past 12 years and overall I love them. The service stuff I do myself because dealing with customer service is a PITA and shipping sometimes costs more than buying parts yourself. If you got a lemon (bad main board or screen), then I assume you'd have to ship the whole unit back but if it's out of warrenty, Ebay and then other resellers may be a better option for replacement parts.

I used to like Lenovo but they've been very lackluster with their products after they bought the division from IBM. Support with them is tough as well.

[SoR 4]

I used to like Lenovo but they've been very lackluster with their products after they bought the division from IBM. Support with them is tough as well.

 

Actually IBM manufactured their Laptops with Lenovo for quite some time before Lenovo finally bought the unit out.

I didn't really see a decrease in quality since Lenovo took over. Been reading on different forums that people complain about them being more flimsy now but I disagree. The very first "brick" IBMs from 12+ years ago were rock solid, yes. But everything after that had issues. I remember getting my first Thinkpad 570. The screen on that thing would lose contact and would produce random garbage until you touched it in a sweet spot in the back. Every other Thinkpad I owned - case cracked. I bought a brand new X201 few months ago and the case is already chipped in one spot

The good part about both corporate Lenovo's (Thinkpads) and Dells is that ebay is plastered with off-lease laptops and parts from same so prices are generally very very good.

[JackDaWack 2,895]

The only monitors i buy will be dell, the only accessories i buy will be logitech, and the only computer i will buy will be built. I dunno who said it ain't cheaper, but you need to learn how to re-use your tower + PS and HD's. When i get a new computer, its more like an upgrade, i get a new MOBO + processor + graphcis + memory(if upgradable). Almost everything else gets re-used, i have a dvd player in my computer from like 7 years ago.

My older bro taught me how to build computers, the rest of my family just buys them, He bought a dell for the first time last year, one of the xps towers, and it broke in the first week, was returned to the store for another, and broke again, they wouldnt fix it this time cause more time had passed, a 3 month old $1200 comp now sits in the closet, he built a laptop after that and its been going strong.

[JackDaWack 2,895]

Actually IBM manufactured their Laptops with Lenovo for quite some time before Lenovo finally bought the unit out.

I didn't really see a decrease in quality since Lenovo took over. Been reading on different forums that people complain about them being more flimsy now but I disagree. The very first "brick" IBMs from 12+ years ago were rock solid, yes. But everything after that had issues. I remember getting my first Thinkpad 570. The screen on that thing would lose contact and would produce random garbage until you touched it in a sweet spot in the back. Every other Thinkpad I owned - case cracked. I bought a brand new X201 few months ago and the case is already chipped in one spot

The good part about both corporate Lenovo's (Thinkpads) and Dells is that ebay is plastered with off-lease laptops and parts from same so prices are generally very very good.

 

I have a lenovo T60p, its a couple years old, takes for ever to boot up and down, but when it's on, its really fast and stable. Cosmetically its pretty durable but then again i baby my electronics. I think the lag on and off comes from the surreal amount of crap programs that come with it since it business orientated. It comes with a lot of programs, i've been slowy turning them all off at boot.

[Shug 4]

Again - which line did you buy? Inspiron? Home line is SUCK. I specifically buy the business line.... Even for personal use.

 

For laptops the all 3 are Inspiron for the family. Lots of problems with batteries losing charges, chargers just stop charging after a few months. Even the hinges for the screen give after sometime. My XPS desktop is good but I have to say they still suck because 2 dvd writers which came with the desktop won't even read dvd/cd anymore. Maybe I will go back to building pc's for my next one.

[Krdshrk 3,877]

Like I've said - Inspiron aren't as good as the Latitude line. The XPS are a bit better than Inspiron. Batteries will go after a year or two. I have replaced the battery on my Latitude D630 twice.

[flank 12]

/rant on

 

and when you buy a computer from a manufacturer these days, for times sake, your almost better off re-formating the hdd and activating windows with your supplied product key, saves you the time it will take to sit there and uninstall all the "branding software" that is included but not wanted.

 

+ you'd be better supported with a warranty directly through the actual manufacturer of a computer component rather than a computer re-seller like hp/dell/gateway etc...

ex. when you buy a hp/dell/gateway/w.e you get a 1 year manufacturers warranty on every component reguardless if the component manufacturer offers a long warranty, you must deal directly with the company.

If you were to build yourself a computer, a lot of components like hdd's now offer 3-5 year warranties, most memory comes with a LIFETIME warranty. I even had AMD replace an old athlon 64 processor that was like 3 years over warranty and I had accidently bent some of the processors pins myself.

 

+ the computer manufacturers quality control is ****. I was on a job when someone bought a brand new HP desktop and I go to turn it on nothing, opened up the case and turned out someone at the factory didn't feel like connecting the 20-pin MAIN motherboard power connector. Imagine what would have happened if this happened to someone in this situation who was not computer savy?? they would have had to pay at their expense to have it fixed while it is directly the manufacturers fault.

 

/rant off

[DirtyDigz 1,812]

I'll never buy a Dell laptop again. They absolutely suck in every way. ...

 

This. Still steamed about an inspiron I bought from them years ago. Got constant BSOD's out of the box, f'ers gave me the run-around on an imminent BIOS fix "any day now" until they had me past the return-for-full-refund 30 day period.

 

Never again.

[XDJohnTact 49]

I deal with Dell all the time - my company's a reseller. The home/consumer line of products has pretty bad warranty/quality, but the business line is exceptional

 

+1

[tony357 386]

spoke to another techline with someone whos speks clear english,

gave me a number for allienware tech line stating that allienware does the warranty work..

 

we will see...

[XDJohnTact 49]

I hope they get it fixed right for your son. Like it was stated before, there is a world of difference between "consumer" tech and "business" tech lines. When I was doing IT work for the school, we had a dedicated 800 number that went to a help desk in Texas. No long waits and very good service. I guess when you buy 350+ Dell computers, they pay attention to you?