Beags, you saidTry BT! :yuk:

BEagle,

There are plenty of companies that expect their customers to accept a complete lack of service. That is what helps keep my companies so busy. :ok:

Take Care,

Richard

P.S. I hope they do not change their policies any time soon. ;)

Re Fujitsu laptops I purchased one in Hong Kong with a full International warranty but Fuj UK refused pointblank to deal with it as they stated they did not have access to any manuals for non-UK models. (Fortunately a local shop agreed to look and found a bad connection now fine). Warranty was effectively worthless!

I know some people don't want to hear it, but Dell customer support/services is just about the worst I have ever come across, far, far, far worse than BT.

Timothy

My tuppence worth. I have been running three different types of Dell Computers for the last few years and am very happy with the product and support. I have a Dimension 4550 desktop, a Latitude D500 Notebook and a Axim X5 Pocket PC all of which function well and have given zero problems. I have not needed Dell support yet other than for an Axim cradle, which I burnt out due to my stupidity and they replaced that for nothing which could have been an expensive exercise. The quality of the machines is definately superior to a lot of the others out there and you only have to open one up and have a look inside to see the difference. Due to the better quality parts I think your chances of requiring support are significantly reduced as well. Hope that helps.

....um...well "no comment" I suppose! :O

Timothy

Well said Timothy!! Hehe......

BusyB - had EXACTLY the same problem with Sharp over a telly bought in the UK and taken 40 miles across the 'oggin to far away Dublin. Sharp Ireland wouldn't touch it with a barge pole and Sharp UK would only refund the cost of repair I had to get carried out by a repair man in Limerick. So much for world wide warranties eh??

Have spent lotsa money since on electronic products, seen lotsa nice Sharp items and steered away from the lot!

F@ck you Sharp!! hehe......

BTW - haven't had to deal with warranty claims yet on my new Fujitsu lappy but impressed with the set up to now. Some real good deals on the go at the moment and DABS seem to be leading the way! :ok:

7550,

I have found the exact opposite to be true in the many, many, many, service calls I have had to make to fix people's desktop computers that turned out to be Dells.

It all comes down to a high Ghz CPU surrounded by the cheapest, stripped down, hardware they can get.

The reason is the general public does not understand anything about computer hardware, they just see the high number for Ghz touted and buy solely on that number.

That is why you see all the major computer makers touting the Ghz when they sell computers.

If you want quality, get with someone who knows and buy the best parts, then either assemble it yourself or have someone who knows, assemble it for you. Something else you will find, you get a longer warranty building yourself than from Dell or any of the other computer makers.

Computer makers use OEM Parts that have a 30 day or less warranty and when you buy your own parts you get anywhere from a year to 3 years to 5 years of warranty depending on the part.

Take Care,

Richard

Doesn't stop Dell making $41bn+ a year - so they must be doing something right, for the average joe at least.

..and the saga of my Dell Latitude LT continues! After considerable difficulty in getting some idiot in Bangalore to understand that all the recent problems were of Dell's Repair Centre's making, the laptop was sent back yet again to them to repair on 14 Apr. Guess what - they've now decided that no parts are available, they've locked the service tag and won't accept any further service calls about it. And they've sent me back what is now a useless computer which displays "Operating system not found" when switched on.

So what do I do now? All I can do is to write to Dell Customer Relations in County Wicklow and politely explain that I sent a perfectly serviceable computer off to have its screen replaced and, thanks to them, now have a piece of useless junk. Perosnally I think that they should replace it - plus the associated software - with whatever the nearest current equivalent is. Is that a reasonable request? Or should I ask for financial compensation. I guess the files on my Latitude LT are lost forever though...:mad:

Would anyone seriously expect me to recommend the purchase of a Dell computer? I think not!!

Simple, search for the Dell history on the Companies House website.

Find the MD's details.

Write to him/her recorded delivery.

Also go see a Solicitor - breach of contract / trading standards issues.

Basically don't !!!! about - hit them hard.

I shall certainly do that if I don't get a reasonable response from their Customer Relations Department - it's only fair to give that a whirl first.

Funny old thing - I'll be chatting to my old chum who is a QC in a couple of weeks' time in any case.....:E

Hey BRL - you still got yer ears on.......? I hope you haven't made a move for that credit card yet! :ugh:

Hi Guys, my tuppence worth...

I've been using Dell for over 10 years now, first desktops and then lattitudes. The Lattitudes have spent hard time in some of the worst operating environments imaginable, in 7 years I haven't had more than a battery failure.

I bought a new one recentely, a specced out D600. I chose this over an Inspiron because they seem to be a more robust machine - Pentium M vs P4 etc.

The ordering experience was so bad that I genuinely tried to find an equivalent machine from another supplier. The support was what made me take a deep breath and go back to Dell, I work all over the world and can't send it back to the maker if it goes wrong - as happened with company Toshibas a few years ago...

I have dealt with the call centre, is it India?, not reassuring, I wasn't sure whether I'd been talking to a human or a machine.

Now I'm worried...

Well I've completed my 761st installation of a Dell home system today - and still just a handful of problems so far - fewer than ten.

I also had to call Dell tech support the other day - on behalf of a client - waited 20 mins for an reply, introduced myself as the inhouse techie for my client, went through some basic diags and an engineer was scheduled to attend site two days later to changed the mobo. Maybe it's just me but I thought the whole process was painless and reasonably quick.

I also ordered a Dell laptop for my mum - again the whole process went very smootly and the end product looks very good quality to me.

I'm not a Dell employee by the way - I know things sometimes don't go as you'd wish but then that can happen with a lot of companies.

Now, if I had to recount the experiences I had when I was installing Gateway PCs I'd probably end up swearing - glad they went and Dell are nowhere near how hopeless they used to be...

I'm still intrigued that no-one has so far suggested a firm alternative to Dell - any takers? <ducks>

Charles

AMOFW

Thanks for the reassurance.

Strange that I don't notice any stunning performance difference between the PII 366, 256Mb and the PM 1.7 512Mb ?

Next Friday is the big day. Would it be possible to go to the local computer shop and get a laptop made up like a homebuild pc?
If so then I feel this is what I may end up doing.

BRL,

Notebooks are completely Proprietary so you do not have the same options as with Desktops. The major computer makers do a good job on Notebooks but a lousy job on Desktops.

Just make sure you find one with all the specs you want, since it cannot be upgraded.

Take Care,

Richard

Bought a new desktop from the Dell Outlet yesterday. 1g RAM, 200g hard drive, a graphics card that's way beyond what I'll ever use it for, separate DVD and CD drives, no delivery charge and I got them to throw in a wireless keyboard and mouse. £570.

So the answer is quite simple really.

Those who have had Dells with no problems think they're great. Those who have had Dells with major problems think they're crap. I wonder if there is a brand name that wouldn't fit into the same set of statistics?

That's what I've asked twice before in the thread but no magic answer so far....

I guess the holy grail of computers doesn't exist :confused:

That seems a reasonable assumption. You pays your money and you takes your chances. :8

Well, I wrote to Dell Customer Services at County Wicklow a month ago. Last Thursday, 28 days later, having had no reply of any sort from them - not even an acknowledgement - I wrote a letter direct to the CEO in Bracknell asking him to intervene personally......

Today a chap from Dell rang and after I recounted my tale of woe for the Nth time, he promised to send me a new laptop to replace the old one which their repair centre had killed.

Fingers crossed for a satisfactory outcome - shall find out very soon! He also promised to replace the MS Office software as well....

BEagle,

I hope that what they send you works properly this time. ;)

Richard

Time for an update.

They have my money. I do not have a new pc.
The situation is fast deteriorating - it'll be lawyers at dawn...

I think a computer assembled by enthusiasts using quality components is the way forward. I have two friends with excellent experiences down this route.

One used http://www.meshcomputers.com and the other used http://www.evesham.com/

I myself am tempted by http://www.bestpricecomputers.co.uk who seem to have a popular fanbase and universally good reviews on the usual review sites.

Buying a new Dell seems a bit like going into a Ford garage and buying a new one at list price. Its alright - but there's a lot better out there for the money.

Cheers

WWW

Wee Weasley Welshman,

Do let us know the specs of the machine you are thinking of before you buy. We might be able to tweak the specs before you are locked in. ;)

Take Care,

Richard

First Dell I bought was in Feb '97, cheapest of the cheap as I needed it for (gulp!) school. £899 +VAT. P233MMX and 32M of RAM....remember those days!

Lasted for ages, even survived Gulf Air chucking it around their LHR and BAH baggage systems but eventually 5 years after birth smoke started coming out of the motherboard and it was decommissioned....

Second Dell bought was for the little brother; didn't last long before some +uckwit nicked it.... :(

Third Dell I bought in Dec 1999, laptop (Dimension 3700) absolute peach of a machine. Slight problem with the RAM initially, but settled down. Motherboard replaced in early 2002 as the PC cards were buggered. At the end of 2003 something horrible happens and Windows vanishes. It only boots into DOS and I'm trying to think of a way to get 4 years of data off it! Currently resides in a drawer....

Fourth Dell bought was a desktop for the parents, it's a beast and no problems so far (apart from the usual that can be attributed to William H. Gates III)

I now run a Mac powerbook. Battery was dead on arrival, only problem so far is a creaking hinge (but I'm waiting for the Apple Store in Regent Street to open so I can go and chat to a genius about that....)

Computers: Expect the worst, hope for the best.

Dealt with the Dell call centre in India (is it Bangalore?) by e-mail with no difficulty. (except when they wanted £730 to fit a new screen which costs £300 in the US)
Writing this on an old Dimension XPS D233 which has had upgraded memory, HDD, CD-RW, OS etc and still struggles along.

(Ref call centres, called bank in March and thought I may be speaking to CC.
Me: So what's the weather like with you?
CC: Oh goodness, it is very hot.
Result!)

Long past the stage of being of any use to anyone I suppose, but credit where credit is due. Had problems with Windows XP on my Dell laptop, looked up the manual and found a toll free number for support.

Loaded up the fridge, got in a couple of DVD's to pass the time and rang the number. One automated query, to which I replied yes, I'd like to speak to a tech, and bugga me if 20 seconds later I wasn't speaking to a human!

She took me through the whole process, decided a clean install was the best move and insisted on staying on the phone while I started it in case there were any problems. Once it was going, she said she would ring me back in an hour to supervise the installation of the drivers. And she did! My gaster was flabbered!

Hats off to Dell from this satisfied customer; yes, she was in Bangalore, but she spoke English a hell of a lot better than I speak Hindi!

Binoculars,

Was this the notebook that had the two viruses in the other thread:

Windows cannot find.......

by chance?

If so, I am glad you were able to sort out the install.

Take Care,

Richard

Yes it was, Richard. I couldn't interrupt the boot sequence to boot from the CD which is why I decided to try the support line. My description of the problem led her to believe that a repair wouldn't work, and she didn't like the idea of a reinstall over the top, so I did a full clean install. Not a major problem since it's basically a network computer and all files are kept on the host.

All up and running fine now. thanks for your suggestions as always.

Binos

Binoculars,

I just hope you did not lose all your data. :eek:

Take Care,

Richard

All's Dell that ends well!

Today I received, totally free of charge, a Dell Latitude D400 together with external media drive with DVD and FDD bays, plus MS Office 2003 SBE to replace the Latitude LT which Dell's repair people broke.

So it woud be remiss of me not to mention that a letter to the UK CEO had the desired result and I now have a good back-up computer to use.

Thank you, Dell!

Way To Go BEagle! :ok:

Richard