Dell is hot garbage and forever will be [rant]

"Rico" (ricorich)
08/10/2016 at 11:15 • Filed to: None

Part of my job at my org is IT Purchasing for the US, last year I was asked by our Chief Investment Officer to price out a replacement laptop for his aging Lenovo. He had a terrible experience with his X220 and wanted nothing to do with Lenovo. Money was no option in this case so I immediately suggested a Macbook Pro or Air.

After some back and forth with my colleagues overseas they basically said the Org will foot the bill only for a Windows laptop so off I went. Specced out a Dell XPS 13 with Infinity HD screen, 512 GB SSD, Core i7, 16 GB of Ram etc, basically the most top of the line laptop Dell had available that was comparable to a Macbook, cost: over $3,000.

For exactly 13 months the $3,000 machine worked great until this week. The machine cannot stay on for more than 4 or 5 minutes at a time without immediately turning off. Onboard Diagnostics gets only halfway through before it turns off, can’t do any BIOS updates for fear it will simply shut off in the middle of it. We’ve got every single warranty Dell had to offer including on-site service and after speaking with their most non-helpful tech support it was determined we have to mail the laptop in and in 10 business days we may get it back.

This is unacceptable especially since my CIO is preparing for our end of fiscal year reports/meetings and our Board of Trustees meeting which is taking place in less than a month.

This is the same old Dell that I detested over a decade ago when I owned many Dell products that used to fail randomly. I will never for as long as I live recommend a Dell product to anyone, for any reason. Fuck Dell. Had this been a Macbook I could’ve had someone run it over to the Apple store and get the thing turned around in 72 hours max if it had a severe issue (likely motherboard) like this.

DISCUSSION (29)

iaintafraidofnoghost > Rico
08/10/2016 at 11:19

Sounds like someone fucked up because we use them too and can have a replacement same day. Why does your company not have multiple of a laptop? Just swap the hdd.

I'm not a big fan of Dell, but their business customer service is unmatched.

CalzoneGolem > Rico
08/10/2016 at 11:20

Lenovo is double plus good that guy went wrong.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > Rico
08/10/2016 at 11:21

I swear by Dell’s business-class stuff.

Rico > iaintafraidofnoghost
08/10/2016 at 11:22

We have other staff laptops obviously not of this caliber, this is the CIOs laptop which he uses for work so he takes it home/on the road etc. Can’t swap the HDD as it has an SSD.

Yes customer service was great, great at telling me they can’t fix the issue over the phone (duh) and that they can’t service this laptop on site. On every machine we purchase we get the full gamut of all warranty options including 4 years of on-site service, which in this case is useless.

Rico > CalzoneGolem
08/10/2016 at 11:24

I have some serious doubts about Lenovo sometimes but at least their stuff lasts more than 13 months without a Mobo failure.

Biggus Dickus (RevsBro) > Rico
08/10/2016 at 11:24

I know jack shit about tech but as a cheif investment officer I’m assuming he uses excel. Alot. My experience with the Mac version was not very good.

MUSASHI66 > Rico
08/10/2016 at 11:26

You can replace a SSD, just buy or get another SSD.

Dell does replace those on site - I had work done on a XPS 13 before when we had the proper warranty.

Next time you buy a nice computer for someone, buy Dell Latitude, their business line, not XPS or Inspiron, which are their consumer lines.

DutchieDC2R > Rico
08/10/2016 at 11:27

As long as its not an Acer.....f*ck those things...

Tripper > Rico
08/10/2016 at 11:28

Can empathize 100%. I had a latitude 7470 that was bad right out of the box. We have the same pro-level support from dell...It took 70+- emails, 6 calls, and 6 weeks before I had a new one.

I have had a bunch of other issues as well, and their shit is not cheap. We have a couple of 4k laptops here! I didn’t even know you could spend that much on a laptop anymore.

I have had good experiences too, but they were all because the first dell rep that I had when I started with my current company was a real go getter. Everyone else has been more along the lines of “I guess I will do my job if I have to.”

Future next gen S2000 owner > Rico
08/10/2016 at 11:37

My company recently purchased some new laptops as part of the 3 year turn over for computers. IT gets there hands on it, and load it with so much stuff, that out of a 500 SSD hard drive, only about 15 gig is left. You can’t do anything on them. The old computers where faster and ironically work better. Oh and they downgraded the USBs from a 3 to a 2, because of reasons.

The solution they proposed was an external 1 Tb hard drive.

To be fair our IT dumbfounded as to why anyone would want anything else besides a 10K old school hard drive or need more than 8 gig of RAM. They also refused to believe the laptops had a slot for more hard drive space, even when shown the diagrams on how to install it.

Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney > Rico
08/10/2016 at 11:38

Recommending a Macbook to someone who lives in Excel is the real hot garbage here, man.

CalzoneGolem > Rico
08/10/2016 at 11:41

We use all Lenovo here and I’ve never had an issue I even used an X200 for my main machine for a couple years. I actually worked in a lab of a dozen of them and I’d frequently have multiples running automation.

iaintafraidofnoghost > Rico
08/10/2016 at 11:47

So just give him another laptop. Year end meetings don’t need a powerhouse laptop.

Solid state drive can also be swapped, it’s one in the same. His files should be stored on the servers so in terms of drive swap this is a nonstarter anyways.

It honestly sounds like someone messed up the warranty or didn’t go through Dell business . We’ve had Dell business for over a decade and not once have we ever had trouble getting same day or next day. Or just call back and try another rep if you think you got a bad rep.

If you call your point of contact for ordering your machines they normally help to because they would want to continue expanding services with them.

Flyboy is FAA certified insane > Rico
08/10/2016 at 12:00

About the same thing happened to me with my HP. HP was great about it. Apparently they had a run of my DV7 laptops that had the wrong type of operating system installed on it. So, they asked me to send it back to them. They couldn’t fix the problem so they just sent me a new one with my hard drive with all my stuff in it. (Mine has dual 500gb) and it’s worked great ever since.

Now it’s about 4and a half years old and its showing its age, and I’m definitely going to buy another HP

spanfucker retire bitch > Rico
08/10/2016 at 12:09

Last laptop I’ve ever owned was a Dell Precision and it was the single best laptop I’ve ever owned. Dell and Microsoft are the only two mobile computing companies I will still buy from anymore since HP has been and always will be trash, and Lenovo had two too many scandals involving them fucking with computer security with adware installs hidden in the BIOS and installing unsigned root certificates to MITM any HTTPS connections on the system’s browser.

Rico > MUSASHI66
08/10/2016 at 12:20

They don’t know what the issue is so they aren’t going to commit to replacing the SSD. The point is the laptop is barely a year old I shouldn’t have to replace the SSD myself (generally speaking, as I wouldn’t be the one doing it anyway).

Rico > iaintafraidofnoghost
08/10/2016 at 12:21

Already done, just expressing my frustration with this subpar hardware company.

Rico > Future next gen S2000 owner
08/10/2016 at 12:23

Damn that blows. Luckily my CIO is very good about backing up religiously to external networked drives so he’s good there. Just expressing my frustration with this shit company which I knew was shit for years and had abandoned long ago. But since it wasn’t my money being spent I had to follow their guidelines.

Rico > Tripper
08/10/2016 at 12:25

I didn’t even mention how we had 2 Motherboards on 2 different Optiplex 9020s just straight up die within a month of each other in under a year of use. Luckily those were replaced on site, we also had a case fan literally destroy itself on a 3rd Optiplex 9020 a few months later which was also replaced on site luckily.

Rico > Flyboy is FAA certified insane
08/10/2016 at 12:26

HP desktops have never done me wrong surprisingly.

Rico > Biggus Dickus (RevsBro)
08/10/2016 at 12:27

You can install Windows on a Mac via boot camp which was my suggestion when I said he should be provided a Mac. Also he got an iMac at home as well as an older Macbook Air that he uses from time to time so he’s no stranger to Apple or their quality.

Rico > Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney
08/10/2016 at 12:28

Macbook running Windows via Boot Camp which is super easy to install and use.

Rico > DutchieDC2R
08/10/2016 at 12:28

If it was an ASUS it would’ve been okay!

Rico > spanfucker retire bitch
08/10/2016 at 12:29

Damn I had not heard about that with Lenovo.

Tripper > Rico
08/10/2016 at 13:35

I’ve replaced a bunch of 7440 MB’s. We also use docks, and unfortunately for us the brand new 7450's and 7470's have an issue where one of the monitors will start blinking after a while. I spent a crazy amount of time with support over that one too. Which ended with them telling me “tough titties, buy a different model.” (In so many words.)

The only way to get around this it to set the PC’s to never shut off the display!

Rico > Tripper
08/10/2016 at 14:04

I hate random issues like that!

This is basically Dell’s CS:

Tripper > Rico
08/10/2016 at 14:18

lol yup, didn’t even have to press play, I’m very familiar with that episode

gmporschenut also a fan of hondas > Rico
08/11/2016 at 00:02

Any experience with the xps8900? Looks pretty good

cmerry > Rico
03/04/2019 at 09:35

f*ck you dell, piss of dell, you suck. $1000 computer never worked right, and then I pay $60 for the express repair, plus $109 for the repair, plus $209 for the warranty, which didn’t make any of it clear, and I HAD TO CONTACT THEM to pay them. It said 48 hours we’ll contact you, it’s been a damn week and I was just on phone for 55 minutes. Screw you dell, screw you.