Dell Inspiron 600 m
At the end of 2003, I had enough of trying to rely solely on a PalmPilot to take care of all of my computing needs while traveling. With a few exceptions, the Pilot did almost everything I wanted for light communications and note taking during meetings, but left me without recourse for creating sophisticated documents or showing product demos. My old ThinkPad was gathering dust. Proactive International was deeply involved in the prosumer 3D industry, and there was no way my old ThinkPad could manage a good 3D product demo. I needed a modern laptop, so I took at look at Dell.
Dell’s incredible website for customization sold me, as well as the reasonably knowledgeable folks who run Dell carts in shopping malls. I picked out a Dell Inspiron 600m, bulked up on accessories and RAM, and a two year CompleteCare package. The Inspiron 600m uses a Pentium M processor, that clocks in at about half again its rated megahertz rate of 1.7 Ghz.
But it was the CompleteCare package that quickly became the most important part of the purchase.
Shortly after I got my Dell, I noticed that several applications would inexplicably slow down. Not all, just the ones that relied on a rendering window (OpenGL or DirectX). If I quit the applications and restarted, they would run fine for a while before exhibiting the problem. Almost immediately afterward, some real time 3D applications exhibited artifacting. Called Dell support. After reinstalling Windows (!) and updating drivers, *and* having to pry open the faceplace to reseat the tiny graphics card that connects screen to motherboard, it was determined that a screen replacement was in order. Within a day, a technician came and replaced the screen. But, that didnt solve my performance problems, even though it solved the artifacting problem.
Called Dell Support again. It was determined that I had a motherboard problem. Now, you’d think at this point they would just build me a replacement laptop and send it to me, but that didnt happen. No, instead, a new technician arrives and replaces my motherboard. The new tech, very friendly and fast working, reboots the machine, which appears to run fine.
It wasnt a few weeks later that the laptop began to experience blue screens. Called Dell Support. They recommended updating the BIOs, which I was to do myself. Now, even though most motherboard companies make updater software as friendly as possible, there is a remote chance that you can do some serious damage to your hardware during a BIOs flash. But okay, the Dell guy assured me that if it wiped the machine, they’d do good by me. So I try to flash the BIOS and…it doesnt work. Why? The last technician didnt carefully check his work, and my laptop now identified itself as a Dell Dimension. A Dell Dimension of course would reject a BIOS update for an Inspiron (according to the tech, the Dimension and Inspiron are so similar that this isnt such a strange problem). Now of course, its determined that Dell does not supply a way for an end user to resolve this problem, so a new tech is dispatched. Actually, the original tech arrives. He replaces several parts, and in fact, puts in a new motherboard and some faceplating (having been torn apart several times, my poor Inspiron was not looking good).
So now Ive had two motherboards and a screen assembly (screen, card) replacement. What could go wrong, now that everything has been replaced? You guessed it: the hard drive. Over a few months, I progressively got more and more blue screens. These were often occuring overnight, when the laptop was left on but unobserved. A restart fixed the problem…for a while. Called Dell Support several times. Each time seemed to make the blue screens go away, only to return. This included all sorts of techniques from forcing the BIOs to recognize the hard drive with a factory rest to taking out the hardrive and reseating it. The last tech simply said he was sending me a new hard drive. Withing 24 hours, I received the new drive. On my own, I cloned the old hard drive using Acronis True Image 8.0 (an incredible product!), and am back to a usable machine. One niggle: they sent a refurbished hard drive, not a new one!
Dell has taught me some interesting lessons.
Modularization is incredibly empowering. When I pulled that hard drive, all I had to do was remove a screw and slide it out. Almost every major part of the computer is accessible and replaceable with a single screw (except for the motherboard and screen). I was able to perform a lot of tasks that I thought would absolutely require a technician on site. Since in many countries, hardware vendors must by law maintain a supply of replacement components for several years, this is such a smart move.
Responsive support is expensive but keeps tempers from flaming. To their credit, it usually took less than ten minutes to talk to the right person at Dell. I had one technician whose accent was beyond my understanding, and I was able to get someone else quickly. A few were from Central or South America locations and were extremely knowledgeable and personable. On the other hand, one of the visiting techs told me that the cost of a site visit hits Dell for about $1,000 in overall costs. If true, just the site visits for my laptop cost Dell $3,000 for a computer that cost quite a bit less than that. Dell, you should have just sent me a new machine instead of the screen replacement.
Automatically escalate to an empowered employee on a second major hardware issue. I asked several technicians about a simple replacement, and I was assured every time that Dell simply would not replace the entire computer. If you read user responses in computer magazines, you know that Dell will replace a unit if they get bad written press. One major hardware issue doesn’t have to have a long term impact on a customer relationship. Two major hardware issues with the same machine — that’s different.
Would I recommend buying from Dell? Not at this time. Dell’s non-replacement policy tells me that Dell is okay providing problematic equipment and that they can require their customers to spend an unlimited amount of time trying to rectify Dell created problems. Dell does so many things right. But business users cannot afford the risk of this kind of downtime with equipment.