Another satisfied Dell customer

[time]

... and so it was at the beginning of October 2004 that a bailiff from the Court in Manly NSW went to Dell's office with a writ of execution to come away with the $ or else seize property to the value of my claim.

http://www.rayshaw.com.au/article.aspx?ArticleKey=460

 

[i]

That was a beautiful story.

 

[Bozo]

My dealings with Dell support pretty much mirror that article.

Bozo :mrgrn:

 

[Buck]

Thanks for sharing the story Time.

 

[Pradeep]

Owning an Inspiron 8200 myself, I can relate somewhat. But it's definitely not Dell's fault that the guy didn't realise it only had USB 1.1.

They do have funky dial-up modem issues, that's for sure.

 

[Santilli]

I got stuck in that time, as well, but with Apple, Lombard, and a Panasonic CF-37.

I can't get either to work reliably with an external burner, using a firewire adapter card. Seems they will recognize external hard drives, but not burners.

I do wonder if it's worth upgrading to the new 7200 Hitachi hard drive, for preformance, and room, for these older books?

Also, one has to wonder the sanity of not getting a 3 year warranty on a book, or books, with components, like hard drives, warrantied for only one year from the maker? The cost of the warranty would pay for the hard drive, which is likely to fail inside three years.

Also, Dell did charge a ton for those old PC P2 400mhz, etc. but, so did everybody else. Those days were pre-competition, read Athlon, for Intel, so their chips were twice what they should have been.

In Dell's defense, the P2 400mhz we bought for 3 g's, is still running, and, it's running 2000 just fine, with a new video card, needs a new DVD or CD,
and a Quantum LM harddrive. Those BX chipset boards were very fast,
for their day, and still snappy, even now.

I'd consider a scsi boot drive, but, my girlfriend likes it just the way it is, quiet, and fast enough for her, so it stays the way it is.

s
PPS
Too bad this wasn't brought for breach of implied warranty. In the US, you could have argued the computer failed to meet the basic industry standards for a new computer, and argued for a full refund, and damages, if not in small claims court.

 

[time]

But it's definitely not Dell's fault that the guy didn't realise it only had USB 1.1.

I disagree. I imagine that Dell hardly made that clear in their proposal, and I find it quite extraordinary that a reasonably expensive PC still had obsolete USB just a year ago. Even budget desktops have had USB 2.0 for at least 18 months.

In the US, you could have argued the computer failed to meet the basic industry standards for a new computer, and argued for a full refund, and damages, if not in small claims court.

 

[Pradeep]

But it's definitely not Dell's fault that the guy didn't realise it only had USB 1.1.

I disagree. I imagine that Dell hardly made that clear in their proposal, and I find it quite extraordinary that a reasonably expensive PC still had obsolete USB just a year ago. Even budget desktops have had USB 2.0 for at least 18 months.

He bought it in January 2003, that's over two years ago. He only had to click on the specs tab to find out it had USB 1.1

 

[time]

Whoops! You're right about the dates. The problem was that Intel still wasn't supporting its own standard in its own mobile chipsets. :roll: Only a couple of enlightened manufacturers were putting USB 2.0 into laptops at that stage, although doesn't the 8200 have Firewire anyway?

 

[Pradeep]

Yup, it has a 4 pin Firewire port. Which works well.