Dell might suck but holy crap...

Okay so I've been having some ridiculous problems with my old Latitude D600. Fortunately I have a 3 year warranty (which ends in 3 days actually :( ). Now, I have spent the last two months speaking to dell's customer support and I have replaced the hard drive twice, the mother board twice, and the wireless card once. Nothing worked. In fact, the last replacement of the mother board killed my laptop completely.

And finally they decided to send me a replacement laptop. I was expecting a slightly shinier D600 but got a D620 instead... and this laptop is TERRIFIC. Like... it might actually be called "new." This is a huge deal for me because I have zero money, and here is a brand new laptop that I didn't even have to pay for. HA! :P

Anyone else have an experience like this with a company?

Well, it's a similar situation. Sort of:

A few years ago, I was working on a night club strobe light. I needed an inexpensive part to do the repair and it had to be ordered from the factory because it had a proprietary part number on it. Anyway, they said they'd send the part for free and when the package arrived it was a brand new in-the-box light of the same model.

I took it apart and tested some parameters of the part that I really needed in the first place, figured out what the generic part really is, and repaired the customer's unit. Then I had me a brand new $150 stage light for free that I sold to the same guy I did the repair for. $35 for the repair, $75 for a new light = 110 "free" dollars for me.

I used to deal with Winbook because of this same practice.

Because our company laptops get used both at work at home, they often are running 12 or more hours each day, and getting carried around and beaten to death to boot. These things truly justify the 3 year warranty - and not a single laptop I've ever been responsible for has ever gone the distance without needing multiple warranty repairs in three years.

Winbook... the first Winbooks we bought were both replaced with better units within a year of purchase. The next year both of those were sent in for repair and again replaced with upgraded models. The third year, one of those (mine) was yet AGAIN upgraded. That's three laptops, each faster, lighter and with more HD space, for the price of one!

So we stuck with Winbook for years - not because they were reliable, but because they were so prone to replacing the things rather than fixing them. That went on happily for years, until they stopped directly selling laptops fairly recently.

My new laptop is a business class HP - and it already needs a trip to the shop. We'll see what that results in, as this model has been discontinued.

Dell is pretty good if you're under warranty. One of my suitmates was having trouble with his sound in his XPS, and after he called Dell, they sent a guy to our school (to our room actually) and replaced his entire motherboard. I guess it was because sound was integrated, but still, pretty good deal.

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Originally Posted by Squall

One of my suitmates

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the mind boggles....
do you share a leg each?

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Originally Posted by Squall

Dell is pretty good if you're under warranty. One of my suitmates was having trouble with his sound in his XPS, and after he called Dell, they sent a guy to our school (to our room actually) and replaced his entire motherboard. I guess it was because sound was integrated, but still, pretty good deal.

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Similar thing here.. they had a guy come in and replace the motherboard twice. He was a regular student though here at the univeristy! :wtf:

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Originally Posted by Ynot

the mind boggles....
do you share a leg each?

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Lol!

My computer is dell. Although it periodically crashes and randomely loses its sound drivers, the customer is very good. You get put through to some incredibly clever IT person in India, who normally knows exactly what to do.

If they don't, it seems that you get a new one of whatever was wrong, for free :D

Have to say though, my dad has a Mac, and he's never had any problems making anything work with it. Internet, software... it never crashes. I am very tempted to go for one next time I need a new computer.

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Originally Posted by Lord Toaster

he's never had any problems making anything work with it. Internet, software... it never crashes. I am very tempted to go for one next time I need a new computer.

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:? That's the great thing about macs. I can't really pinpoint the reason, but I just... dont.like.macs. *sigh*

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Originally Posted by Squall

One of my suitmates...

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You wouldn't by any chance be a conjoined twin, would you?

it's funny
after posting, I googled suitmate
thought it might be some weird US slang thing, I dunno

brought up a 1950's style spin dryer....

It's gotta be a typo of suite-mate. As in roommate.

Wow, I can't believe my typo has spawned discussion and research. Yes, what I meant to type was suitemate lol. A suite is a college dorm room configuration where you have multiple bedrooms and a common room.

I figured that's what it was but the opportunity was too tempting to pass up.

Speaking for broken laptops: The one I'm using now (Acer) broke down on me THREE times within the first few months after I bought it new. I had to send it back those three times because it was serious failures. It's been over a year now but, the part that really peeved me - besides the three failures - was that all that time in their repair facility and all the shipping time was eating into my 1 year warranty.

So, almost 2 1/2 months of my warranty time went down the shitter and there was nothing I could do about it.

Yeah my warranty expires tomorrow. :shock: I am very very scared. I should see if I can get a warranty for my new laptop.