Dell Laptop - "catastrophic failure" in less than 3 years - Lost a customer for life

TroutMask

That's the thing with Dell, hit or miss. We had quite a bad experience with 2 generations of their products so never again. Even when they were firing on all cylinders the performance was mediocre compared with that of a bespoke PC we made (which had similar spec figures BTW).

Soundman

I also bought the ex a Dell Inspiron laptop about 3 years ago and that is still going strong, despite being dropped a few times.

Got my Dad a second hand Dimension tower about 6 years ago and absolutely no issues with it even though he is a complete technotard.

Same story with my sister. Same type tower, second hand aswell.

In my experience (not tarring everyone), those with issues with Dell are those that have no idea how to look after anything technological.

TroutMask

Soundman wrote: »

I also bought the ex a Dell Inspiron laptop about 3 years ago and that is still going strong, despite being dropped a few times.

Got my Dad a second hand Dimension tower about 6 years ago and absolutely no issues with it even though he is a complete technotard.

Same story with my sister. Same type tower, second hand aswell.

In my experience (not tarring everyone), those with issues with Dell are those that have no idea how to look after anything technological.

C'mon, they have runs of bad PCs and their warranty evasion tactics are legendary. I ended fixing six of them myself rather than deal with their warranty people. I'm talking PSU disassembly and cap replacement. At least then we could give the machines to charity, rather than have them clutter up the landfill. Dell are mediocre hit or miss machines at best.

Soundman

TroutMask wrote: »

C'mon, they have runs of bad PCs and their warranty evasion tactics are legendary. I ended fixing six of them myself rather than deal with their warranty people. I'm talking PSU disassembly and cap replacement. At least then we could give the machines to charity, rather than have them clutter up the landfill. Dell are mediocre hit or miss machines at best.

As I said... Not in my experience.

L1011

Alan_P wrote: »

And yet I saw a SCC judge order a partial refund for a laptop that had only lasted 4 years. Mine had lasted 2 years, and I got a 3/5 refund.

Partial refund on what was likely an extremely cheap consumer laptop = not really worth your time and effort.

I would also hope they take in to account that consumer computing equipment does not have a lifespan of more than a few years to begin with.

I'd go after them for 2, probably even 3 years on a Lat. I doubt I'd bother after 18 months on an Inspiron.

Alan_P

MYOB wrote: »

I would also hope they take in to account that consumer computing equipment does not have a lifespan of more than a few years to begin with.

This is partially why my afternoon in the SCC was interesting. There were a number of cases about computers, and several retailer's representatives in those cases made comments like that.

The judge's response to those comments was always that computers have an expected lifespan of 5 years, and they should spread the word around the computer industry. She was completely adamant about it, and frankly didn't give a toss about distinctions between grades of laptop.

TroutMask

My Mac Classic (1990) still works, we play Tetris and Space Invaders on it. Looking around, we have 6-year-old iMacs (showing their age but still working), a dual-core Mac G4 from 2000 (works perfectly), a dual-core ASUS about 8 years old (a tad slow but fine in general); and a couple of laptops: an old Lenovo dual core ThinkPad (quite a fast machine and a nice display), a PowerBook (amazing graphics card - pushes projectors to the limit), and 2 MacBook Pro's - both very fast. I think the judge is right, consumers shouldn't have to foot the bill for shoddy manufacturing - and a computer should be useable for quite a long time (within reason) if it meets the user's needs.

L1011

Alan_P wrote: »

This is partially why my afternoon in the SCC was interesting. There were a number of cases about computers, and several retailer's representatives in those cases made comments like that.

The judge's response to those comments was always that computers have an expected lifespan of 5 years, and they should spread the word around the computer industry. She was completely adamant about it, and frankly didn't give a toss about distinctions between grades of laptop.

Judge isn't particularly well informed, then.

Laptops in particularly are very easy to treat extremely badly without obvious damage, and downright refusing to accept that is extremely poor form.

However, I now know what I'll do when this one fails...

LowKeyReturn

MYOB wrote: »

Judge isn't particularly well informed, then.

Laptops in particularly are very easy to treat extremely badly without obvious damage, and downright refusing to accept that is extremely poor form.

However, I now know what I'll do when this one fails...

I think you'll find the consensus is against you I'm afraid. Dell et al can easily remedy any issue by providing a more reliable product. In fairness to Dell, notwithstanding my previous flippant attitude towards them, the majority of Dell products I have used have gone on forever more.

Dell have every right to bring the goods back and perform what ever tests they feel necessary to vindicate their rights if they believe the product has been damaged by the user. The fact is they do not; they simply hide behind their warranty and ignore consumer rights. Who exactly is showing extremely poor form here?

L1011

LowKeyReturn wrote: »

I think you'll find the consensus is against you I'm afraid. Dell et al can easily remedy any issue by providing a more reliable product.

For the price charged for entry level Inspirons, that isn't possible. Pay buttons, get crap.

The judge is showing an utter lack of knowledge of the products they're ruling on the lifespan of.