Do Not Buy Dell

I have seen and heard some incredibly stupid things in my time as a computer tech, from laptops designed to only accept a certain model of hard drive to Microsoft's support staff having no email access (I literally heard a record skip noise in my brain when I heard that one) but this may take the cake for the dumbest thing I have encountered.

Dealing with Dell in the past definitely made me wish I became an alcoholic when I had the chance. Absolutely cretinous staff who cannot comprehend the most basic of requests, threats to close quote requests in about 12 hours because I have not gotten back to them immediately, and others. But this. Jesus. I requested a quote for a fan and a touchpad on a laptop that's developed issues just outside of warranty and noticed this in the fine print that must be a recent addition.

"• You will be required to return the original commodity needing to be replaced to the engineer for disposal. Failure to do so may result in additional cost."

So if I don't pay out of my pocket to send them back the damaged items, they may randomly send me an additional invoice.

Friends, don't fucking buy Dell. This is absolute lunacy.

Never buy pre-built PCs in general. Mine was built by myself and it's not crapped out on mr in 3 years. 

Nope, I'm not building shit. I hate learning how to do things or some silly nonsense and find work to be a pain in the ass no matter what might be the 'reward.' That's true even if I had no misanthropy.

But Dell is kind of known as a trash brand like HP. 

Just now, LadyMistDragon said:

Nope, I'm not building shit. I hate learning how to do things or some silly nonsense and find work to be a pain in the ass no matter what might be the 'reward.' That's true even if I had no misanthropy.

 

But Dell is kind of known as a trash brand like HP. 

 

HP are indeed trash, and they like to overcharge for parts. I got a quote for a battery from an authorised supplier that was $100 more than I could find it from some random online for a battery. But Dell's bullshit just takes it to a new low. I have seriously contemplated adding a "Dell stress surcharge" onto my invoices when I have to deal with them.

43 minutes ago, Murdoch said:

 Microsoft's support staff having no email access

43 minutes ago, Murdoch said:

 threats to close quote requests in about 12 hours because I have not gotten back to them immediately

*facepalm that can be heard from here to Alpha Centauri*

I used to do a service desk job where incidents had a 12 hour SLA to resolution, but no incident could be closed without three attempted contacts and the user was able to re-open incidents within 7 days of closure.

49 minutes ago, Murdoch said:

I requested a quote for a fan and a touchpad on a laptop that's developed issues just outside of warranty and noticed this in the fine print that must be a recent addition.

 

"• You will be required to return the original commodity needing to be replaced to the engineer for disposal. Failure to do so may result in additional cost."

So if I don't pay out of my pocket to send them back the damaged items, they may randomly send me an additional invoice.

My day job involves, among other things, being on the opposite side of this exchange. We require this sort of thing for in-warranty repairs but not out-of-warranty repairs. We also include a return shipping label so that the other party can box up the original hardware, slap our return label on there, and drop it off at a UPS store or wherever else to get it back to us.

If they're requiring this from you it may very well be the case that they'll include a return shipping label. Having dealt with a Dell reseller in the past I know this to be the case for in-warranty replacement parts. I'd ask just to be sure.

Dell's consumer-grade stuff sucks shit but their enterprise-grade stuff is decent. Having spoken to support techs from both divisions, it's like night and day in terms of general competence and turnaround.

39 minutes ago, LadyMistDragon said:

Nope, I'm not building shit. I hate learning how to do things or some silly nonsense and find work to be a pain in the ass no matter what might be the 'reward.' That's true even if I had no misanthropy.

Not going BYO is a totally valid and completely understandable course of action particularly if you don't want to deal with the headaches of reaching out to each manufacturer, or for having to figure shit out on your own. Having "one throat to choke" is real nice. The real problem is that most options suck. GamersNexus' youtube channel has a nice ongoing series where they check out different PC brands, some of which are rather surprisingly good! Of course, Dell/Alienware's at the bottom of the barrel.

15 minutes ago, segfault said:

My day job involves, among other things, being on the opposite side of this exchange. We require this sort of thing for in-warranty repairs but not out-of-warranty repairs. We also include a return shipping label so that the other party can box up the original hardware, slap our return label on there, and drop it off at a UPS store or wherever else to get it back to us.

 

If they're requiring this from you it may very well be the case that they'll include a return shipping label. Having dealt with a Dell reseller in the past I know this to be the case for in-warranty replacement parts. I'd ask just to be sure.

It's not an in warranty repair. That would possibly explain it. Perhaps they used the wrong quote form? That would certainly be a more sane explanation and hopefully is the case. I am generally pretty forgiving of tech support staff, I understand they are just one cog in a bigger machine, having had such a painful run with Dell's incompetence over the last year or so, when I saw that my brain broke.

18 minutes ago, segfault said:

Dell's consumer-grade stuff sucks shit but their enterprise-grade stuff is decent. Having spoken to support techs from both divisions, it's like night and day in terms of general competence and turnaround.

HP are the same. Consumer grade stuff crap, but the Probooks and Elitebooks usually go the distance. Dell's consumer grade stuff back in the day was solid - literally. I often wanted to take a side from one of those Vista and before era desktops out with my Dad when he sighted in his rifles to see if they would block shots. Really high grade metal by the looks of it. I recently resurrected one of their old XP era desktops for a friend who needed one for his CNC rig. Needed a new motherboard battery and of course a new drive. That was it.

12 minutes ago, Murdoch said:

Perhaps they used the wrong quote form? That would certainly be a more sane explanation and hopefully is the case. I am generally pretty forgiving of tech support staff, I understand they are just one cog in a bigger machine, having had such a painful run with Dell's incompetence over the last year or so, when I saw that my brain broke.

This kind of thing just makes me feel all the more grateful to have Clint, the local computer salesman/repair guy in my life. Thanks to him, I've never had to deal with any company over the phone when something goes wrong. Whenever I'm having an issue or need a part fixed/replaced, I just get ol' Clint on the horn and he solves/fixes the issue within 24 hours or less. The pandemic and the rise in rent caused him to lose his shop and employees, but thankfully he's still running his business from home and doing well otherwise. I had him source and install both a new graphics card and a power supply unit for me just last month.

I've been using a Dell Latitude E6440 I got refurbished off Newegg since 2018. Cost me $250. It definitely blows, but I can play Doom on it. *shrug* I have some decent peripherals, so I kinda forget about it.

Given that now Dell, HP and Lenovo have abandoned including 2.5 inch Hard Drives in their laptops now, it seems likely that 3.5 inch Hard Drives will also be eliminated in their desktop PCs in the future, and that more PC manufactures will soon follow Dell, HP and Lenovo's steps. And lets not forget the fact that every new laptop with only a SSD and/or eMMC is now overpriced than even a "barebones" custom pre-built PC with or without a keyboard, mouse, monitor or speakers.

1 minute ago, BigBoy91 said:

I've been using a Dell Latitude E6440 I got refurbished off Newegg since 2018. Cost me $250. It definitely blows, but I can play Doom on it. *shrug* I have some decent peripherals, so I kinda forget about it.

That's one of their business machines. It's more about the quality of the support that I find myself getting pissed off with them.

What other computer brands would you recommend to others?

11 minutes ago, Artman2004 said:

What other computer brands would you recommend to others?

ASUS. They are the laptop brand I have seen the least what could fairly be called "premature grief" with - ie: a serious, not cost effective to fix failure like the motherboard dying before three years. In fact ASUS motherboard issues without a clear and obvious cause (impact damage, over heating, corrosion, surge damage etc) in both laptops and desktops is very rare. I could probably count the number of cases I have encountered on one hand.

I’ve had experience with HPs, Dells, Acers, ASUS, lenovo, Toshiba (do they even make laptops anymore?), etc. They all have bad customer service and all of these laptops in my possession have since been moved to my island of misfit tech. 

40 minutes ago, Murdoch said:

 

ASUS. They are the laptop brand I have seen the least what could fairly be called "premature grief" with - ie: a serious, not cost effective to fix failure like the motherboard dying before three years. In fact ASUS motherboard issues without a clear and obvious cause (impact damage, over heating, corrosion, surge damage etc) in both laptops and desktops is very rare. I could probably count the number of cases I have encountered on one hand.

I closed my computer repair business over a decade ago. But I must 2nd that one; Asus! I've NO experience with

their laptops other than that old Atom-powered netbook line of theirs, Eee-PC, but going back to 1996 just awesome

motherboards for PC. Yah, they were good back then with the Pentium (75MHz-233MHz days), the other socket 7s

that supported those as well as the faster AMD K6-2s and 3s. Socket 370 Pentium II/III/Celeron. AMD Athlon stuff.

All of their motherboards rocked. Then, back when HP bought Compaq, HP stopped making their own motherboards

for the consumer-grade desktop/towers and began making their Pavilion line with... Asus motherboards!! True, HP

handicapped them slightly compared to what you'd buy straight from Asus but they were still better than most other

consumer line PCs of that day.

16 minutes ago, DNSKILL5 said:

I’ve had experience with HPs, Dells, Acers, ASUS, lenovo, Toshiba (do they even make laptops anymore?), etc. They all have bad customer service and all of these laptops in my possession have since been moved to my island of misfit tech. 

Oh sure. When it comes to support from the big companies it's not who is good, who is bad so much as who is the least awful.

Isn't it amazing how almost the entire bunch of Windows laptop producers essentially yields the market to Apple? As much as I dislike them, their MacBooks are virtually the only laptop models I consider acceptable - and even they have degraded in manufacturing quality over the years.

For full desktops I'd only buy at shops that self-assemble the computers.

My Dell has lasted for 11 years.

My Dell Optiplex from 2013 is still kicking.
But I get you, the staff is the problem.

4 minutes ago, pcorf said:

My Dell has lasted for 11 years.

1 minute ago, BerserkerNoir said:

My Dell Optiplex from 2013 is still kicking.
But I get you, the staff is the problem.

The build quality was much better in those days.

11 minutes ago, Graf Zahl said:

even they have degraded in manufacturing quality over the years.

I consider macbooks hands down the absolute worst for cost effectiveness, repairability, and reliability. Granted they are quite rare here but barely a year goes by I dont have to give someone an absurd quote for a premature failure that would cost a fraction to do the same on a Windows machine. Last one was about a year ago with a 2020 model where the touchpad and keyboard died for no obvious reason. It was around $1200 NZD.

The old unibody ones circa 2009 to 2012ish were borderline bulletproof. But as they got a hard on for making them as small and thin as possible, the build quality went down with the weight.

Since this thread has apparently turned into talking about how long our Dell shitboxes have lasted. My small form factor Optiplex 760 has lasted for about 7-8 years of daily use, gone through many dozens of power outages and brownouts, and still works to this day. It has also only been cleaned twice in its' lifetime, this is what it looked like the second time it has ever been cleaned, when I decided to open it up and clean it, before setting it up in the living room.

It has gone through this much wear and tear and abuse, while spending most of its' life in this state. It's a piece of shit by every metric except reliability. My current custom built system has bricked 3 separate times, requiring me to RMA and replace CPUs and boards. While this PC still works with the exact same hardware it had since it was assembled in 2009.

at least most of yall never got gaslight into buying dell shitboxes because it's supposedly "Supporting Local Businesses".

i have some inspiron (thinkpad tier but -20000% thinkpad quality) from like 2000, iirc. the proprietary power supply cord started fraying and spitting out sparks every time you would unplug it. that was the coolest thing ive ever seen a dell computer do. i only keep it around because it has a floppy controller and sometimes i write and archive floppies, mostly for a sampler. plastic started cracking alongside the hinges around 2008. still works, but so does my c64 and atari st. the dell 1080p lcd monitor (late 00's-early 10's, i think) i was given by a friend stopped working around 4 years of my use, had some capacitors go pop, never to power on again.

only hardware issue i've ever had with with my own builds was a trash tier power supply dying in the one i've made for myself. (thankfully not supplying too much voltage, best understood frying) i even forgot to clean it for 5 of those years, chainsmoking directly next to it for most of its life, despite the radioactive dust buildup, it's still kicking. i had more difficulty putting together lego kits or even some plastic models than i've had putting together computers for myself or others. set, forget, and use it for its processing power. i'm not going to be surprised at all if my system makes it to 10 years of use. (this is an rgb light emitting diode [as form, rather than fucntion] free household). the good thing about IBM Personal Computer Compatibility is and always has been the fact that you, human, can buy the same parts as the clone manufacturers, and has been that way for the past 40 years. yes, it is still an IBM compatible in 2023. unless it's acorn risc, or powerpc [if youre reading this from a powerpc machine i love you] it's still got its roots in the intel 8086.

thinkpads up until the  xy30 (x=letter, y=number) are as good as portable computing will ever get. repairable modular design with drain holes on keyboard, solid hinges and a solid metal skeleton underneath all of those panels. apple laptops fell off HARD as soon as they started having that dogshit "everything soldered to the 'logic' board" ass design. braindead engineering since 2013. the moment my t420 stops thinking for eternity, i will just get another t420 (or a t430, and replace the keyboard with my t420 keyboard). if you are seeking a laptop and aren't getting a used thinkpad, regardless of age, you're probably making a regrettable decision, if not an outright mistake.

but my experience with "tech support" is almost universally taking a screwdriver, fucking around and finding out, and accepting mistakes if they are made, so I Dont Know Shit Lol. thank Good for The Information Superhighway and the people/scripts that index it.

10 hours ago, Murdoch said:

I consider macbooks hands down the absolute worst for cost effectiveness, repairability, and reliability. Granted they are quite rare here but barely a year goes by I dont have to give someone an absurd quote for a premature failure that would cost a fraction to do the same on a Windows machine. Last one was about a year ago with a 2020 model where the touchpad and keyboard died for no obvious reason. It was around $1200 NZD. 

Oops. That sounds really bad.
 

10 hours ago, Murdoch said:

 

The old unibody ones circa 2009 to 2012ish were borderline bulletproof. But as they got a hard on for making them as small and thin as possible, the build quality went down with the weight.

I had a 2013 MacBook at my last job. It lasted for 9 years before the battery went poof. I think it was the last generation with genuine screws in the case and unsoldered parts.

Since I am looking for a decent laptop right now, what would you suggest?

1 hour ago, Graf Zahl said:

I had a 2013 MacBook at my last job. It lasted for 9 years before the battery went poof. I think it was the last generation with genuine screws in the case and unsoldered parts.

Yes that's about right.

1 hour ago, Graf Zahl said:

Since I am looking for a decent laptop right now, what would you suggest?

ASUS wins on the overall reliability front. I've sold dozens over the years and many customers are still running ones I sold them 7 or 8 years ago. There's been one bad board, and another that needed to be replaced because the fan glitched and the customer didn't act quick enough to stop the board getting damaged by overheating. That's all the major issues i can remember where i couldn't point the finger at mistreatment. 

Not that I can add much to the conversation, but ASUS is about the best thing you can buy right now. I had to deal with ASUS customer support once and it was a lovely experience. I was connected to someone in Canada and he helped get me setup with an exchange. (MB I purchased from Tigerdirect had a bad RAM slot) They sent me a new MB and all the necessary labels to ship back the old one. 

Other than the customer service, all laptops that I have purchased or other people that I have recommended to worked out great. At the end of the day, abuse was the only thing that killed any of the old ASUS laptops I have seen.

21 hours ago, Murdoch said:

Friends, don't fucking buy Dell. This is absolute lunacy.

Mycurrent rig is an OEM Dell from the hospital. Its good stuff. 1 litre mini PC.

3 minutes ago, Redneckerz said:

Mycurrent rig is an OEM Dell from the hospital. Its good stuff. 1 litre mini PC.

It was more about the service. Desktops on the whole usually give less grief than laptops also its probably enterprise grade?

21 hours ago, Ludi said:

Never buy pre-built PCs in general. Mine was built by myself and it's not crapped out on mr in 3 years. 

 

My build uses exactly the same case as yours (minus the cool stickers), likewise has worked like a dream the last 4+ years

(The one in the middle is a home build too, also an option if you don’t mind trying your luck with eBay ISA cards)

Something Something Broke, Something Something MSI Laptop.

Why does it come with all the extra shit? idk, but it was eating up ram like a motherfucker, and it only had 8gbs to go around. (Welcome to why I uninstalled win10, and used the SUPERIOR OPERATING SYSTEM OF LINUX!!!!1! (jk but it's way smoother and only uses ~ a gig at idle instead of... 5.))

I would generally go about with making your own desktop if possible - I'm working on that myself at the moment - got a new mechanical keyboard just the other day.

If you don't have Full Desktop Money, do as I've done and get a laptop while you save up, and then once you do get the whole thing, you got a semi-decent computer for when you have to go on trips or whatever else.

Emailed them yesterday, yes my customer accepted the quote, please send me the invoice.

Email from them today: "Since we have not heard from you we have decided you are not wanting to go ahead with the order."

Me: "Fucccccccccc......"