Dell gets the dubious honor of having given me what's likely the most ridiculously bad customer service experience I've had in years. I have a simple problem: The hard drive for my Dell notebook crashed after my computer was out of warranty. I bought a new hard drive, but now I need a boot disk for the Microsoft XP Professional operating system that I originally bought loaded onto my computer. I suspect this happens very often; there ought to be a standard procedure for it.
I've now spent over an hour trying to get this straightened out — almost all of it navigating through the voice-mail menus, waiting on hold, or being transferred to some other department. I got cut off during the transfer process twice. I've probably talked to eight different people. I was transferred to spare parts, who told me I had to talk to customer support, who then tried to transfer me back to spare parts, except at that point the call was cut off.
I was eventually told that I had to re-buy the operating system — not a good position for Dell to take, but if that's what it takes, fine. I was transfered to spare parts, who took my service tag, and told me they had to transfer me somewhere else. Where did they transfer me to? The same voice-mail menu I came from.
OK, I thought, but at least the person who transferred me to spare parts gave me a part number. Maybe I could find it online. Nope, the spare parts search form online tells me there's no such part number. And the online chat system that they suggested on the phone as a substitute for waiting on hold? I did get through to someone in a few minutes; and what did she tell me? Call spare parts. I eventually got through to customer care, and asked to talk to a supervisor. I was put on hold for a while — and then disconnected.
Now maybe all computer manufacturers are like that, but I'm hoping they aren't. If you can recommend some companies that actually provide decent customer service, please post the answer in the comments. I'm thinking that rather than dealing with Dell again, for this or for anything else, I should probably just get a new system from a company that's actually interested in pleasing its customers. But in any event, folks, be warned about what dealing with Dell can sometimes be like.
UPDATE: I tried one more time, and finally got somewhere. I called the sales line and said that I was a customer who also had a popular Weblog, and that I wanted to speak to a supervisor. Why?, they asked. Because I had posted something critical of the company and wanted to give them a chance to respond. (Indeed, if Dell wants to send me a response, I'll be glad to post it.) I got a supervisor, and told him the same thing. OK, he said, but before I transfer you to someone, can we try to solve the problem? Sure, I said. I told him the whole story; he figured out whom to call and transfered me to that person without making me wander through more voice-mail jungle; I talked to the person; and finally, finally got a chance to buy a new copy of Windows XP Pro (the software that they knew I had bought with my original system) for a $100 discount off their $309 standard price.
Now I wouldn't have been happy with having to pay an extra $209 even if they'd made it easy for me. But why did it have to take me nearly two hours of telephone time to get to the point where I could actually pay Dell some money?
Finally, I should say that through all this the people I talked to at Dell (when I could talk to them) were always quite polite. I'm sure they wanted to help. It's just that (except for the ones I noted in the update) they and the system in which they were operating were for some reason not actually able to help.
(Grin). At least I know they send you the system CDs with the computer.
Then they told me I was at fault for not creating my own recovery CD, as it apparently suggests in the manual. They might be 100% correct; but I have never burned a CD in my life, and if it recommends on page 138 of the manual that you burn your own recovery CD, I guess I missed that somehow. When they finally agreed to send me a recovery disk, it turned out to be a 6-CD set. "Are you saying you guys really expected me to go to the store, buy 6 blank CDs, and create my own set of 6 recovery disks, just in case?" Why yes, they do expect that, as it turns out.
The actual customer service was above average, but the corporate policies were pretty bizarre. Of course, as everyone tells me, there's a reason why Compaqs are cheaper.
Now I have a Sony, it has always worked fine. I have had to call customer support for a couple of minor things and all went smoothly.
With Sony you have to write your customer number on a piece of tape on the bottom of the laptop because if you lose it you're toast.
With customer support, also, I've had a pretty good experience. My laptop harddrive burned out (kind of -- I have a little connecter to link it to a normal bus, and it was still readable there) and I got a replacement shipped to me immediately. Admittedly, that was when it was within warranty, but still -- customer service was fairly good. At the time, I was quite vexed (because I knew what the problem was, but they made me run a series of diagnostic tests), but in retrospect, it was only three or four hours, if that, and I got my replacement in about a week.
But then, that was clearly a bunch of Indians on the other end of the line. Have they brought tech support back to the US or something?
If you lose those, I suppose you're in trouble. But I've re-installed the entire OS on that oldest system several times (for each new harddrive), and it's gone without a hitch.
Second, their customer support is second to none. Based in Atlanta, the support is well educated and quick. I haven't waited on hold for more than 3 minutes before speaking to someone. After a friend's hard drive crashed, I called, at 4pm, and had a new drive with installation CDs, on my doorstep by 10am the next morning.
But enough preaching. That is pathetic by Dell. They should have included a CD with the install and there is ZERO reason for you to re-buy. Microsoft allows you to re-install XP if you get a new hard drive. I would suggest speaking to a manager.
Important Note: The newer Dell laptops don't ship with the OS disk. You have to specially request it. I asked for it the day after my laptop arrived and they overnight all of the software. It's not too hard, just takes a call.
I've had great luck with E-Machines. They don't break and the restore disks work. E-M was recently bought by Gateway.
The advice of others here seems best to me - use the OEM CDs if you can find them. If not, buy XP cheaply somewhere.
If you don't want to go OS/X, the only reasonable alternative is a good white-box (local, not chain) store that does support or doing it yourself. The former is much akin to the storied search for an honest mechanic and the latter may, or may not, be something you want to spend your time on.
The big guys (Dell, HP, Gateway, Lenovo) are really only interested in large volume business sales where questions about an individual machine incident would get filtered by in-house tech support before coming back to them. One thing that may help is to always buy a "business" model, not a consumer model from whoever you deal with.
Newegg plus Linux offer something of an alternative but, as I noted, you might not wish to spend your time there. Not wanting to play tech support is a perfectly reasonable decision in many circumstances. Caveat Emptor.
I've bought Dell for years and years even knowing that the service experience would not meet my desired standard. Why? It's usually been the best price for my specifications.
I've been very happy with IBM service, the couple of times I've needed it. But I paid up to get laptops with my specs.
Recently, an upgrade fisaco with my work computer reminded me how exasperated I've become with Microsoft XP. Why am I spending all this time and attention span dealing with this at work and at home? So I unplugged a Dell at home and replaced it with a Mac mini. No muss. No fuss. It worked out-of-box with no configuration effort worth describing. Tons of software features. I'm not even sure I'll load Microsoft Word.
I waited for Windows 95, then NT, then XP. It's been 10 years. I wasn't going to wait for Vista. It was time to move on.
Their customer service has been just as bad. I often wait on hold for hours at a time, only to have some Indian technician (I always get a kick out of them saying their name is Ben or Andrew or something) tell me to reformat my drive (I understand that reformatting may often solve my problem, but its certainly not an optimal solution, and, in my opinion, should be a "last resort" solution). Apparently, their idea of customer service is to just say "reformat the drive," and nothing else. And this is after I paid $400 for the "idiot-proof" warranty, which they have, by the way, refused to recognize.
The last straw was earlier this year when my hard drive crashed, and I lost all my notes from school, including many papers, outlines, photos, etc. from which I had not backed up for several months (I know, that's my fault, but still). Customer service couldn't have cared less and refused to recognize my warranty. About 2 months later and dozens of hours on hold, I FINALLY got my new hard drive and everything is up and running again (no thanks to them. In the end, I gave up and figured out how to do everything myself).
In the meantime, I've given up on Dell, bought a compaq laptop (not the greatest reputation, I know, but I couldn't afford much, plus their PC got me through 4 years of undergrad relatively unscathed), and my now-repaired Dell has been sitting on the side ever since. So far, the compaq has been fine.
This is the abridged, family-friendly version of my problems with Dell. Trust me, I could go on for HOURS ranting about my problems with them.
From my experience with other law students and several friends who worked at computer help desks, I would recommend either Sony or IBM, although I have no personal experience with either. My mom's cheap Toshiba laptop is almost 8 years old and is still chugging along.
At this point, I refuse to buy another Dell, my family (after seeing what I've been through) have also swore them off, and I take whatever opportunity possible to vent my anger about them and warn people to never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever buy Dell. Never.
But why do you even bother with a mass-market computer? It's no trick to assemble a PC from quality parts and the end product is almost always highly reliable. For an OS, W2K (retail disk) is available on eBay for $65 or so and later OSs aren't that much more.
If you don't want to spend the time, well, that's what college students are for.
I do heartily second Apple on general principles; I actually don't know what their service is like, having never had to use it in 15 years+ of owning Macs. (Not that I've never had a problem in all that time, but nothing so major I had to deal with Apple rather than a local dealer. Not an option with Dell, of course.)
The same thing happend with my sister. She claimed a nightmarish customer support experience. I called with her and it was relatively smooth.
I am formulating the theory that the less you know about technical issues, the worse your support response will be. If the person on the other end of the line thinks you know what you are talking about, they become very intent on solving your problem. If they think you know nothing, they treat you with relative contempt and become easily flustered.
When I traveled abroad, I noticed similar behavior in foreign countries. If you made an honest attempt to speak their language (even badly), they tend to treat you better than if you don't. This seems particlarly true in France, but is noticeable even in Arab countries. Maybe the same principle applies to computer company technical support - try to speak techie with them and they may be more helpful.
Unfortunately, I can offer little anecdotal support, except for calls I have made on behalf of others who found the task too daunting. For myself, I have never made a service call. I have always "rolled my own" from the case to the operating system since the DOS days.
It also helps to buy the upgraded service contract.
The only gripe I really have with Dell is the lack of AMD processors. But most of the machines I get from them are quite good, which is the opposite of my experience with HP.
I bought a 12" Powerbook G4 three weeks ago. I weep daily because I did not go with an Apple computer years ago. "Switch" is the wrong verb to describe my move to Apple. "Defect" is more more appropriate. I defected from the cold, grey, sullen life of a Windows user to the fresh, creative, and free life of
DemocracyOS X.First of all: keep in mind who, exactly, you are dealing with. You know what the techs working the phones make? Aroudn ten bucks an hour. (If you're talking to someone in one of the mammoth Texas call centers, they're making around eight.) Know how qualified you need to be to HAVE a job doing that? You can basically get the job by being able to tell the different versions of Windows apart and doing maybe a week of training in which you'll be taught to use their data-entry tools. You might at any given time be talking to a total tech guru who is just marking time in this job until he gets his degree, or a 40 year old ex-bank teller who snapped up the job because he got laid off and has experience in 'customer service' but barely knows how to work his phone and couldn't identify the difference between TCP/IP and netBEUI to save his life. So be aware of that.
Second of all, there is NO unified troubleshooting or responce procedure. None whatsoever. Every tech you talk to will have his own slightly different way of doing things, and will be making his own judgement on who and where you need to be sent to. Assuming they know what they're talking about; a lot of the time we did NOT, especially with a non-standard call (about 80% of what the people on the Dell desk are delaing with are people bitching about spyware.)
Also be aware that the FFR (the full-format reinstall, in Gatewayspeak) is widely regarded as the universal fix-all for weird-ass thorny issues that confuse a tech. We CAN and WILL reach straight for that big gun if at all possible.
Regarding Eugene's specific problem; yeah, you bought a CONSUMER Dell, didn't you? Dell started (and Gateway began copying them in the fall of 2004 as an experiment, which as far as I know they're still doing) doing the 'we don't provide you with a Windows disc, instead you get a hidden partition on the drive and the manual (which we KNOW none of our cusotmers read, but that's not our problem, ha ha, RTFM n00bcakes) instructs you on how to burn a backup' thing. A -business- model Dell will include a full -OEM- copy of Windows on a friendly purple disc. IIRC, some consumer models might still have the disc, but by and large, no.
Another thing to be aware of; that tech you're talking to? He hates you. He hates you a LOT. This isn't neccessarily because of anything you've done, but we talk to people eight hours a day, and a lot of them are jerks, and even MORE of them are stupid (not just ignorant; ignorant we can deal with, I mean flat-out STUPID) and it engenders the sort of towering hatred of humanity you usually only find in career retail employees. If you've got a weird problem, if you've got something he has no diea how to fix, if yu're mean or take an aggressive tone with him, or if his LAST call was bad... he'll find a way to get rid of you. He will.
Basically, it doesn't matter what PC company you buy from; your customer service is going to be HUGELY hit and miss. You might get a snappy, helpful tech imemdiatly who diagnoses and fixes your problem instantly, or you might be stuck in transfer, hold-queue, ignorant-tech, ring-around-the-rosy HELL for hours and hours on end. It's a horrible thing, both for the consumers and the techs, but that's the nature of the business model.
I hope SOMEONE found that information useful, or at least insightful. :)
I had wondered what happened to people with recovery partitions if/when their hard disk dies beyond recovery. We now know the answer: they're SOL. You and your PC are legally licensed to use the OS; there's no reason that Dell can't provide you recovery disks now (or couldn't have provided them with your system). While Dell's customer service runaround was bad, this is really the crux of the issue and what needs to be better publicized so more people are aware of it.
Advice:
- Continue to spread the word; their bad publicity may not solve your problem, but it might save someone else at least or maybe get the to change their policy if enough people complain.
- Next PC purchase, ask the vendor if they provide a real OS installation disk. If not, factor another $150 into their cost.
- Consider Apple (or Linux) as an alternative.
For Windows laptops (which is what I need for work) I have had a terrible Gateway, an excellent and rugged IBM, and a Dell that at least they serviced very quickly when broken (including major screen damage on original shipping). IBM, pre-Lenovo, was too far behind on the video/price tradeoff at last purchase. My office has Sonys, too new for a track record.
They mailed right out a rebate form for my 3rd laptop when I said (service chat) I didn't have a printer.
But don't get caught in their telephone system. There are bad cycles they haven't eliminated, or don't care about, all over. Perhaps those are the hassled employees.
I'm buying only the super-cheap laptops, so maybe don't expect much, and so am surprised by friendly service more than most might be. Or maybe it's the in-warranty vs. not.
That's right. My employer gets good support, but my personal experiences have been very bad. Level One support in India has only half a clue, and this the way Corporate wants it.
"Dell has always been good to me as long as you are still under warranty."
Support was lousy from the day it arrived. I suspect they were trying to put me off until I was past the 30-day no-questions return limit.
"All my Dells...have come with the operating system [disk]"
That is still true for business customers, but not for models aimed at consumers. In that case you have to waste an hour online or on the phone, requesting that they mail you a CD. Very annoying, and indicative of Dell's "don't care" attitude towards consumers.
"It's no trick to assemble a PC from quality parts"
That's not a realistic suggestion for the vast majority of people. Even most programmers are not prepared for that and don't want to spend time learning how.
"Continue to spread the word"
Yes, indeed. With luck it might get to the point where Jay Leno starts making jokes about used car salesmen refusing to be seen in the company of Dell executives. They only things those amoral jerks understand are falling sales and falling stock prices.
Depending on how your drive failed I may be able to recover the data on it - procedure is to copy all to a new drive (ignoring any drive errors) then doing a repair install of XP Pro. as long as a given file was on a readable area, you get back programs as well as your information.
You can have dell send you the restore disks - they cost far less than a new copy of XP.
And if you need, I could send you a copy of the XP Pro restore disk for dell notebooks.
hope this helps.
cdb.
ps dell service has degraded somewhat. trick is to get past the first level support (when you are talking to India). however, their service is FAR better than anyone elses. And their web based support is excellent.
I'm the oldest computer dealer you will ever run into btw. Over 35 years in business.
'nuff said. I've seen it all.
the folks that really screw you btw are sony and toshiba who do NOT provide you with the OS to do a repair install (necessary to save your data). in these cases, we do infact have to sell the customer a new version of XP - their XP Codes on the bottom of the computer/notebook - in fact - are completely worthless.
The disks these folks give you do nothing other than erase the disk and set it back to how it left the factory. you kiss your data goodbye!
I also bought the highest end system available and maxed it out: Dell XPS laptop (before they went premium) with its own special number to call...
Your purchase price is directly related to your service experience.
The first of these died suddenly this year just after the warranty expired. Apple waived the expiration and repaired it for free. $800 value. I bought service contracts the next day.
Computers are cheap, the Apple premium is now small. For that you get better service, great design, a stable unix-based Mac OS, NO Viruses, No virus Software (almost as bad). Life is good.
I will say that their replacements and repairs under CompleteCare have been fast, though, at least once they figure out that what you are requesting is, indeed covered under their *COMPLETE*Care warranty. When you're figuring the cost of buying a notebook from them, don't forget to include the cost of CompleteCare when doing your comparison.
And on a side note - the Dell Inspiron 1150s have the worst ventilation ever - the single fan output blows right onto my lower thigh, making it virtually useless as a laptop computer.
Oh, and I second purchasing your replacement OS from newegg.com - they have good hardware and software prices.
My experience has been that since Dell moved its Design team as well as support overseas - finished about two years ago - the problems with their equipment have multiplied, a lot. For alternate brands, IBM is great for notebooks. Sony makes a good quality product - but the company is not any more friendly than Dell. For desktops, contact your local computer small dealer who has been around for over 10 years. Won't be very many of them...but there is usually a reason they have been around that long. Nearly every survey shows the best customer support comes from small dealers.
Dell takes top spot for most reliable notebooks, desktops
Frost &Sullivan has presented Dell with its CEO Choice Award for the most reliable manufacturer of notebook computers for the second consecutive year. This year, Dell also received the CEO Choice Award for the most reliable manufacturer of desktop computers in North America.
Frost &Sullivan's latest poll of company CEOs and presidents ranked Dell notebooks as most reliable by a margin of almost two to one, while Dell desktops received, in the same measurement category, more than three times as many votes as the nearest competitor.
Dell notebooks and desktops placed No. 1 in several measurement categories, including overall quality and price vs. performance. Dell also took the top spot in notebook customer service, receiving four times the number of votes as the nearest competitor.
"These results indicate the preference of the leaders of the professional world using, as well as recommending, Dell notebook and desktop computers," a spokesman said.
Eugene ultimately bought his license to use Windows from Microsoft, and if he thinks the terms of those license ought to include giving him any resources necessary to install the OS on another disk drive -- a debatable proposition, as anyone who thinks through the IP issues will realize -- why doesn't he take it up with them? Or at least consider asking whether Dell's policies are not pretty severely limited by what Microsoft demands?
Secondly, what's the profit on an $800 consumer computer? Maybe a whole $80? How much expert-quality service is that going to buy? Bearing in mind that an engineer can charge $100/hour for understanding the technical issues thoroughly, and a lawyer $300/hour for understanding the legal issue thoroughly? The way I see it, Dell can't possible afford to allocate more than about 5 minutes of expert service per sale if they want to show a positive return on investment to their shareholders.
Obviously, they have chosen to supply many more minutes of much lower-quality service instead. Is this surprising? Does anyone think it doesn't reflect market demand and consumer reality?
Eugene doesn't really have a problem with Dell. He just needs a boutique computer re-seller that for premium dollars will hold his hand and make sure he doesn't need to worry about any fine print in his license agreement, and will provide him with any back-up disks he might have carelessly neglected to make when he first got the machine despite being told to do so in the instruction manual in large black block letters. There are probably plenty of such people near UCLA who sell computers to folks like David Geffen and Maria Shriver. I suspect Dell is safe from any patrician ire about the annoying difficulty of finding competent help for peanuts these days.
I have an old IBM laptop that's a pretty solid machine though it's currently gathering dust due to a virus problem and it wasn't my main laptop anyway. I'd be a bit wary of going with them now since they got sold to that Chinese company (Lenovo?) about which I know nothing.
My main laptop was an old Apple Powerbook that ran without a hitch for five years and, despite having no anti-virus software on it, and being connected to the internet for most of those five years, never once had a virus or spyware problem. I recently upgraded to a new Apple Powerbook and I think it's a great machine. I have Microsoft Office on it (which is actually pretty good) but I don't use it that much. I don't have much personal knowledge of Apple's customer service since I've never had to call them about anything, but I know surveys rank them very highly in that regard. One thing for sure is that you won't have the common situation in the Windows world where the PC manufacturer blames Microsoft and Microsoft blames the PC manufacturer.
Bottom line: I will never buy another Windows machine as long as Apple is still making computers.
My kids have the IBMs. They are solidly built, and when we've had trouble with them, IBM service has been incredible. Sony, too, has been good - HP service was good but the reliability was sub-par.
I recently bought another Sony because IBM didn't offer what I wanted. If they had, I'd have bought that, no question.
Well, one rarely hears complaints from cult members. Back in college, I knew a kid who was very vocal about problems with his Mac. Too vocal. They found his car in the woods with the open-apple key from his computer jammed into the rearview mirror.
On the topic at hand, I've never had problems with my HP --- through which company I was able to buy much more of a computer than Apple would have allowed (even without including the cost of my soul).
Or he could just get an Mac Powerbook laptop, since they just work without requiring any tech guru to hold your hand. Apple gives you CD copies of everything when you buy the computer, and transferring everything (data, applications, iTunes songs etc.) from an old Mac to a new one basically involves connecting them with a firewire cable and turning them on.
I found it interesting that one of the earlier posters stated that 80% of the calls tech support gets are people complaining about spyware that somehow got onto their machines. I'd venture that percentage for Apple computers is very close to zero. I have never had a virus, spyware or malware problem with either of the Macs I have owned and don't even use anti-virus software on them.
The peaseants have no bread? Let them eat cake!
My advice for the potential Dell customer echoes a lot of what previously posted, but to sum up:
1. Do NOT buy a consumer line machine -- Inspiron or Dimension. Get a business box (Latitude or Optiplex). They are more expensive, sure. THERE IS A REASON FOR THAT.
2. Get CompleteCare. Get Gold care if it's offered (again, I think Gold Care is only available with the business lines).
3. Get the OS CDs shipped with the computer. Pay extra if you have to. Once you get them, BURN A COPY. Keep the two CDs in separate places -- if you have a safe deposit box, that's a good place for one of them.
4. When your warranty expires, SELL THE BOX. NOW. Computers are made the way Detroit used to make cars -- planned obsolescence IS the business model.
5. Back up your data. If the file is important, keep it in more than one place. If it's REALLY important, put a copy in SEVERAL places.
6. Oh yes, BACK UP YOUR DATA. Yes, I know I said that.
I purchased the Thinkpad through my business school computer store, so we likely had a "corporate" purchase deal (though the school itself provided no support). I've had Apples that were maintenance nightmares back in the mid 1990s, but IBM support was fantastic. Hopefully that will continue with Lenovo.
The important fact is that Microsoft really does allow you to re-install XP when you get a new hard drive. I've done it.
Use someone else's disk, call Microsoft up, and get validated.
The computer I'm working on, for example. It died, after repairs, I needed to reinstall WinXP. No recovery disk, just used a friend's, called Microsoft and was back in business immediately.
You should've been more assertive with Dell; when you purchase a machine - Mac or PC - you're entitled to OS discs, so don't forget that next time. :-)
First, they shipped recovery Windows CDs with the computer. Then, they stopped shipping said CDs. Now they will ship them to you (when you order the computer) for $10 extra (assuming this is for Windows XP Professional).
I find your experience (combined with my own) to be troubling because I had liked Dell (and I even bought some of their stock in my Roth IRA a few years ago) and yet given the kind of shoddy service you've reported, I don't think I would be quite as willing to purchase another Dell in the future. I live in the kind of household computer companies should like -- currently four people and six computers (not counting the IBM ThinkPad that belongs to my employer) and both of my college-age kids are talking about getting new machines -- but I can't imagine getting very far with Dell service by telling them I have a Web page that roughly fifty people read on a regular basis. Yeah, that would impress them big time.
2. Consider building your own PC. It's easy to build a PC. Get a book at Barnes &Noble and look at the pictures. Get an OEM copy of windows and you are now independent of anyone's service desk. (This won't work for laptops.)
3. In January Apple will begin selling machines with an Intel chip. This will be a full blown Apple, but it will also be able to run windows and all windows programs. Don't buy the first model, but this could be the best of all possible worlds. Both laptops and desktops will be available. By end of 2006, Apple claims all machines will be Intel based.
There are trade offs to consider in addition to cost though. the battery life of apple laptops is not as good as some PC's from what I hear. Hopefully this will improve when apple switches to intel chips.
(NSFW)
Last I heard Apple claimed that Windows will not run on their intel based machines. Evidently there will be something hardwired in to prevent it. Have you heard something new?
Even if you're not positive about "switching," their new line of Intel-powered computers will reportedly a) allow installations of Windows, allowing easy "switchback" if you don't like OSX; and b) be out as soon as January of 2006. The (shrinking) price premium for macs tends to be justified by the quality of their components and support, and UCLA's computer store tends to constantly have outstanding sale prices.
I can't wait til I'm pulling a paycheck next year and can buy a new, non-Dell computer. Now, if my computer can just last through the bar in July ...
Apple will rig the Apple op sys so it will only run on an Apple manufactured machine. This will prevent people from running the Apple Tiger system on their PC's. This allows Apple to keep selling its own machines which have a much higher margin than PCs.
But the intel based Apple will be able to run windows and windows software. The user will boot either Apple or windows op sys.
I think you're confusing Apple's attempts to make sure their OSX for Intel can't run on commodity PC hardware... my understanding (including conversations with Apple employees) is that the new Intel macs will definitely allow installation of Windows, either dual-boot or overwriting OSX.
There's hundreds of thousands of Dells out there. Mine is a reliable workhorse and there's probably lots more where that came from. What I've tired of waiting for is an operating system as intuitive as Apple's. But I've seen three apples crash in my office--needing major repairs--so while they are better than PC's they are not problem free.
Point? Every computer company will have a certain percentage of their computers need repairs; good computers can be had for less money than Apple wants for theirs. Good customer service comes at a price.
1. Use the automated system to get to tech support and then try to get to a real person as soon as possible after you reach tech support. Alternatively, follow the earlier advice to ask for the "Resolutions" department.
2. If it appears the tech person doesn't understand how to fix your problem or doesn't care if it gets fixed (trust your instincts), call back. If it happens again, wait 6-12 hours and call the next shift. I've had the best results when calling after midnight CST (after 10 PM PST). The last time I used Dell the tech support was in Canada, Texas and India. I liked the Canadian support - they were friendly and knowledgeable, but I'm a Texan so I also like people who talk Texan. Ultimately, however, the person that fixed my machine was with tech support in India. He even followed up weekly for the following 3 weeks to make sure things worked. It's hard not to like that.
3. Dell also tried to charge me for the reinstall disk, but ultimately they gave it to me. I suggest you tell them exactly how they've (mis)treated you, including a log of how many times you called and who you talked to. Make sure you also tell them the things they did right. Usually there's something good you can say, like "This person was helpful and pleasant, even though they couldn't fix my computer." If you ask for a supervisor, tell them you aren't complaining about the attitude of the person who helped you (unless that was a problem), but that you need more help with your problem than that person could give you. I've found that the supervisors, especially at Dell, want to protect their employees from abusive customers. Similar comments from Mecutio, a commenter earlier in this thread, sounded right to me. The people you are talking to probably have dealt with phone abuse all day.
4. Don't give up and be aware that tech people are, in essence, guessing at what's wrong with your computer. It may take a few guesses to get it right if your computer has an unusual problem. The hardest repair I had was with an Inspiron 1150 with a bad motherboard. That took 6 months, a dozen or more calls, and 2 return trips to Dell before it was working again.
5. I second the advice to purchase through your university. Alternatively, tell Dell that you are purchasing for educational use as a student or, in your case, as faculty, and you should get a significant discount. In addition, depending on whether Dell is authorized at UCLA, they might be able to configure your machine so it works with your college intranet more easily.
5. I second the advice to purchase through your university. Alternatively, tell Dell that you are purchasing for educational use as a student or, in your case, as faculty, and you should get a significant discount.
Only people who are actually students or faculty should try to get an educational discount.
I am going to be purchasing another Dell in the next few days. However, I am buying from the small buisness section. I've found that the Precision line is actually not more expensive than the Dimension systems.
I'm going to advise against going for Apple. Their logic boards have a tendancy to fry and take everything with it. Basically, Apple quality control doesn't exist. Have a lot of friends in the video-editing buisness who were very enamored with the G5s when they came out. After many unpleasant experiences with the machines, they've decided they will never buy another Apple. And I won't even mention my uncanny ability to destroy any Mac simply by being in the same room with it. I actually have a theory that computer brands respond to pheromones, and some people have Mac pheromones while others have PC pheromones. Sure, people laugh at me now, but when I win the Nobel Prize we'll see who has the last laugh!
And you could build your own, if you are not too concerned about reliability (not to say homebuilt systems are unstable, but you do have to be confident in your own abilities to either fix problems or to learn how to fix problems). It seems daunting, but really it's not.
Laptops, in my experience, are another matter. Both my kids have gone through several Compaqs, which have had any number of problems that Compaq has failed to fix. My daughter's newest Toshiba has broken in about 2 years.
On the other hand, my Sony Vaio lasted well after it was obsolete, but it was such a champ, I hated to replace it. For the past 2 years I have been using a Panasonic Toughbook that has run perfectly.
(I have had some Windows-related problems with various PCs stemming largely from loading too much software that ultimately did not like each other. These I had to fix myself. I would consider switching to Apple, but I am way too invested in Windows hardware and software. I find XP acceptably stable, though it is not without its problems. Nor are Apples BTW.)
I have had largely good luck with tech support with all my PCs. My real problems have been with hardware that fails in undiagnosable ways (or the aforementioned Windows problems). My better experience is probably due to the fact that I fall into the category (mentioned by a previous poster) of knowing something about the PCs, which explains why my dad seems to get awful tech support that only messes things up more. That does not seem to happen to me. And I try to be very respectful of tech support persons and enlist them in trying to solve my problem. They usually try, and are also usually successful in pointing out the one screwy thing that I could not have possibly been expected to know, which always makes me feel better.
The main lesson I have drawn from this is to avoid tech support altogether by buying hardware--especially laptops--with a well-deserved reputation for reliability (Sony-Panasonic) or is so cheap that I won't feel bad trashing it if something goes wrong (Dell). But then the Dells have lasted much longer than the Gateway, so far at least after a few years, and are starting to rival the no name PCs (with name brand innards) that I used to favor.
And I now back up and sync all my working data on 3 different PCs by using Logmein, as I described in a previous post here.
Then again, it also pays to be lucky in PCs as in love.
Furthermore, all of my home pcs have always stated quiet plainly during initial boot up, that system boot disks should be created....
Or perhaps, instead of bitching about dell on your "popular weblog" you could have requested someone send you an xp pro sp .xxx boot disk...
Hell, you could get the whole operating system off irc quicker than posting up a bitch to your weblog.
But yea, its Dell's fault your so stupid that you pay twice for one operating system and take several hours to do it.......
Lets see, your not sharp enough to use linux, so yea, you better go with a mac next time.
In early 1970s Venice, a friend out for a walk waited for a light to change at Windward and Pacific. A hippy and his dog approached. The dog bit my friend although she was just standing there doing nothing. The hippy shook his head at my friend and said, "Bad vibes."
There you have it.
Best of luck
Also, this is not the worst thing that could happen with Dell. I refer you to this story. In essence: boot-up screen says "read EULA and hit any key". EULA is on hard drive (hitting the key accepts the EULA, so you can't read that copy) and inside the system disk packet (opening which automatically accepts). So, you have to accept the terms and conditions of the EULA before you can read them.
Now that doesn't mean Apple or MacOS is bad. It's not. In fact it's beautiful, elegant stuff and works just fine for some, yet for those that keep insisting on the "superior" and "ease of use" characteristics of MacOS with jabs at MS, I can only say you should try WinXP Pro sometime before you go making blanketed value judgements on it; I say this because almost everytime I encounterd this divisionism, it's from users that have NEVER used WinXP Pro; as a matter of fact, some of them still think the OS of dominance for Wintel is Win98! No wonder!
Another the bottom line from my experience is flexibility in price and hardware; I hated dealing with just Apple and their authorized list of third party vendors.
One bit of advice--buy through the small business rather than home section of the Dell web site. Prices are about the same and customer service is better. That said, there's no excuse for the runaround OR for having to buy a new copy of XP.
Lastly, here's the thinking about the recovery partition instead of recovery CDs--it's not a scheme to make you buy additional copies of Windows if your disk crashes. The reason for doing it is that then they don't have to order a new run of CDs every time any hardware driver versions change--they can just update the image file they use to build the systems. But if Dell goes that route, they SHOULD be including blank CDs with the system and the generation of recovery disks SHOULD be part of the initial machine setup process. Blank CDs or DVDs cost almost nothing, and they'd be saving themselves tech support headaches and bad publicity.
What I'd really like is for Dell to start shipping computers with an AMD CPU.
Another secret that most do not know about is that of all the laptops made there are only 4 companies that make them; all from overseas and none of them are a major brand (ie Dell, HP or IBM). So if you buy a Dell laptop that is actually some tiwainese designed and developed product (to spec) with a dell logo on. Try this test. Go to Dell, HP, IBM and print out pics of the units. Now go to Twinhead, NewEgg and any other off brand you think of and print out their pics. Then start doing some side by side comparisons. You will see what I mean.
With Lenevo buying IBM that might change some, but right now that is the state of the industry.
As to good brands, right now IBM is still a good pick, I also like some of the Twinhead products. But I will tell you the most critical item to look for on the laptop is the display only becuase it is the most expensive part in the whole unit. Look for one with a fairly high MTBF and pixel death guarantee. Replacing a motherboard or HD in a laptop is a pair of C notes with labor. Replacing a display will go for nearly the price you paid for the unit.
Last comment. Unless you have specific apps that only run windows chuck MS and get a good linux distro. Get a retail pack of Sun Office. (open office is ok but it lacks some nicesties). Throw in a SQL database and you pretty much have a complete solution -- with access to CD's for the asking. I converted 2 years ago, and my wife and daughter converted this year. Spent about a month showing them the Linux ropes and we have not looked back or missed a thing. And the time I have spent being the 'in house' support tech has dwindled to nothing but loading new applications from time to time for them. Sweet.
Anyhow, a simple solution is that if you have the license key/COA on the computer, just go to eBay and buy the media for less than $20. Even simpler, let me know your mail address and I'll send it for free. If you did not back up your drive and need to get some data recovered, let me know. I have some tricks that work in many cases.
To Dell, 1) get your Customer Service act in gear and 2) supply a backup disk with your machines - even the low-ball e-Machines box I bought way back when supplied a Microsoft backup disk.
To you (and everyone else out there), if you have one of these machines - whether Mac or PC - with no backup disk, whether for the operating system or some other software that came installed with it, make one ASAP, assuming that you have a CDRW or DVD-RW drive in the machine. If necessary, there are utility programs that make it easy to backup the entire Hard Drive (or, presumably, selected chunks of it) in a manner that allows you to reload a working system onto the machine after you have had a wipeout HD crash or have replaced the HD.
I don't claim to be any expert, particulaly on Wintel machines, but the above seems obvious and I know it can be done, somehow or other. Maybe someone else can be a bit more specific on this.
Good Luck.
Brooks Lyman
I'm not sure who I'm going to purchase my next server from - maybe IBM.
workstation - Dell - assume they are disposal
engineering workstations - use xi computers!
He should read Ed Foster's GripeLine. There doesn't seem to be
anybody who does a good job of tech support. I'm surprised he
didn't get his install disks with his 'puter, I always have from Dell. Imagine my surprise when I didn't get any CDs with the Sony Vaio I had to buy last year on short notice!
I don't understand why you had to buy a new copy of XP. You had the rights to a copy when you bought the machine originally.
Good luck .... and you have a great blog!