Dell Customer Support Update

Geoffrey from Dell (and Richard!) was able to get a new XPS M1330 sent my way. It took a few days longer than anticipated but it is worth the wait. This replacement is actually faster and has more RAM than the original (and doesn’t rock back and forth as much as the original).

Although there have been many pot holes in the road between when I received the original M1330 and now, I can say that the Dell gang have bent over backwards to try to make things right.

As to the M1330, I still believe the design decisions made on this laptop make more sense for me than the Apple Macbook Air (MBA). That is not to say the MBA is not an amazing engineering achievement. But the compromises required to meet Apple’s design criteria make their laptop not useful to me.

That said, the rocking back and forth now seems to be a design problem more than a manufacturing/quality control one.

However, in the end, we will continue to buy from Dell. But be aware that if things go wrong, you may need to invest much time and effort to get things sorted. But having done so, Dell appears ready to do more than its part. YMMV. Insert disclaimer here.

Costco Car Buying Program

After 10 years of faithful service, our Toyota Corolla recently needed to be replaced. So we decided to use a Costco service in which we are referred to a dealer who would show us the invoice price, Costco no haggle price, and manufacturer’s suggested retail price (link to program).

But prior to using Costco, we needed to choose what to get. After looking at the various makes and models, and relying heavily on Consumer Reports recommendations, we chose the 2008 Honda CRV LX. It is large enough to carry stuff that our Corolla could not while, at the same time, not being so large as to be difficult to park. In addition, unlike the Toyota RAV4, the spare tire is not stored on the rear hatch. Crash reports have found that having the tire on the hatch tends to significantly increase repairs costs due to the tire itself causing collateral damage to the hatch that would not otherwise occur in a rear end collision. The only down side from switching from the Corolla to the CRV, as far as I could see, would be the significant drop in mileage (from high 20s for the Corolla down to just below 20 miles per gallon for the RV).

Having made the decision to get a CRV, we contacted Costco who in turn forwarded my name and phone number to a local Honda dealer (Windward Honda). The dealer called me in a couple of days and we set up an appointment.

The day prior to the appointment, I called the dealer to confirm the date and time. However, what I got was outgoing voice mail saying the sales person assigned to me was on vacation and would not be back until a couple of days after the appointment. The message went on to say I should talk to the sales manager.

So I called the sales manager and he indicated the manager in charge on the appointment day would see me. So come that day, the manager in charge assigned another sales person (Tom Frias, Sr.). This moving us around to different people was not appreciated, but seemed to have worked out in the end (see below).

Tom showed us the model we were interested in and then took us to the office to look at the prices. Having done that, the only problem we had is they didn’t have the color we wanted in stock (and would take three months to do so). As an inducement to buy another color, they offered to lower the price even below the already low Costco price. Not needing a kick to the head, we agreed and drove off the lot with a new CRV.

We are so happy that we are Costco customers and are even more so after I filled out a survey by Costco on my buying
experience. As a reward for my time, Costco sent to me a $50 certificate good towards any parts or service from the dealer (which I redeemed yesterday).

All in all, we are pleased not only with Costco, but also with Windward Honda (even though we had to switch sales people). If you are looking for a new car, and you are a Costco member (if you aren’t, you probably should become one if for nothing else then the savings you get through this program), check out the car buying program. It could save you substantial money. YMMV. Insert disclaimer here.

Aloha!

Dell Update: Credit Where Credit Due

Although things got pretty jammed up with the original Dell laptop and the replacement for it, I must give credit to several Dell employees who have been trying to make things right.

Although nothing has been finalized, I may get a XPS M1330 after all. But, there is a long road between where I am now and that, so pardon me for not being optimistic.

In any case, I’ve kind of gone past that and am actively looking elsewhere. If something works out, great. I will then put update links on all my Dell posts pointing to the happy outcome.

If not, I’m not spending a whole lot of time worrying about it.

Still, I wish to thank those dedicated Dell employees who are doing their best to correct the situation and keep my business.

Aloha!

** LUNCH HOUR UPDATE **

Things are progressing along the Dell front. Two people from Dell should be singled out for the efforts they have put towards making this whole experience, if not a pleasant one, at least one that ends with a well satisfied customer. Those two would be Geoff and Richard (last names redacted to protect them from getting spammed). Both have played a positive part moving things along. Although I am far from actually having anything in my hands, I still must thank them for their efforts.

As I mentioned to Sjon:

The details are still being worked on so who knows if this will actually occur. But if it does, I will be a happy person (assuming the laptop is not defective like the first, that I don’t get charged for the second laptop, that the configuration is otherwise as I ordered, and that all the optional software and hardware that I originally had also comes back). That’s a lot of assuming!

** February 22 UPDATE **

Please follow this link to see how things turned out.

More on Why The Apple Air Doesn’t Work for Me

Ars Technica has a pretty good review of the Apple Air and its strong and weak points. For me, the things that don’t work, out weight those that do.

For example, it can’t be used as a primary PC unless you buy the accessory external optical drive and maybe the external Ethernet dongle. Otherwise, getting data into and out of it with WiFi may be problematic.

Secondly, the hard drive is too slow. Whenever any background task occurs, the foreground task may stop. This is the deal breaker for me because I need a business class laptop that can be used for presentations that include displaying video. Said videos must smoothly play while I also run other programs in background, such as a word processor where my notes may be and/or a spreadsheet where my numbers may be. Hence, anytime the hard drive is accessed could cause the playback to stutter or pause. This is just not acceptable. Hence, until Apple includes a faster drive (and faster processor) this won’t work for me.

The review also notes the short battery life (a little over two hours) but that doesn’t matter to me because I would always be tied to A/C.

Still, if the Air is not your primary PC and you can live with stutters and stops as you surf the web (and don’t mind paying hundreds more for an Apple than [insert name here]), Apple’s latest laptop might work for you. YMMV. Insert disclaimer here.

$200 Home Server?

A friend of mine has decided to put together a home server running Microsoft’s Windows Home Server software. There may be a lot of reasons for using Microsoft’s offering. I’ve also decided to build a home server but I’m going to try CentOS, a Red Hat Enterprise Edition based Linux, instead.

Not being in any rush and rather than downloading the six CDs worth of data, I ordered the CDs from OSDisc.com. I chose them because they support DistroWatch.com and because they are fast and relatively low cost ($11.95USD for the CDs and $4.85 for priority US mail shipping).

In addition, I have learned that I don’t need an enterprise class server from IBM for my home needs. All I want is someplace to store files and maybe, eventually, serve as a host for my website.

As it so happens, a website had a recent article on assembling a $200 PC using an Intel D201GLY2 motherboard, 1GB of Kingston RAM, and a Western Digital hard drive. I’ve decided to substitute a Seagate drive and adding a cheap enclosure but otherwise am following the list above. I’ve ordered everything from Amazon (free shipping, included rather
than NewEgg’s very expensive alternatives for Hawaii) and the parts are starting to come in (although the motherboard is backordered for two weeks).

In addition to the list above, I have an old optical drive laying around that will be used so that I can install the CentOS software.

The Intel motherboard includes the Celeron 220 Conroe-L CPU so this will not be a screamer. And if you are thinking HTPC, think again as the board uses an SiS chipset that is not Linux friendly. That said, it should be good enough for what I want to do – act as a file server and maybe web host.

If that doesn’t work out, all I loose is $200 bucks, which is less than what I pay in hosting costs each year.

Dell Support Sucks IV

There isn’t much new on the Dell horror story. The three boxes (one each laptop and one accessories) are on the way back to Dell. I assume they will hit me with all kinds of re-stocking fees but it will be worth it to be free of Dell’s support system.

That’s not to say I still don’t love the XPS M1330. For the short time I used it, it confirmed that, aside from the physical defect, it is the best light weight laptop there is. Period. Its combination of speed (CPU and drives), beautiful LED backlit screen, and general design cannot be beat (including the Apple Air). It’s not for nothing that it won PC Magazine’s Editors’ Choice. Their review called the M1330 a “breakthrough improvement” and I agree with that 100 percent.

Still, all of that went down the tubes when my first laptop had an obvious warped frame/case. I mean, open the laptop and start typing and it would begin rocking back and forth. There is no excuse for shipping something like that. Add to that the problem of shipping a replacement laptop that was different from my first one and things just go down hill even faster than they were. Cap that with the offer of a $100 credit, only after I began the refund process and Dell heaped insult onto injury.

I assume the boxes should make it back to Dell sometime late this week. When I know how the refund process works out I’ll let you know. But for now, I’m now looking for something else that meets my criteria for a light weight business class laptop (i.e., 2.0GHz CPU, 13-inch LED backlit screen, at least 5,400RPM hard drive and preferably a 7,200, weighing around four pounds, and costing less than $2,000).

I realize that there may not be anything that meets this criteria, other than the XPS M1330. If so, I guess I’ll just wait until there is. YMMV. Insert disclaimer here.

Aloha!

Update

Please follow this link for an update.

Dell Support Sucks, But Not So Much, Maybe

I finally got a reply to my email to Dell from last week Friday. That would be the one where I indicated the system descriptions did not match between the defective laptop and the replacement. The response says that the screens do match, even though there is no evidence of that in the description (I did not open the box because I did not want to become responsible for any problems the replacement may have).

I don’t know if that is true, but if so, the other differences are still there and, and this point, they are literally a day late and more than a dollar short as I have already processed a refund request.

That said, if Dell support can screw something up, it appears they will so I am still waiting for the problems to begin regarding the refund.

Like what? Like the part of support that is still processing things as a replacement rather than a refund. I got an automated phone call yesterday morning from Dell reminding me to use the DHL shipping label to return my defective laptop. The problem is the refund request is set up to use UPS. Clearly, one part of Dell doesn’t know that a refund request is in process and not a replacement. The worst case scenarios is I will be charged for both laptops and get no refund even though both will have been shipped back to Dell.

At this point, the odds are better than even that is exactly what will happen. YMMV. Insert disclaimer here.

Aloha!

Update

Please follow this link for an update.