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DontBuyDell.com

dontbuydell.com

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141–150 of 252 posts

Re: DontBuyDell.com

#141

Post by bibelo »

I had a 2-in-1 XPS13 a few years ago and it was total nightmare. I had a long list of 16 problems (OS / hardware), so much so that Dell refunded me after 1 year.

The main problem was it was absolute crap in terms of CPU perfs. Totally impossible to run even one VM despite a price tag of more than 2000€. Who would know that the beautifully named i7-7Y75 Processor (up to 3.6 Ghz!!!) is the modern equivalent of a Celeron processor? I should have.

I then bought a Thinkpad with works OKish, but for the same price and same specs (except processor), allows me to run 3 or 4 VMs w/o a problem.

Re: DontBuyDell.com

#142

Post by maxsilver »

branon wrote: post #21

On the contrary I've had great experiences with Dell's business line (Latitude, Precision models). Likewise the business warranty is excellent - log into TechDirect and I can submit a ticket for any one of the machines in my fleet. Dell will either send a technician out to service it in the field, or they'll mail me an empty box so I can send the unit in for repair. Consumer _anything_ is going to be hit or miss. Thi…

I'm sympathetic to the idea that the consumer line has less support and extras than a business-class device backed by an enterprise support agreement.

I'm not sympathetic to someone dropping $1,400 USD on a new laptop, and gets written off because "consumer _anything_ is hit or miss".

Like, half of the complaints come from devices like the XPS 13, which isn't some $300 cheap-o WallMart special, that's supposed to be their flagship top-of-the-line device. If Apple did the same to like, the MacBook Air or whatever, there would be months-long complaint threads all over HN about it.

Re: DontBuyDell.com

#143

Post by rchaud »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #131
throwawayMMXXII wrote: post #14

I worked in one of Dell's outsourcing partners' call centres (admittedly I left almost 15 years ago), and back then it was the same people manning both consumer and business support lines. Towards the end of 2007 Dell started separating the two segments and that's where the problems started (edit: not sure about the exact date -- processes like that tend to take a while to plan) : * Dell European consumer division wa…

Unfortunately the credibility of your testimony is diminushed by the fact you are using a throwaway.

If anything, the credibility is diminished by the timeframe being 15 years ago. You would have thought their market share would have collapsed underneath the weight of all these quality control issues.

Re: DontBuyDell.com

#144

Post by thih9 »

> I asked GPT-3 what it thinks about Dell laptops. Here is what an AI learned from summerizing the internet

Are there any details about how this text was generated? Or are we sure that there was no bias and no leading questions involved?

Re: DontBuyDell.com

#145

Post by CraigJPerry »

>> Support

I guess they don’t do this anymore but a good few years ago a colleague at the time was able to attend some kind of training/cerification thing with dell and it meant all our hardware issues could be fast tracked. Rather than going through the normal support channels they trusted him to order replacement parts and/or directly book onsite visits for server mobo replacements without going through dell support first. I remember people using his relationship to get faster support for personal devices too and this was all above board / part of the deal.

Re: DontBuyDell.com

#146

Post by lexx »

The past 15 years I had 4 different Dell laptops. Linux was always compatible. I had zero problems.

My current one is a Latitude and I have it since 2018. Still works great.

A long time ago, one of them had a problem with the monitor. They came to my office and fixed it on the spot!

On the other hand, my macbook experience was never good. I guess it's luck

Re: DontBuyDell.com

#147

Post by eimrine »

dragontamer wrote: post #115
eimrine wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The better keyboards are a bit pricier Nope, they are just nonexistent in modern laptops. > USB-C Hubs are like $30 and have more than enough bandwidth for most needs. > why isn't USB-C good enough for that? I don't have any USB-C device (not everybody lives in a first-world countries) but at least once per year I actually need at least all 4 of my good old USB2 ports. External USB hub will suck in stability of con…

> And I do not want to grab a screwdriver for changing battery which becomes common in modern razor-thin laptops, I love long outdoor sessions with a couple of spare batteries in my backpack. With 24+ hours per charge on a lot of these modern laptops, why do you need to carry spare batteries? Instead of spare batteries, you should probably be looking to use equipment more recent than a Thinkpad. You get far, far more…

> With 24-hours per charge on a lot of these modern laptops, why do you need to carry spare batteries?

At least for ability to quickly poweroff my laptop, for example if OS is hanged down or maybe if some water spilled on the device. Also I do not want to carry laptop to a service just to change battery. Last but not least, internal batteries use to be unique per model while external batteries use to be a mass product, good luck finding spare internal battery for really old laptop.

> A singular USB-C hub can support 20x USB 2.0 A devices at full speed.

The main reason of my hate to all kinds of external hubs is that when your mobile device has a beard of hubs and adapters then some of that connections are going to lose a contact mechanically. Why not just to drill more holes in the side edges of device instead of making side edges empty?

And you told nothing about where to get a modern laptop with as comfortable keyboard as in my x220.

Re: DontBuyDell.com

#148

Post by bionade24 »

mr337 wrote: post #87

100% agree. I have one of the XPS13 Dev that doesn't deep sleep properly which is supposed to have first class support for sleeping. Yes it does sleep but kills the entire battery in a few hours. Dell won't fix it https://www.dell.com/community/XPS/XPS-13-9310-Ubuntu-deep-s...

I do have the 2-in-1 version of the XPS 9310, which was only available with Windows, replaced it with Archlinux. In the 1st ~3 months after launch (of the Windows product, Dev version wasn't released yet) I experienced this problem too, but nowadays, s2idle drains the battery Which takes us to the main issue, the preinstalled Linux on all Dell machines I had is garbage, premium support only helpful for Windows customers. Why do they then even offer this option? Sadly, when Lenovo started offering Linux preinstalled, they claimed it's a feature that they only ship open source drivers, even on nivida machines. Don't know much about the HP dev one, but partnering with System76 is hopefully making this a better OOTB experience.

Re: DontBuyDell.com

#149

Post by etempleton »

Dell makes their money in the B2B space now. They used to have a great consumer facing business model with their catalogs and, relatively, fair and transparent pricing.

I find their products to be garbage as well, but honestly so is every PC manufacturer. Lenovo is maybe slightly better with their Thinkpad line as long as you don't mind the legacy Lenovo design quirks and layout (I know a lot of people here like it).

I would love to hear if anyone can firmly recommend a PC laptop manufacturer at this point. Are Razer laptops any good? Is the Framework actually good or just not actively bad? What are HP laptops like these days? I feel like when people say a PC laptop is good they just mean not actively bad.

Re: DontBuyDell.com

#150

Post by CrazyStat »

yakcyll wrote: post #34
CrazyStat wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GPT-3 wrote one paragraph at the beginning which is in blockquotes and clearly marked as written by GPT-3. It did not write the whole article.

I am actually almost certain that a paragraph like this: > The design of their machines is so bad I have come to the conclusion that no one is designing them. I know this sounds like a ridiculous claim, but I am quite certain it’s true. I happened to work on a laptop project with a Dell competitor and saw how their “design” process worked. They wanted to make a laptop with an outstanding webcam, that was the purpose…

I would call this a rant, not a serious critique, and that paragraph is appropriate enough for a rant.
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