No more Dells for me

Originally Posted by ChasDen

I feel your pain on the Dell frustration.

Bought 3 laptops for Christmas a few years back for the girls and got "promotional" pricing. Long story short, every laptop died before the payments were all made and out of warranty. Repeated complaining, calls, emails got me know where. Finally quit paying for them. They turned it over to a collections dept. Once I got the first letter I called and explained the situation, pleaded for the best deal he had, we all know they will come down if settled on the spot, and he sympathized with me. Cut the amount to 1/4 what I owed and told me how to file a response with the credit bureaus.


Dell will never see another penny from me.

Chas

Sorry that it happened man, but really, how long were you paying for these? Notebooks from any manufacturer (and let's be real, they're all built in Malaysia/China no matter who you buy from) aren't built to last for the long haul. Is 1 year too early, sure, but you take that bet if you don't pay for the extended warranty. These are machines you carry around and beat the hell out of. These aren't desktop computers that just sit and work day in and day out.

Two rules to always know when purchasing your next laptop:

1. Always extend your warranty. Figure in the $200+ for the 3 year warranty (and possibly accident coverage) into your final costs.
2. Don't expect notebooks from Dell/HP/Apple/Toshiba to be Toughbooks. They just aren't.

I've owned Powerbooks, Inspirons, XPS, and HP, and all of them were saved by warranty. I don't care how much you say you baby your system and are super surprised there is a hardware issue. You carry around a freaking computer in a backpack, you will have issues.