Dell: A review

FarFarAway

New member
Have gone through a couple of orders with Dell recently so thought I'd post a few thoughts.

If this is the wrong place please move :)

Ordering

Ordering with Dell is pretty painless really. First of all I went with finance. Went through steps all seemed fine.

Ordered a Dell 2001FP

Got an e-mail from Dell Finance section saying that I had a problem with the order and asking me to confirm that I was still interested. I did and got through the documents. At this stage I was wishing I didn't use my hotmail addy as I just don't trust it for stuff like this ;)

Just as I returned documents I realised that I actually had enough to buy the damn thing so did two things:

1: rang Dell customer service

2: E-mailed blokey confirming the cancellation of finance.

Dell customer service were OK I have to say: after I got through the normal pres 1, 4, 7, 2, 2 etcetc

They said that was fine. The finaince would be cancelled and that they'd put it on my card.

They did say that the monitor was at the courriers awaiting delivery so it may be up to 7days. Bit of a bugger but hey it was my fault.

The e-mailing thing got a bit silly. Obviously the finaince chap I spoke to has a lot of customers to look after: he kept e-mailing me about the order and every time I told him it was cancelled.

Sooooo

I checked ARIA and was miffed to see a Dell 2005FPW for a damn site cheaper than I payed for my 2001FP. Right ring Dell: cancel order. Order off of ARIA :p

That all done I did indeed get straight through to a Dell cust service op and she seems to have sorted it all out. Dell raised TWO orders would you believe. But apprently these are being cancelled.

I did enjoy the way she said: "well: just keep one of the monitors and I'll give you a rebate on the order" lmao: NO!

Soooooo thats all pending and I'll update this when I get ALL the money back.

The Monitor:

Got the monitor through from ARIA and all was good. great packaging in original Dell box, good clear instructions....good solid cables with EMI shielding. Liked it.

plugged in...

Bleed

Not my favourite subject this. Yes I'd read about it but it was soo sexy and ya know: it won't happen to me!

It did :(

Screen performs great it has to be said apart from the bleed. This is pretty bad with 4 "Grey" areas on the screen when its totally black. Maybe I would have left it if it was a cheapo one.

Here's a bad camera pic of it:

DSC00135.JPG


The RMA

This was on thursday

Wearily (mostly my fault I'll admit ;)) I rang Dell.

Tech support: got through to India. Now I like to think I know a little bit about hardware (no expert) but I told him exactly what was wrong. Amazinly I got put on hold (or not). I feared the worst....

Then an Irish voice answered the phone. WOW! Talked through what tests I'd done (ya know monitor tests, changing cables, changing graphics cards etc). He listened and said that was great. He arranged the RMA number. Took detailed info about where to pick up the thing. I work same as most peeps so a fairly complicated pickup was arranged where they had to ring up to me from reception. Once again I feared the worst.

And once again I have been pleasontly suprised. They came on monday (chap from Ireland said they would do as it vwas 5.30) in the afternoon, rang me down and gave me the monitor. I only had to bring the actual unit: the courrier had a box for it and it was bubble-wrapped up.

Funny thing: the original one was a "rev A2" and the replacement (think its a refurb) is a "rev A1"

Soooo...gonna test it tonight but fingers crossed for a successful replacement.

Conclusion (in kind)

I'm pretty impressed with Dell overall. Their customer service line is pretty naff as they can't really speak great English. But as long as I get my refund I don't care. Thats pending so I'll get back to you.

Customer service Line: 6.5/10

As for the RMA: it was a pleasent experience. Nobody likes having to return items (epecially as expensive as this) but Dell made this a decent and convenient experience for me.

Tech Support/RMA: 9/10

I obviously can't speak for actually tech support. But this guy knew his stuff and was pleasent, efficient and easy to deal with :)
 
Wirelessly posted (Nextel. Done. |: BlackBerry7520/4.0.2 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1)

Nice little review mate, mod reps for ya!
 
Nice review mate.

If there is one thing i hate tho - its getting thru to someone in India. My banks call centre's are all in India, and the buggers can't understand a word i say :mad:
 
I'd say the phone sales were a bit crap in my own experience, and I ended up ordering over the web as (no shit) Mohammed and Mario (both with heavy Indian accents) put me right off, which quotes (no shit again like "I'll get you good deal" and "ring my number and we'll talk good price, better than anywhere on Intranet" < NOT a mispelling :rollingla

When they rang me to confirm my order, I got a nice Austrailian woman on the end of the phone who was as Kemp says also; quite pleasant.

Im glad that they did ring to confirm because of the 1073 price tag, as anyone could have grabbed my card and ordered it.............. :eek: so respect to Dell for actually checking this out.

I must say, the Internet order was a piece of piss, ordered, and withing 30 minutes, had the above mentioned phone call.... Dell..... :cool:

I got the Dell Inspiron 9300 with Gig of RAM, and also the 6800 Go..... which is fast as the proverbial shat off a big stick..... nice widescreen too.....

It came with XP Home which got pwned and formatted with XP Pro which I also bought............ ;) no seriously, I did buy it.....

And obviously formatting it lost ALL of the nicities like the Centrino wireless capabilities, every driver and all the nifty media features that the laptop came pre-built with, but ALL of this is EASILY downloadable from their website, it really was a piece of cake to setup again, with partitions of course :D

Dell were good to me, as they were with Matt..... I've heard stories of the business sales side of Dell that make your hair stand on end, but for home users, my experiences have been excellent!

Top left hand corners the lot of 'em! (similar to top banana, but better - If they threw in a bit of sucky sucky from some sweet rep, they'd have gotten a bit of check side with deep screw back too............) ;) :) :rotfl:
 
ouch that sucks! I had a bad one the first time and the seller gave me a 100% new one :)

Good luck kemp!
 
Dell are usually very reliable. However anything touching India is very bad news Ever tried booking with Ebookers?They can try charging you for delivery of an E ticket Thats the one where there aint no ticket!!!
 
Nope Eguy: I have had a 20" replacement for this, but thats wronhg too. Dell screwed me around so much that as an apology for the inconvenience they are upgrading me to a 2405FPW. 24"'s of goodness baby! :D

And no Frag I haven't got it yet :mad:
 
I had a fauty Screen from Evesham, then I was sent a second hand one to replace it. I bought new there was no way I would accept an old one as a replacement, bit of Humming and Hahing, but I got a new replacement. I would expect Dell to do the same.
 
Wirelessly posted (Nextel. Done. |: BlackBerry7520/4.0.2 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1)

kempez815 said:
Nope Eguy: I have had a 20" replacement for this, but thats wronhg too. Dell screwed me around so much that as an apology for the inconvenience they are upgrading me to a 2405FPW. 24"'s of goodness baby! :D

And no Frag I haven't got it yet :mad:

Hope ya get it soon mate, I wanna see some pix and a nice review of it :)

I'm trying to debate if 19" is big enough and if I want to leave the 8ms zone.
 
Congratulations on the result!

I ordered a 2005fpw from Dell a few months back. The backlight bleed was terrible, and the screen itself was also marked.

Getting support for Dell monitors involves a considerable amount of time on a premium rate phone call, and talking to people in three countries.

They frustrated me so much I cancelled the order. The refund took forever and more phone calls.

Be aware that replacement monitors are usually refurbs, hence the OPs rev1.

Shame the qc is so bad, as the panel in the 2005 is excellent.
 
The new monitor I'm getting is NEW. Its a 2405 so they don't really have the backlight issues.

Basically I should be all set :)
 
Yes that's a major result. Wish I'd persevered with mine now.

Now all you have to worry about is the 2405 squeaking backlight problem!
 
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