The above is a screen grab from an email I received from  Dell this morning.

The idea behind getting users to rate Dell equipment on a peer basis is sound enough.

When communicating this however I’m not sure using a graphic that rates Dell’s equipment as 3 stars for both quality and value are quite how i would have presented it.

This is marketing after all (sugar coat it).

I don’t know what made me read the written review of the Vostro 1720 at the bottom right, but I guess someone in Dell Marketing should have.

It may be a 5 star review but:-

Parts listed you can’t order.
No availability dates.
No reason given.
If you want this laptop with an SSD keep looking.

A glowing recommendation this is not.

Who ever approved this communication at Dell is either totally disgruntled or so far removed from the company as to not really care.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this was outsourced and the outsourcee outsourced it.

I have a customer with a High Spec Dell Latitude D620 with the highest level of next business day on-site Warranty including Accidental Damage cover.

Last week the laptop refused to boot up at all, nothing on the screen. So there was very little in the way of trouble shooting that could be carried out.

So I contacted Del Technical Support for the end user and after a short time Dell agreed to replace the motherboard and committed an engineer to come to site.

The day before the on-site visit was to take place the end user was contacted and was told that Dell did not have a replacement motherboard and the end user would re-contact when one was available.

However no commitment was made in relation to time scales.

The now very unhappy end user contacted me, stranded computer less with no idea when the issue would be resolved by Dell.

Although this client did not any maintenance or support agreement directly with me I offered him a loan laptop until this issue is resolved. If Dell can’t help my end users then I will.

The parts delay at Dell was explained to me by Dell’s Mark Alexander as being down to Nvidia. This Latitude D620 had an Nvidia based video card and there is well documented problems with these (see here).

I was rather disturbed as during the conversation with Mark as I got the impression that these older Nvidia based laptop’s were dropping like flies, hence the lack of available parts.

During this process the case was professionally handled by Mark and as I previously discovered Next business day warranty is subject to Dell having available parts.

As it stands the laptop is still Dead.

The customer isn’t particularly happy and I am down a loan laptop.

Picture: Dell Diagnostics Error (sorry about the pic quality)

If you are the lucky recipient of a new Dell PC or Laptop there is something installed in the bios called the Pre Assessment Tool as well as a full set of Dell Diagnostics.

You can access both of these by pressing F12 when you see the Dell logo.

The Pre Assessment Tool does a battery of tests, the most important of these being a Memory test.

The Pre Assessment tool can take up to half an hour to run but its well worth spending the time up front ensuring  you wont be wasting more time later.

If something important fails in the Pre Assessment Tool for example Memory contact Dell Technical Support.

Once the Pre Assessment Tool has completed successfully you can boot into the Dell Diagnostics or reboot and carry on installing your Operating System.

Its not that I don’t trust Dell, but I personally run the  Pre Assessment Tool on every single new machine that passes through my hands.

When things get tough, put your prices up!

Normally I would be in an uproar about this. However it appears Dell themselves are being affected by the global currency crisis.

This doesn’t leave them many options apart from to put the prices up across the board apart from the Latitude XT which is actually cheaper but is due to be replaced in the product line.

As a supplier of Dell Technology to small business this is yet another unwelcome blow. 

November 10th 2008 Prices

January 30th 2009 Prices

On a visit to www.support.dell.com I manually download each item for reinstalling a new computer.

Today I figured I would give the “My Downloads” a shot. This allows you to put your driver downloads in a basket for a single download.

So I gather my downloads.

Then go to download the lot and I get.

This is like going to Amazon.co.uk and being told I have too much in my basket

To put this into perspective last week I downloaded 2 Windows 7 ISO’s that were 6gb in size. But Dell a company that actually makes web servers can only give me 250mb chunks.

The 250mb limit of the Dell My Downloads is pretty pointless.

Its even worse if you think about it.

I would have to start adding up each file size for download in my head until I get to the magical 250mb. Then do it in two batches.

Dell should at least announce the 250mb limitation either before or during adding downloads so a user wont be wasting their time.

To use the Internet par lance of the day – Epic Fail