How long did your DELL Laptop last?

di11on

Hi people,

I'm wondering if it's worth going for the 3 yr warranty option for a DELL laptop. So I'm very interested to know what people's experiences are in relation to DELL laptop reliability.

I'd be very grateful if people could post how long their DELL laptop lasted them, before calling on the DELL warranty, if at all.

I'm sure there are many others that would benefit from this info.

Thanks in advance.

Di11on

ambro25

I've bought a 2-year old C600 off eBay 2 or so years ago (so it's 4 years old or so today), gave it my Dad for Xmas '04, and it's still running sweetly. I've bought a nearly 2-year old D600 off eBay to replace it around Nov'04, never a day's bother.

Based on that, I'd say warranty is worth it for (i) accidents (droppage), (ii) theft/loss (if the warranty covers it + if you travel with a lot) and (iii) the potential for uncaring hands to use it (e.g. kiddies about who could reach on table/desk and... see (i) above ).

Another big question to consider, naturally, is whether you're going to keep it 3 years or upgrade before that, as left-overs from warranties rarely confer that much extra to the second-hand resale value.

My €0.02

jeffontour

I bought my Inspiron 510m in April '04 and no problems to report. Mind you it's bound to self destruct within days now that I've tempted fate.

grahamor

i've had an inspiron 5100 for nearly 3 years, never any problems, i even lugged it around Thailand and Australia ( which was a stupid idea as i didnt really need it).

I have just had my new Inspiron 9300 delivered so hopefully ill be as lucky with this machine

Lambsbread

jeffontour wrote:

I bought my Inspiron 510m in April '04 and no problems to report. Mind you it's bound to self destruct within days now that I've tempted fate.

I've had an Inspiron 510m since Aug '04 aswell, never had any problems. My mate has the same and the cd drive went after a couple of months, but dell replaced it no problems. Other than that, he's had no problems.



Edit: Spelling mistake!!

turbot

My experience is:

Travelling a lot, my Dell laptops have occassionally gone wrong.

*But*

I've always had a service agreement to cover this. And they offer really good after sales service.

So; for peace of mind during the lifetime of owning the laptop, I think the warranty is a bargain. If something goes wrong - with a notebook, the cost of replacement is high, and you want to get on with using your computer, and not have to worry about keeping it running.

Definitely get a 3 year onsite warranty. And, if you factor in the prices of the warranty, and look at the Factory outlet, curiously the latitudes and even precision ranges are sometimes better value than an inspiron with extra warrantty added on top.

Go to the dell outlet!

best regards,

Thomas

besty

I got my D600 in 1st year of college and it's still going ok. I've had a few hiccups with it along the way, but the complete care package took care of any issues that arose. I would DEFINITELY advise going for it.

di11on

Thanks for the comments folks - that's really helpful info.

turbot wrote:

Go to the dell outlet!

Where is that? What is the advantage of going there except the avoidance of the delivery cost?

Cheers,

Di11on

maidhc

My latitude x300 is 1.5 years old, used every day for about 10 hours...

Has had 3 service calls
1) DOA (motherboard, CPU, memory replaced.. i.e. everything that could possibly be wrong)
2) LCD (nothing much wrong, but I was a bit finicky about the backlight)
3) Mouse button died (Replaced trackpad, palm rest etc)

Also have a Inspiron 2200, 6 months old, doesnt get as much use, but has had no issues.

3 year service is a must and it is fantastic to be honest. I agree with turbot about the latitude and precision range and the outlet; far better value if you factor in the warranty you get. In comparison a friend of mine had a HP that was constantly crashing, the grief he got from compustore/soundstore in cork with "we cant find a problem" was unreal.

godtabh

Dell Inspiron 5100 2.5 years old. Any problems with that where caused by myself and only had to reformat once.

Dell Inspiron 9300 about 6 months old. Nothing wrong with so far. Touch wood!

spartacus93

Have an Inspiron 8100 here. Died the day after it arrived, they came and replaced most things (mobo and CPU anyway).

Hard Drive died in year 2, sound man came out and replaced it with a 60gig (was 40)

Now it will be 4 years in Feb and at the minute the screen is broken (keeps changing colour and flashing on and off), and the keyboard refuses to type anything properly (if you press a, wsq comes up as well)

Worth getting the Next business day on site thingy.

Amigaman

Let me give you the benefit of my experience as an Ex dell Laptop Tech .. a laptop , any laptop is more likely to fail and more likely to fail more often then an equivelant desktop .warrenty on a laptop is just good busniess sense .Warrenty the laptop for as long as you need and then sell 3-4 months before the warrenty expires never and I mean NEVER have a laptop of any significent value that does not hold at least a collect and return warrenty ... as to who is the best in the Laptop mtbf stats well a laptop is a commodity and you should treat it as such ,buy the one that you like best.. :-) hope it helps

ressem

In my experience dell laptops come in good and bad batches. And one you've used for a few months there is a low probabililty of a well treated machine going bad.

Typing on personal Inspiron 8000, 4:1/2 years old, and has behaved well.

Have seen batches of Inspiron 4000s and Latitude C840s of which 1 in 3 required motherboard swaps within weeks. After that they were OK.

Our Latitude C810s and inspirons 8200s were fine.

Havn't seen issues with 6000s or 9300s yet.


www.dell.ie/outlet
Every once in a while (end of business quarter especially I think) there are "as new" machines with upgrades included which cost an arm and leg on retail site. Not all machines are a bargain though .

di11on

Thanks Ressem - that's really helpful... browsing the outlet store now :-)

sceptre

ressem wrote:

Every once in a while (end of business quarter especially I think)

FYI for the OP these occur at the ends of April, July, October and January respectively (you could get this from the usual press releases about financial returns usually highlighted on the news tickers). End-January is a biggie.

di11on

Thanks Sceptre!

Can someone tell me - I'm looking for a laptop for my wife and, being a woman, aesthetics are nearly as important as the specs! Is there someone where you can actually see the DELL laptop models. It's quite hard to judge from the web - they don't even have large high-res pictures of the models!

maidhc

Not that I know of anyhow.

But I can guarantee you if you are concerned about astethics, well, perhaps you should pass up on Dell.

The nicest Dells IMO are the rebadged Samsungs; the X300 and X1, I have the X300 and regularly get comments about how it is a lovely looking laptop.

I know people are going to start suggesting apples now (the Powerbook is nice in fairness, but iBook is horrible I think). Look at the Samsung x20, or some of the new toshibas as examples of lovely looking laptops!