Tim Wang's eLearning Blog

I have had some interesting laptop shopping experience recently:

Not long ago, I wrote this laptop review, because I was looking for a new notebook. After hours of reading and searching on the net, I zoomed down to 3 different laptops: MacBook Pro, Toshiba Satellite Pro and Dell Inspiron XPS. The IT staff at my work place suggested the MacBook Pro but I am a PC person. The new Mac Boot Camp and the Intel Core Duo based MacBook Pro is quite attempting since it is possible to have Windows XP installed on it. However, I still felt a little alienated and uncertain while looking at the white apple on the silver case. I only used Toshiba laptops in the past 8 years - 2 Toshiba Satellite laptops and 1 Toshiba Tablet PC. I have had very little experience with Toshiba's support services since they all cost money and hard to reach. This time around, I am looking for a desktop replacement laptop which means it has to be something powerful enough for graphic design, 3D rendering and possible server application testings. Therefore, I chose the Dell Inspiron XPS which is one of the fastest laptop available today and at a similar price range compare to the MacBook Pro. Toshiba does not have any laptops as powerful as the XPS so it was ruled out.

This is the first time I purchased a laptop completely online (compare to buying the Toshiba laptops from The Future Shop after fiddle with them for a few hours!), this is also my first time buying anything from Dell. The new Inspiron XPS arrived 5 weeks ago, and a couple days later, I realized that there were two dead pixels (black spots) on the 17” ultra bright wide screen LCD. Since the screen is so finely made, the dead pixels are pretty hard to notice. I had a couple of friends taking a look at it, they hardly saw the dead pixels. According to them, there is no way for any manufacturers would agree to replace the laptop just because of a couple of minor dead spots. I personally dealt with Toshiba before and they refused to replace any laptop with less than 10 dead pixels (and all of the dead pixels have to somehow line up with each other). So, I called Dell with very low expectation, but guess what? After I explained how important a flawless screen is to me, the Dell representative simply said they will send out a brand new laptop right a way and will have the old one picked up by UPS after I receive the new one! Wow, what a service! I didn't even have to beg them!

However, the story doesn't end here, two weeks later, I received my new Dell XPS replacement, it also has some issues with the screen (ghost shadows) which caused me once again, acted as a “picky customer” and called Dell. They agreed to send out another XPS after apologizing for the inconvenience! Yesterday, I received the third XPS (the 2nd replacement), and this time, the screen is perfect! I have to say Dell's customer service are amazingly good and Dell Support is simply the best out there! You can bet my future computers will have a Dell logo on it!