Sorry, that’s what we all get when I carefully don’t rant and relate whole sagas…
Fergit the laptop. If I can’t be a Total Pissant Informed Consumer and bludgeon Gateway into making the laptop workable, then it’s what is has been for almost 3 years: an insanely expensive doorstop.
Says it all, doesn’t it? If I can salvage basic word processing functions out of it’ll be a miracle. I’ve pretty much written it off.
Veb
I’d say this experience is unfortunately too common, and you can safely substitute the name of any major PC company in for Dell.
Some calls are handled better than others, some replacements are sent faster, but anyone can screw up (this is from someone who works at a major PC company).
Best bet is always push for fastest replacement possible, and always ask for something for your trouble. Nothing to lose - if you don’t get it you’re not sacrifising anything.
The systems these days seem to run fine if you can get them in your peice and installed correctly (H/W & S/W). At least you’re not waiting for weeks for a replacement. I did have a bit of experience with (former) Dell customers, complaining exactly about the same thing - the ‘next day service’ commitment was actually a commitment to have someone call the next day. Many times they called and said that parts were not availble, and/or the visit would not be for days, or over a week. Businesss customers obviously can’t wait that long, so they try another brand.
Good luck with your replacment, and hopefully you won’t need any software tech support…