# Do Not Buy From Dell's Web Site
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-not-buy-from-dells-web-site/516229
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [November 4, 2009, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-not-buy-from-dells-web-site/516229 "2009-11-04T00:26:28Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 6
### Author:  [@PunditLisa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PunditLisa)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2009, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-not-buy-from-dells-web-site/516229/101 "2009-11-28T13:24:42Z")
No question, I’d be done with Dell.
I bought a Dell desktop from [Costco.com](http://Costco.com). Had the thing delivered right to my home. No issues so far with the hardware. The security software, on the other hand…
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### Author:  [@holmes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/holmes)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2009, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-not-buy-from-dells-web-site/516229/102 "2009-11-28T14:09:09Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#):
>
> Yeah, at this point I don’t want to fight any battles. Just make note to not give them any of my money ever again and shop elsewhere.
>
> I’ll have a look at the Thinkpads. Although they’re more of a business class machine (or they were when last I looked at them), and this is for a 12 year old daughter. I was going to get her a Dell Studio 15 with multimedia upgrades. The annoying thing is that the Dell machine really was ideal for her - especially the display. It had a 15.6" display, making the laptop relatively small, which is important to her. But the thing had astounding specs - true 1080p resolution and LED backlighting. I’d never seen resolution that high in a 16" display. Even Dell’s big box machines like the ones they sell through Costco only have 1366 X 768. It also had a backlit keyboard, which would be nice for her because she uses her laptop in dark rooms quite a bit. It’s hard to find equivalent machines elsewhere that aren’t huge.
They still are business class.
I’m gonna suggest that you don’t look at a custom made model and try to find one that’s already made. That’s where this thing went awry and your expectations weren’t met. That is all on Dell for not managing your expectations.
Unfortunately a lot of this stuff is going to be based on individual experiences and everyone can have a bad event. Still in my experience, the Dell outlet center is run the way the main site (custom builds) should run, if it could. You pick your machine, you pay them, the machine arrives in 3 days and you even save some dough. You have a problem, they send you a box, you sent it to them and they fix it.
You can find pretty much any spec you want there, but you have to look for it. Okay, it may be hot pink or green; but it’ll be there in 3 days. If you had indicated a desire to charge back the original purchase, I would have recommended that as an option.
Honestly, I think if you had gone that route; you would have had a different experience, but now the tree is posioned for you.
That doesn’t excuse anything that Dell did as far as customer service, they really screwed the pooch on this; especially the cancellation.
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### Author:  [@Taters](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taters)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2009, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-not-buy-from-dells-web-site/516229/103 "2009-11-28T18:18:22Z")
Wow, I have to say that we’ve never had problems with Dell, and their customer service was always spot on. We’ve purchased three desk systems and one laptop from them. The computers always arrived early, never late.
All that being said, our last purchase was over two years ago and it was the laptop for our daughter (in prep for college). She had some performance issues with it, but they sent someone right out to fix it.
On the other hand, I think I’ll keep all the above in mind when it’s time to order a laptop for our son.
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