Dude! You got Delled.
Is that kind of like being sodomized with a cactus and only the cheapest of lubes?
Tru dat.
Unfortunately, I suspect that forecasts of Dell’s incipient demise are, at best, premature, and may be simply wishful thinking. I have known of Dell’s utter incompetence in the realms of computer design and manufacture and customer relations for nearly a decade, thanks to a problem my wife encountered, and nearly everyone to whom I talked at that time “knew” about both failings. Yet, here we are, years later, and more people are just discovering those phenomena.
Lube‽ What kind fancy dell you have to include lube?
Speaking as a guy who spends between $6k and $60k per year with Dell–from my experience it’s less than 1% of ordered components that get screwed up this badly–but those screwups tend to hit small-volume customers far more often than the bigger business customers that are their real bread and butter.
Bottom line is–if you really want a Dell, get it from Best Buy or through your corporate IT guy’s Dell account if at all possible, and buy from one of their business lines (Opteron, Vostro, Latitude, Precision) rather than their consumer lines (Inspiron, Dimension).
Good advice, but I’d modify it slightly: I think the key is to buy models that are sold in large numbers, and have been out for a while. Our experience with the Precision M6400 (the top-of-the-line laptop) is that the support staff are utterly clueless about it, and problems aren’t fixed. In my humble opinion this is because they’ve sold relatively few of them, so don’t give a shit about making them reliable. It didn’t do what was promised, and 9 months after release it still doesn’t. It’s not a happy thing to end up with a red-headed stepchild of a computer that cost over $2k. (Assuming they ever bill you for it, of course.)
I’ve never had a single problem with my Dell computer, and it’s been turned on and running for nearly five years now.
Same here, but that’s not really the point of this thread.
The issue here is how the company itself deals with problems, whether with billing and delivery issues, or with the product itself. If you received your computer, and have never had problems with it, then you’re unlikely to have encountered problems with Dell’s customer service.
Out of curiosity, did they ask you for your middle name and your SS and all that? I only ask because people offer to give me their birthdates and socials and driver’s license numbers every day at work and I have to explain that they did not give them to me when they made their account/placed their order and I do not have access to any sort of World Identity Database where I can look up a person’s identity based on their voice.
But the rest of it – I’ve almost never been completely unable to find an order, even when I have almost nothing to go on.
Dell tends to have problems with anything other than their big business customers. Why, I’m not sure - they seem to have overpromised most customers.
Oh, fuck that noise! You didn’t give it to them, did you? I think this is where I’d say “Forget it” (if I hadn’t already) and have the charge reversed.
I’ve had Dell service issues, too. It wasn’t pretty. I’ve actually bought another Dell since then, but it was a refurb from my computer guy’s trunk that he happened to have handy when my backup machine went tits up. So no more money in Dell’s pocket. 
“In a press statement released today Dell announced that they will be upgrading their systems to Univac sometime in 2010.”
They’re currently running Windows ME on abacuses.
30,000 Chinese teenagers in the basement.
Univac was one of a BUNCH of early computer companies ultimately driven moslty out of the market by IBM and their 360 and 370 systems.
Burroughs
Univac
National Cash Register
Control Data Corporation
Honeywell
Y’know, you could have just sent that information to him in a telegram.
You sure? I didn’t think enough people still knew Morse to get one delivered.
This depends on your location,
In the east it’s a Unitary Vacuum Cleaner, that has the body cast in one piece
In the south it’s a Universal Vacuum Cleaner - that works on carpet and hardword floors
I object to the OP. UNIVAC made some great computers and, though Michael Dell basically paid half my salary the past ten years (how does your IT guy have the CEO of RIM (Blackberry) on speed dial? Have MD himself as your main customer) and though this computer I am using is a Dell and never gave me a lick of trouble the past year and a half, just like the Dells that preceded it, I’m still a Compaq man. (trying to reconnect with my point) And I liked UNIVAC.