geekesque: From Dell to HP

Ok, so I had blogged earlier that I ordered a Dell E1505. Then I read gregg caruso's post about them blowing up and the terrible customer service he received.

Then I decided to upgrade my warranty to change it from the standard 1 year mail-in to 2 years on-site. When I bought my last Dell Inspiron 6 years ago, I had a 3 year on-site warranty and I ended up using it 2x

It took 4 or 5 calls over the course of 90 minutes before they told me that I could not do that over the phone. What I had to do was to cancel the order by phone, then go back online and reorder the box with the better warranty. And so I did.

Until now, I had always had superb service from Dell. The last two boxes I've gotten have been from Dell. So this runaround was pretty disappointing and sobering particularly since I was calling to give them more money.

But then when I read that the keyboard was a bit stiff, because I have repetitive stress issues with my hands, I decided to walk into some stores, find some notebooks with keyboards I like, and then check the CNET Reviews. I finally landed on HP's dv2000t. CNET likes it and, less importantly, it's one of the most beautiful laptops I'ver ever seen.

I called Dell again, cancelled my order, ordered the HP box online so that I could trick it out and get a really nice printer for only $20. Should be here in about 10 days or so.


image from notebook review