- Average user rating:
- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
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0.5 stars
"Poor Quality, DOA with warranty remaining."
Pros: Not a bad design. Good keyboard layout. Medium Rugged.
Cons: Poor quality, Dell customer service, tech support, and warranty work are horrid. The poor quality ensures that you will need to use them.
Summary: At first blush this seems like it?s a good laptop. Fit, finish, build, and feel seem better than other laptops I?ve had. I only wish my first impression would have lasted.
RAM: Memory caps out at 4gb. That?s ample for virtually everything you would want to do. Dell however tends to overcharge for RAM so it pays to buy it elsewhere. Here is the catch. You only have easy access to one DIMM. The other which on my system was the empty slot requires you take apart more of the computer than some people would be comfortable doing. I ended up taking it to a shop. Even with their install price I saved money on my RAM upgrade.
Graphics: They are adequate for most purposes. I thought I had a discrete card. However it appears to be part of the motherboard based on warranty work Dell refused to do (more on that later). This is a business system so graphics are ample for a game like SPORE but I would stop short of calling this up to snuff for gaming.
Screen: The matte finish is effective as an anti glare measure. However the screen is noticbly duller than other non reflective screens. Thinkpads traditionally don?t have the best screens and I?d rate this as a bit worse.
Keyboard: The keyboard is fairly nice. I like the layout. After using several laptops I have come to appreciate this particular key arrangement. It?s layout is very similar to a ThinkPad. The trade offs are minimal. You don?t need an external keyboard. With other laptops I?ve always used an external keyboard. While the keyboard is fairly good, it?s got flex and therefore feels a tad cheaper than a the gold standard of a ThinkPad.
Media Card Slot: None. That's not good.
Trackstick/Touchpad: Nothing special or outstanding either way. The Pointstick is hyper sensitive. I like them on ThinkPads but this one is hard to use. The touchpad is ok.
WiFi: It?s good at pulling in a signal. I?ve had good luck with reception. Dells WiFi management software though is problematic. It always insisted on connecting to a distant and weak signal rather than my home network. I?d remove that connection and it would reappear and then try to connect. Overall I prefer windows itself to manage WiFi networks. Nothing wrong here that an uninstall couldn?t fix. My trackpad/point stick has an intermittent problem of disconnecting. Dell was never able to resolve this.
Tech Support: Egads. This is where Dells true weakness starts to show. When I had a problem I?d try to diagnose it on my own. When I couldn?t figure it out I would contact support via email and tell them the steps I had taken. When they would email back it was clear they didn?t read what I wrote. Half of the actions they would ask me to take they already had the answers for. I had a little better luck with online chat support. Once they remoted into the laptop but could not resolve the issue.
Build Quality: I liked this laptop. It seemed more rugged than anything except a ThinkPad. However the touchpad/point stick has an intermittent problem. The sound was repaired under warrantee. The power adapter quit, and the video went out. The laptop is at this moment unusable.
Durability: My local computer shop only sells two kinds of used computers. Dell Latitude and ThinkPads. I think it?s telling that sell all the various ThinkPads but only one type of Dell. It seems that the lack of durability of the other Dells is creeping into the Latitude line if my experience is any indication.
Warrantee: They don?t cover external problems. That means if you have a warrantee claim and Dell can at all blame it on another problem they will ask you to pay for an out of warrantee repair. They will stand by this refusal even if you hire another repair center to verify that what they are blaming has nothing to do with the problems. The Dell Warrantee is clear. They don?t cover problems caused by external sources. Dell policy is to blame any problem they can, on an external cause regardless of if it actually caused the problem. Apparently their goal is to sell Accidental Protection plans. Based on my experience Dell would blame any accidental damage on intentional damage and ask that you pay.
Service: Dell customer service is designed to stall and to wear you down. They don?t answer questions, they don?t have the authority to resolve a disagreement. In short I have only ever found them to be a waste of time.
Overall Opinion: I flat out can?t recommend Dell. This is supposed to be a good laptop. However after having 4 problems over a year and a half, resulting in a dead laptop, is horrid quality. Tech support is worse than an amateuar using Google. Customer service is all about stalling to make you give up trying to get help. I?m giving them a 0.5. Products should work for their purpose, and when they don?t the company should stand behind their product. My laptop is dead, and Dell is only standing behind their own excuses.
