Dell XPS Order Nightmare

[aghastpumpkin]

http://www.vadim.co.uk/Custom+PCs/Gaming+Laptops

[dsio]

those laptops are far too big and heavy, and are poorly costructed. The Dell is a 4lbs laptop made of magnesium, and an ultraportable. That and ATI is out of the question due to their worthless drivers.

[aghastpumpkin]

One of them has a 7950GTX.
How can you comment on their construction?

[dsio]

OK, once again, I'm buying an ultraporable laptop, with considerable power. Ultraportable being the operative word. If it cant last 6 hours on battery, its worthless, if it weighs more than 5lbs, its worthless, it its a 17" laptop, theres no point. Those laptops are just big blocks of plastic.

a 7950GTX will last all of 60 minutes with a huge battery.

[aghastpumpkin]

Perhaps you are asking too much of Dell.

[Gizmo]

Originally Posted by aghastpumpkin

Perhaps you are asking too much of Dell.

Dsio's not the one who said to Dell "I want you to build a machine to these specifications". Rather Dell said to Dsio "Hey, we've got a machine that will do this". So Dsio said "Cool, send me one".

Now Dell can't/won't deliver what they said they would.

How is that expecting too much from Dell?

[Samuknow]

By believing them at all...????

[aghastpumpkin]

Originally Posted by gizmo

Dsio's not the one who said to Dell "I want you to build a machine to these specifications". Rather Dell said to Dsio "Hey, we've got a machine that will do this". So Dsio said "Cool, send me one".

Now Dell can't/won't deliver what they said they would.

How is that expecting too much from Dell?

Oh I'm not saying it is acceptable. I'm merely suggesting that Dell may not be the company you go to when your after such a niche product.

They've never had a gleaming reputation and I'm not sure if I wanted an enthusiasts, high performance laptop that I'd go to Dell.

Just a thought really.

[Daniel ~]

I'm sure dsio didn't actually go to dell, but to what dell had to offer. Much as you've adopted Vista not because it's MS, but because MS had what you wanted...(or though you did..":O}

[noob]

Originally Posted by dsio

....and Sony has one of the worst reputations for customer care ever.

Said the man who ordered from Dell.

.

My experience between dell and sony is; I like sony, wont ever buy dell!

[Daniel ~]

It's beginning to look like dsio won't either... sorry pal; I know you wanted this one. But Dell has forgotten how to sell computers, who would have thought it!

[Pitch]

Originally Posted by aghastpumpkin

Oh I'm not saying it is acceptable. I'm merely suggesting that Dell may not be the company you go to when your after such a niche product.

They've never had a gleaming reputation and I'm not sure if I wanted an enthusiasts, high performance laptop that I'd go to Dell.

Just a thought really.

I'm pretty sure the M1330 came into being by accident. It's so very.. undell like.

[aghastpumpkin]

Exactly what I was thinking.

[Áedán]

Originally Posted by aghastpumpkin

Oh I'm not saying it is acceptable. I'm merely suggesting that Dell may not be the company you go to when your after such a niche product.

They've never had a gleaming reputation and I'm not sure if I wanted an enthusiasts, high performance laptop that I'd go to Dell.

Ultraportable, long battery life and good spec CPU isn't really niche though. The last four companies I've worked for have wanted exactly that in a laptop. Dell have had a pretty good reputation for producing laptops that function well and survive being thrown around a bit. I would tend to avoid 'enthusiast' laptops, as that typically means poor battery life and less than steller build quality, both of which dsio is trying to avoid.

A lot of people think badly of Dell, when the only Dell hardware they've had experience with has been the cheap bottom of the market products that Dell offers.

[dsio]

Someone of an interesting quirk. It /may/ be that Dell has implemented a
'soft button' for the optical drive eject button. Someone has said that he installed WinXP on it, and could no longer use the eject button as no drivers were available.

Seams somewhat hard to believe, as if it is true, it would mean a dead windows installation with a disk still in the drive, combined with the fact that there does not seam to be any mechanical release method would mean the machine would be somewhat difficult to get working.

Also means Fedora would become tricky. I have never actually used the optical drive on my existing laptop, outside of installing the OS, but still, its a pretty silly feature.

Reminds me of the PSP's soft power off button that causes issues with homebrew.

[aghastpumpkin]

So there isn't even the hole you can use with a paperclip in an emergency?
That stinks.....

[dsio]

Most slot loaders don't, and this one doesn't. The soft button is not completely comfirmed yet, but is concerning.

[Áedán]

It's unlikely that there'd be a paperclip hole, as the drive is a slot load, not a tray load. Paperclip holes are found on tray loads where the (clunky) design of the mechanism gives you something to push against.

Slot load drives don't have any equivalent mechaism due to their completely different design.

Originally Posted by dsio

it would mean a dead windows installation with a disk still in the drive, combined with the fact that there does not seam to be any mechanical release method would mean the machine would be somewhat difficult to get working.

Assuming that the BIOS doens't have an eject feature, you could
boot from a USB stick or the network. It's not like the hard disk or the DVD are the only boot sources.