I hate DELL. I really, really hate DELL.
I was about to purchase a new laptop when C.I. stopped me.
For years, I had purchased DELL, going back to the whole "Dude, you're getting a DELL." Remember that?
Then in 2005, while in college, I switched to HEWLETT PACKARD. Why? My laptop broke and I needed a new one and Jim had created a dummy business with HP to get laptops at a business discount. Every one we had classes with would go through Him and HP was getting hundreds of orders from each year -- they must have thought his accounting firm was the largest in New York.
A few years back, my husband got me a DELL, a big one, heavy. Way too much to spend for a gift but I did appreciate it. Sadly, it barely lasted a year. I replaced it with a DELL. I replaced the replacement with a DELL. And I replaced the replacement's replacement with a DELL.
And all three of those replacements? In the last 12 months.
Now I'm nowhere near as rough on a laptop as I was in college. In college, I was forever banging it into a doorway and usually it would fall off the table in a class at least once a semester. It traveled with me all over campus and surrounding areas.
I was really ticked when the latest stopped working.
My husband mentioned it to C.I.
I don't like to do that for two reasons. One, C.I. will usually (and did this time) say, "You know I've got an account with ______. Just call them up and tell them what you want them to send over. It's not a problem." Second, she will usually (and did this time) offer to try to fix it.
She's been fixing my laptops for me since I moved into her house about 17 years ago. And I appreciate it.
But I know it can be frustrating (not to mention, I feel, unfair to expect her to fix it).
How does she know computers?
She can do a huge amount on computers. When we're having issues with something we're trying to post or to insert into a post, she can usually look at it in HTML and figure out what the problem is. She's also a pro at swapping out fans and hard drives and many other things.
She's self-trained. Elaine explained to me long ago that in college, when C.I. would work at least two jobs, one of her jobs was part time, 32 hours a week, late night into early morning. She was the overnight person for her university's computer. It would be an assistant to the system analyst but back then they didn't have those titles yet.
And she had no training but needed the job. So she self-trained. And learned networking and all these other computer tools back when no one had home computers.
So anytime someone has an issue with a computer tower or a laptop, she'll insist "I probably won't be able to figure this out," but, once she starts examining it, she will.
She insisted on looking at my laptop after I turned down her offer of a new one on her. So she's picked it up and I explain that it's done the same thing the last two did -- stopped charging. And, no, it's not the battery, I added.
It's the DC port, she told me as she started unscrewing the bottom of the laptop and asked my husband to run to the music room where she had two spare DC ports in the piano bench. He comes back with both as she's got the bottom panel removed and she has to remove some metal overlap (I'm not a computer person -- not trained, not self-taught), after that, she popped in the part (it was tiny, I took a picture of it on my phone to show how small it was -- I've placed it on the lp cover of a Diana Ross THANK YOU album). The whole thing took her less than five minutes.
So you might think, "Well, you should stick with DELL."
Nope.
What it made clear is how shoddy DELL has gotten. I'm not joking. Again, in 12 months, I've bought three DELLS and every one was because of the same issue. Do they no longer conduct quality checks on the production line? Are they using cheaper parts that fall apart more easily? If so, is that so we'll have to buy laptops more often?
I have no idea. C.I. says the part is less than 10 bucks and if you know someone like her or if you know computers like her, you can easily fix the problem.
But here's my thing. I paid for three new laptops in 12 months. I shouldn't have had problems with a ten dollar part over and over.
I'm done with DELL.
