Al1UK.com

Another Dell engineer came yesterday with a new LCD but with the wrong part (WXGA), despite me explicitly telling the tech woman to put down a note the screen MUST be 1440×900. Seeing how Dell support is incapable of understanding simple english and my chances of getting this resolved with a good WXGA+ screen were so poor, I offered to keep the WXGA and get a partial refund. The tech team made a note for me to be called back, but they never did Another engineer came today, compared the screens and decided it wasn’t worth replacing the screen with one that had the same problem.

Also yesterday, on the advice of bma, I sent an email rant to michael_dell[@]dell.com. Today, I got a phone call from their Customer Relations Department wanting to know the solution to the problem.

I told them I’d accept a 1280×800 screen if they gave me a partial refund for the extra £20 I paid for the higher res screen since the chances of getting a non-grainy WXGA+ screen were downright low, if not impossible. Apparently, they can’t authorize a partial refund (booooo) and offered me a 1GB USB stick as a goodwill gesture. I don’t need a USB drive, I instead asked for more ram or a bigger HD. They still insisted they couldn’t, so I accepted their USB drive.

So now they will build a new laptop with the same specs, apart from the LCD, which should arrive in 7-15 days and then collect the old laptop.

If there is a problem with the new laptop, I think I’ll be keeping both the new and old one until I get a full refund. I’m just too fed up now to believe that Dell can get something right.

It’s a real shame that the screen is grainy on this LCD, the viewing angles are actually really good and I haven’t noticed any serious light bleed. Dell needs to have a word with these manufacturers about how they coat the screen with gloss, but until then, it will be the last time I buy a laptop from Dell.