Warning: What follows is a full-on, hot-blooded RANT. That being said, its also 100% true (based on my personal experience). Do with it what you will.

In the market for a computer? Do not…I repeat DO NOT purchase a DELL. In January of 2006, after four years of faithful service from my Alienware desktop workstation, I decided that I needed a computer upgrade, and that I was tired of being tied to a stationary location for my computer. I wanted the freedom that comes with mobility. So I decided to buy a laptop.

My wonderful wife, being the financially responsible woman that she is, decided to help me find a good deal on a computer that would also suit my needs. Back then, Windows Vista hadn’t yet been released, but we knew it was coming soon…and I wanted to be able to upgrade. Being a software developer, I also had fairly resource intensive requirements in a computer. I also wanted this computer to last me for a while, so it wouldn’t be out-of-date within two years. All of that meant that I needed something with some top-of-the-line components that would last a while, and that would prepare me for being Vista-ready.

We looked primarily at Alienware and DELL. I was leaning pretty heavily toward wanting to get another Alienware, since I had had such a great experience with them in my desktop, but DELL was offering us a slightly better deal with a little bit more flexibility in pricing (Alienware pretty much wasn’t budging on their prices at all…DELL was willing to wheel-and-deal a little bit…they threw in a free laptop case with the deal too). Ultimately, DELL won out. Not without some assurances though…

When we were negotiating components and pricing with our DELL sales rep, I was abundantly and explicitly clear on exactly what I wanted. I wanted something that was upgradeable in the future in case I ever needed to do that, and I needed something that gave me the flexibility to be able to re-install and/or re-configure the operating system on the computer at any time I wanted without voiding the warranty or support agreement. I already had several copies of Windows XP Professional that I planned on using, and I even explained to them that I didn’t need the OS that came on the computer, and that I planned to install Windows XP as soon as I got the computer. I was assured that this was no problem at all, and would in NO WAY affect our warranty or support agreement.

I should’ve known better than to trust a salesman…

We ordered the DELL. To make a long story short, it has been BY FAR the WORST computer I have ever had the displeasure of using, let alone owning. Since owning this computer, my wife and I have become intimate friends with the infamous blue screen of death. He’s been a nearly daily visitor, no matter what operating system was running on the computer. I had problems when I was running Windows XP, Windows Vista AND Windows Media Center Edition (the factory restored image)…it just didn’t matter…there were problems with it no matter what was running on it or what we were doing.

Oh, and we *had* to revert back to the original factory installed operating system configuration, because anything other than that was NOT supported by DELL…contrary to what our sales rep told us when we ordered the computer. Don’t mess with what they give you pre-installed on your DELL…it WILL void your warranty, and you won’t get technical support. What? You want to upgrade to the latest version of Windows you say? Suuurrreee you can do that…but ONLY with DELLs help at the rate of $200 for upgrade service. At this point, here is my understanding of what you can/can’t do with a DELL purchased computer: don’t TOUCH ANYTHING on your computer. Just use what they give you on it, and don’t change anything. Whatever you do to it might just be something out of their control, and they can’t be responsible for supporting that. Quite literally…I can’t tell you how many times a DELL technical support rep has tried to blame the problems I had with this computer on some random piece of software I installed. It doesn’t seem to matter how common it might be, or how many hundreds of thousands of people around the globe install and use it on their computers every single day…if it didn’t come pre-installed from DELL and is not part of their factory configuration, that’s out of their control, and is most likely to blame for your problems, and they can’t help you. Sorry.

Sometimes it would crash while doing something…uummm…complicated…you know, like watching a YouTube video. Other times, it would be something as simple as scrolling in a web browser or text editor. Didn’t seem to matter, there was no rhyme or reason, it would just crash randomly.

The thing that sucked about it the most? Anytime we would call DELL for technical support to try to figure out what was causing the problems, they would walk us through the process of running their stupid little diagnostics utilities (I could run them in my sleep by now) and every single one of them would pass. As you might guess, DELL didn’t seem to think there was anything wrong with the computer, because their stupid little diagnostics tests passed. Who cares about the fact that the computer would crash to a blue screen at least every other day (usually every day at least once if we were using the computer  much at all that day), that has no bearing on anything…if our diagnostics pass, there must not be anything wrong with it, right? Brilliant.

So a couple of months ago, the day I had been hoping for for so long had finally come. Not exactly sure what caused it, but for some reason, the computer just stopped working altogether. Just, one morning, we tried to turn it on, and all it did was make some god-awful banshee screeching/beeping noise. I thought…FINALLY…its finally broken for good and they’ll replace this piece of garbage! So we called them up…and of course had to go through all of the stupid little diagnostics again…none of which were even accessible at this point…the thing just flat out didn’t work at all. So they finally said, OK…we’ll send you a box and you can send it back to us. So we got the box, and sent it back to DELL.

A week later we got it back with a receipt saying that they replaced the video card. Two hours after turning it back on and starting to use it again, it blue screened on us again. Sweet. Awesome. I LOVE this computer.

Knowing that nothing was going to get done about it anyway, we didn’t bother calling DELL about the problem. We just continue to use it, saving often, expecting it to crash any minute.

Then the other day, the display starts showing everything all garbled. Half of the screen isn’t even readable anymore. Bad video card? Bad screen? Who knows. Something *else* wrong with this piece of garbage computer. We’ve spent…I dunno…wasted HOURS of our lives over several different days in the past week trying to get someone…anyone…at DELL technical support to get this thing fixed (we *did* pay a LOT of money for this thing…including a good chunk of it dedicated to making sure we get technical support for it). We’re still waiting on a phone call from some local technician to come out and replace the screen on this thing for us. Who knows if it’ll ever happen. I wasted almost an hour of my life on the phone tonight, talking to three different DELL technical support people, JUST trying to find out if anyone was ever going to contact us about getting this fixed, only to find out that it was annotated in our account, right in the notes of the case number that I provided to all three of them, that we should be getting a call from a local technician sometime tomorrow. We’ll see.

Bottom line…I will never again purchase a DELL computer, nor will I ever recommend to anyone I know that they ever consider buying a DELL either. I recommend to YOU, dear reader, DO NOT purchase a DELL. As a software engineer at a major media company, I will never recommend that my company purchase DELL computers either. There are just too many other much better options out there. Its just not worth it. Don’t do it.