[greatDrive]

Dell is ok ok.. Not tthat good.. used it for 2 yrs... Had some cursor jumping problems while editing, probably becasue of too sensitive touch pad..
Now Changed it to Lenovo T60.

Looks like Rs10,000 is ok price for that, make sure it has no bad sectors in HDD.

[moralfibre]

Originally Posted by Surprise

Yes, Dell parts fail often (that's what I heard from my sysadmin). But you dont even have a feel of it due to their exemplary support.

Same here Surprise. Infact we had an issue with a 19" LCD monitor in our GUI team. Dell replaced it with a 21" monitor since they did not have a 19 in stock. This happened in 1 day! We have gold support for all our desktop and we always stress on replacement. So far no troubles with service. Its just like Maruti splendid service!

[iraghava]

I have the same Laptop & my config is this:

Pentium4 2.66GHz
30GB HDD
256MB RAM
DVD-Combo

I think you should be paying around 15k for it provided it's in good condition considering these were phased out in June-July 2003. So effectively looking at something that's 4 years old.

Also the Pentium 4 processors have major overheating problems so beware of that befoer you buy one.

[nispatel]

Dell is not the best in terms of component reliability but it's excellent support covers for that.

I've one PIV Inspiron 8200 with all top of the world features and ports available in year 2002. It's on board speakers has stopped working and it costs bomb to fix it as ITs ON BOARD. It's current market prices is about 10K. The one you are referring is Celeron. My estimates is anything less than 10K is fine.

Better if you are really not keen on LAPTOP, go for desktop that you can always easily upgrade and it's less fragile too.

[greatDrive]

Originally Posted by iraghava

Also the Pentium 4 processors have major overheating problems so beware of that befoer you buy one.

check the battery also, I remember Dell recalling its Sony batteries because they used to get heated and there were some chances of fire.

[iraghava]

Originally Posted by greatDrive

check the battery also, I remember Dell recalling its Sony batteries because they used to get heated and there were some chances of fire.

I don't think there is an issue with this generation laptops. This issue happened much later.

[mail4ajo]

I am travelling to US in March and eager to get a new Dell Inspiron series. I have an old compaq presario 2100 series. The config is AMD Athlon 2.8, 30GB, 512 MB RAM, DVD combo with 15"screen with a new battery. What can I expect as resale for this?

The compaq dealer says max 8K. Is that all??

[Surprise]

Originally Posted by mail4ajo

eager to get a new Dell Inspiron series

Keep watching their website for offers. Dell offers best deals through their web, which even their sales people would not be able to match.

The other option is to get one through internal reference which will have the "Employee special discount" tag

[mail4ajo]

Originally Posted by Surprise

Keep watching their website for offers. Dell offers best deals through their web, which even their sales people would not be able to match.

I don't see much Dell service centers in Chennai. Do they have any? Heard they are going to assembly in chennai shortly. HP has plenty, but service is bad. Wait times are high and diagnosis of complaints is poor.

[iraghava]

Originally Posted by mail4ajo

I don't see much Dell service centers in Chennai. Do they have any? Heard they are going to assembly in chennai shortly. HP has plenty, but service is bad. Wait times are high and diagnosis of complaints is poor.

Dell does not have service centres. Their model of support is completely different, what they do is that you call them when you have a problem & they do a diagnosis over the phone using various tools and requiring your input. Based on this they narrow down the faulty component & the next day their engineer reaches your location with replacement parts for the parts which are suspected to be causing the problem.

So you don't have to go anywhere & there is no repair involved only replacement, also all the work gets done infront of you, so you have piece of mind too!

P.S. Dell will reach you destination ANYWHERE in India & the Asia-Pacific. Believe me I've tried it in India!

[rjstyles69]

@mail4ajo , honestly don't go in for the Inspiron series,try to fetch a Latitude series from DELL if you really need a DELL notebook.
DELL still hasn't yet started the manufacturing Unit in Chennai.
Since you are traveling, would be ideal if you picked up the laptop in the US. Discounts are simply awesome.
Now if you wished to stick to the Compaq Series , the Pavilion Series is quite reliable (DV 5000 Series). Been using 1 for a couple of months and touchwood she works like a beauty.

We have gold support for all our desktop and we always stress on replacement.

@morbalfibre your contract says it all .

[cheap_deal]

i use an inspiron e1705 (aka 9400). its runs perfectly fine, had a dell inspiron 5100 before that which was good too. just dont buy a dell regular price in N.America, wait for one of those 25%, 50% or the super rare 75% off coupons to come and then order your system.

[goldie_malhotra]

Originally Posted by iraghava

Dell does not have service centres. Their model of support is completely different, what they do is that you call them when you have a problem & they do a diagnosis over the phone using various tools and requiring your input. Based on this they narrow down the faulty component & the next day their engineer reaches your location with replacement parts for the parts which are suspected to be causing the problem.

So you don't have to go anywhere & there is no repair involved only replacement, also all the work gets done infront of you, so you have piece of mind too!

P.S. Dell will reach you destination ANYWHERE in India & the Asia-Pacific. Believe me I've tried it in India!

100% - thats how they work for home-users.

I've had the same great experience with Dell for the past 5-6 years.

[rr_zen]

I have a DELL INSPIRON E-1505/6400 and I bought it after coming to the US. Its 6 months old and I have not had any problems whatsoever and I dont have any regrets too. One more piece of information for people who wish to buy a DELL notebook in the US:

DELL does not sell LATITUDE notebooks to home users and it is meant only for official purposes. I tried my level best to get a LATITUDE but they plainly refused saying I will have to take the INSPIRON or else route the order through my company and that the invoice would be made in the name of the company.

[moralfibre]

Originally Posted by rjstyles69

@morbalfibre your contract says it all .

Well RJ to be frank and unbiased from an enterprise point of view we found that their Silver or Bronze support is not bad either, since we have been purchasing lots of servers and desktops from them each month they started throwing in a Gold support for free, talk about marketing skills!