Okay, time to get this off my chest. In June of 2005, I purchased a Dell home computer. This was my first Dell product and my wife's second. The ordering and shipping of the product was a good experience, fast and efficient. The setup was even smooth, up and running in less than an hour. Joy, Happiness. I’m thinking that I probably won’t need that 1 year warranty that I paid for.  

Think again. The operating system started to do some funny things right off the bat, so the call went out to support. A very pleasant and competent person walked me through the re-install. I tell ya, Dell can do some wonderful things with the F12 key. All good, heck it was probably the fault of the operating system developer( take a guess ).  Temporary happiness. 

2 months later, the CD reader/burner was the next to go. Call to service, check this, check that. Yup, you need a new one. They ship it out. I replace it(yes, me – it was pretty easy) and ship the broken one back. System back up to speed. 

Another 3 months down the road, the monitor blanks out. Call to service. Check this, check that. Yup, it’s broke, a new ones on the way. Get it and send the broken one back. I’m in business once again. 

A year or so passes with mostly no issues, until last weekend(roughly 26 months since original purchase) when I’m greeted by the Blue screen of Death. Aka full failure of the main hard drive. Call out to service and yup, it’s failed. As I’m out of the warranty period, they check to ensure that I had all the disc’s I need to re-install, which I don’t, so they ship them out, then recommend that I call sales for a new drive. Well, I figure I can do this quicker on my own, so run to the local Best Buy and get a deal on a hard drive. Go home and tear the PC apart, only to realize that Dell has replaced the standard hard drive connector with it’s own proprietary one. Great!!! Now I have to order one from them, and return the other.  

So here I sit waiting for the new drive to arrive from Dell, and am pondering whether the great service that I have received from them balances out against the poor quality of the product that they have sold me. Sadly, when I weigh the good versus the bad of owning a Dell, the bad is definitely the heavier of the two.