I had an HP that was VISTA-Ready and came with free Vista upgrade (from XP), that I bought in Dec 2007. I did the upgrade and ever since, the HP would totally bomb out. New errors every day. Built in webcam not recognized . . Wifi drivers gone . . But the HP was still had a few months warranty. HP support kept directing me to urls to download and reinstall bios and drivers. Time and time again . . . they told me to re-install bios and drivers. Problems would fix for a few days or weeks, but always come back. Then, the HP past its warranty date, and two months later while on line with HP chat support, the woman told me to Reboot and run a hardware test. I did, but during that test the whole laptop bombed out and never booted again. Nothing. Cant even reformat or get to Bios. HP kindly told me that because it was out of warranty, they could fix it for $349, if I sent them back the laptop and waited a few weeks(or months). Even though the problem started long before the warranty ended. That was my first “wake up call” about how these companies play games.

Rather then spend3490 to fix the HP, and wait weeks to get my laptop, I ran out that day and bought a Dell Inspiron 1526 from Best Buy. The price was right and the specs wer great, and I needed a laptop NOW.
Overall, the Dell has been great. The battery went defunct about 6 months after purchase. It no longer held a charge. Odd thing is that I NEVER run on battery . .EVER.
I contacted Dell chat support and a woman was super nice. She explained to me that I should use Best Buy for support due to their contract, however she wanted to assure me that Dell did not want to inconvenience me and so she sent out a new battery rather then make me go to Best Buy. To my surprise, the new battery was at my door the very next day. AND, it was a 9 cell (rather then the 6 that came with the laptop).

2 Months later, My Dell has met the same fate of my previous HP. One day, it stopped booting. When turning on it lights up and the fan comes to life . . and then poof! nothing. Can’t f8, or get to bios . . . no life on the screen. If I reboot about a million times . . sometimes I get lucky and it will come to life, and boot normal. I tried to restore to previous date. That solved it for about a week but then stopped booting again. When I did finally get it to boot, I backed up all my files and reset the laptop to factory specs . . . fresh install.
It worked, but when I shut it down and rebooted – it would not boot again. Now, wont boot at all.
This tells me it is most likely a hardware issue.

The Dell is about 8 months old now, but should be covered under 1 year warranty. I just bought a $350 Acer mini to hold me over.

Tomorrow, I will walk into Best Buy with my receipt and my Dell, demanding it be fixed, and fixed for free. I am an educated professional who is kind and polite at first, but does not walk away and give up. I have absolutely no reserve in utilizing the Attorney Generals Office and Better Business Bureau to reach out to Best Buy and Dell, if they need to be reminded about customer service and product support/warranties. Hopefully, I will not need to do any of that.

Let’s see how things go.

I wonder if I can take this back and exchange it for a HP.

Well here’s my story….
I’m in medical school and in the middle of class my laptop (hp) froze and wouldnt turn on again. So I took it to the tech lab where they said the motherboard died and because I was 1 month out of warranty it wouldn’t be covered.
In my search for a new and more reliable laptop I called dell. I was told by one sales rep after another that there was no way a laptop could be shipped out in less than 14 business days because every order takes 2 weeks to be built. Instead I was told by dell that because I was in a rush I could buy it best buy and insure it with dell. I wanted to double check this so I called again and was told by another rep (whos info I have) that it would be no problem and that I should call her back to get the warranty.
Well I ordered an XPS laptop from Best Buy and when it came I called the rep again who told me that she would be more than happy to set up my warranty for 4 years. Then she transfered me to the warranty department where I was told that dell can not offer any warranties for best buy products because of a deal that makes best buy the only provider for warranty services.
I was in utter shock that so many dell reps had flat out made assurances to me that carried no weight at all.
I have dealt with best buy before and would in no way have bought the laptop if it would tether me to them for a warranty.
I was again given assurances that after my warranty expires I could renew my warranty (with dell) and this was from the warranty rep (whos info I also have). However when I asked for this in writing I was told that there was no way for me to get his in writing.

I am trying to get this resolved but have been hung up on time and time again. I don’t think that dell policy and commitment to best buy should be greater to the commitment of their customers

Arie

I bought a Dell Inspiron 530 – 30 days ago today(October 25, 2008). Last night I put in a cd and discovered that my cd/dvd player was not working. I tried the usual stuff but no luck. I decide to call Dell for help for what I assume is a minor problem. The Dell guy answers on the first ring and I tell him my DVD is not working. He says that since I bought the computer from Best Buy, Dell will not help me with it. I let him know how much I appreciate this since I bought it on DELL’s reputation and the manufacturer’s warranty wording on the in store ads.

I then call Best Buy and they let me know (after my telling them only that my dvd quit working) that they can fix it right now “over the phone” for the sum of $79.99! I’m quite surprised that I’m asked for payment for an “over the phone” repair on a 30 day old computer. They politely let me know that I can take it to my local Best Buy store and they will gladly fix it when they get to it and it shouldn’t cost a thing! I let them know (politely) that that was ridiculous.

I then called Dell back and let them know how much I appreciated their attitude about THEIR products and received the same story.

I went to Best Buy and talked to 3 different people who all were suprised to find out that Dell did not service the computers Best Buy sells. Two of them pointed out the in store ads that touted the manufacturer’s warranty on Dell computers!

I then asked if this was true of all the computers Best Buy sells. (That warrenty service was to be exclusively by Best Buy.) They discussed it and went away for about 15 minutes and came back to tell me that they were pretty sure their other manufacturers serviced their own products and again pointed out the “manufacturer’s warranty” wording in their in store ads.

Caveat Emptor!