Buying from Dell.
I decided on buying a Dell laptop. Dell was offering 2 GHz+ processors, which was a very tempting proposition. As I needed the laptop as soon as possible, I bought it from the direct Dell stores instead of the site. There were two choices - Vista prebundled or no OS. Needless to say, I went with no OS. Here began the most harrowing customer experience of my life.
The FreeDOS CD which came with the laptop did not work. It failed to recognize the hard drive. RedHat could not be installed either, no hard disk again. Fedora Core got installed, but my wifi button would refuse to power on. Windows XP would not get installed either, the installation hung midway.
Dell refuses to provide drivers for any OS except Vista! A clear way to dissuade people from going the non proprietary, non-Microsoft way. An intelligent financial strategy to subvert legalities and yet force the customer to buy tightly integrated systems.
When I called Dell Support, a customer service representative with no know how whatsoever told me that :
1. Dell can not support non factory OS.
2. They have NO non Vista drivers.
3. They cant tell me why FreeDOS is not installing. Nor will they help me install it, even though they gave the CD with the laptop.
45 minutes of interaction with the customer support guy had my head spinning. I felt absolutely cheated. Luckily, threats of suing the company worked, and the rep digged through some more guides to tell me some BIOS changes needed to install Windows XP.
Eureka, dream machine and excellent customer service!!!!
Apparently, the bundling with Vista is so strong that the BIOS itself is pre-configured. No documentation on what to change obviously from Dell, lest some lowly mortal attempt a lesser OS than holier than thou Vista.
Anti-trust anyone ?
The FreeDOS CD which came with the laptop did not work. It failed to recognize the hard drive. RedHat could not be installed either, no hard disk again. Fedora Core got installed, but my wifi button would refuse to power on. Windows XP would not get installed either, the installation hung midway.
Dell refuses to provide drivers for any OS except Vista! A clear way to dissuade people from going the non proprietary, non-Microsoft way. An intelligent financial strategy to subvert legalities and yet force the customer to buy tightly integrated systems.
When I called Dell Support, a customer service representative with no know how whatsoever told me that :
1. Dell can not support non factory OS.
2. They have NO non Vista drivers.
3. They cant tell me why FreeDOS is not installing. Nor will they help me install it, even though they gave the CD with the laptop.
45 minutes of interaction with the customer support guy had my head spinning. I felt absolutely cheated. Luckily, threats of suing the company worked, and the rep digged through some more guides to tell me some BIOS changes needed to install Windows XP.
Eureka, dream machine and excellent customer service!!!!
Apparently, the bundling with Vista is so strong that the BIOS itself is pre-configured. No documentation on what to change obviously from Dell, lest some lowly mortal attempt a lesser OS than holier than thou Vista.
Anti-trust anyone ?
Labels: customer review, Dell, laptop
posted by Sonal at 9:21 PM
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