Firstly I need to apologise for my lack of blogging over the last month and a half. There is no good reason for this and I have had allot to write about… but the weather has been nice and I generally couldn’t be bothered to sit down and write.Anyway, this week I have had an experience (or experiences that have jolted me out of my dormant blogging state.

Within the space of two day last week I managed to break my mobile phone and my laptop… not handy (especially as the GF hasn’t been around). I have had a Dell XPS M1330 for around 5 months, and the whole experience of dealing with Dell up until last week had been a pleasant one. This all changed when I rang Dell customer service to find out why my computer battery wasn’t charging (I knew beforehand that the AC adapter had broken, and that I simply needed a new adapter).

After eventually getting through I was greeted by a friendly young sounding man who obviously was not from the UK. He listened to my problem and acknowledged that I was speaking to him through Skype. He asked me to run a diagnostic on my machine and to call them back with the results of this test. He then assured me that once this was done that he would send a new Adapter to Spain the next day.
Well, I ran the diagnostics and rang them back… this is where the problems started.

I was greeted again by another gentleman from a slightly more exotic region than my own and was asked if I had run the diagnostics… I replied (truthfully) yes, and then told him the results. After listening to this the man then asked me to run the diagnostics on my computer…. WTF I JUST GAVE YOU THE RESULTS!!!!!
Then then asked if I had turned my computer “off and of again”… to which I replied of course. After much broken English he agreed to send the part to me.

I was then told that because I lived in Spain that they could not send me the part because of “security reasons”… ah I see… AC adapters running amuck throughout Spanish immigration…. makes perfect sense.

They then agreed to send the part to the UK (no security problems there then), but only on the condition that I send my old adapter (which was the only thing that was, and still is, keeping my laptop alive) back to them the same day. I told them that this was not possible under any circumstance, and to their credit they agreed to let me keep my old faulty adapter.
My contact in the UK received the adapter the next day…. it appeared to be the wrong part. I was angry… very angry. After much investigation and using the magic of social media I found that the adapter that I was send would work with my laptop although it wouldn’t fit “as snugly”. The total length of my calls to Dell tops 2 hours.

Now, compare this to Nokia. Last week I sat on my N95 with my keys in my pocket and cracked the screen. Once I had found a Nokia service center I took the phone there and explained in broken Spanish the problem. They said that it wasn’t a massive problem and that I could get the phone back the next week. One week later I went into the store paid over my money (a measly €45, which I thought was pretty cheap)… and as if by magic I was returned my N95 complete with new screen installed. I was very happy.

So my question is… seeing as Dell probably sells more computers than any other manufacturer world wide… why don’t they set up service centers??? It would be easy… take the part in if can be fixed…. get it fixed… if it can’t replace the part. Apple run a similar system in their stores and it works… but Dell have taken the cheap option and employed a gathering of people in a shed in the Middle East to read from a script as their version of customer support. It is, quite frankly, a joke.

Thankyou to the nice people from joyoftech for this rather ammusing parody.

Now, i am not a massive fan of apple laptops (or notebooks if you will)… I own an ipod which i love… but that is about as reliable as pro-wrestling is real.

So why do I suddenly want to get a Macbook air? It really is a stunning piece of kit to look at, and yet again Apple have made something that at least looks the business.

It really makes no sense for me to want one, every piece of software game etc etc I own is built around PC use, and the getting a Macbook air would almost certainly cause me to sit in my room cursing the day I ever bought one whilst I clumsily tried to circumnavigate its rather backwards OS (damn my windows trained mind).

However, it wins me over on several points… the idea of not having a CD drive I think is good (although it would no doubt drive me bonkers), i think the display is good… I like the duel touch “touchpad” (seriously apple drop the crap names for things please) I like the light sensitive keyboard… all things that I have very little use or reason for liking. The apple marketing machine has worked!

I am not a fanboy with regard to technology… i don’t own… and don’t want an iPhone for example… but this is very very different.

*shame*