I received several coupons issued by Dell for me through e-mail and opening Preferred account. However, all those coupons are quite bogus. The coupons stated that it may be combined with other promo and coupons but when I tried to make purchase, it didn't go through. Called customer care and explained the issue and they transferred me back and forth for more than 5 times and still can't give me straight answer. I think they should call themselves "customer transfer" department instead of customer care. They couldn't care less. The product sent to my home with wrong pricing and now I'm waiting to return it and have to pay for the shipping cost. How great is this?  
Prior to this experience, I tried to purchase a laptop online. Placed the order, waited for 2 weeks, got an email from Jennifer Roman to confirm my order, said yes (confirmed), waited for 2 more weeks, the computer never arrived, contacted dell through emails to see if they still want the business and guess what happened? No one replied back to me! Waited a month to purchase a laptop and no one responded to me at all. Michael Dell, if you read this, go around your company and see if they are really working for you. I would be ashamed to use my name and get a very bad reputation constantly at resellerratings.com. And don't use the name customer care, change it to customer "contact and transfer" department.

i ordered dru500a from dell on oct-01-2002. today is nov-26-2002. i got a delay of shipment from dell again. it's the 4th time they send email to tell customer for the delay of shipment. however, ton of customer order the same drive from dell at much later date from oct-10 to nov-7 did receive the same drive. to find out more about dell service go here http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/search?q=dru500a  
i will never buy a thing from dell again unless they send me goods and i can send them a check when i want to. 2 thumbs down company

This review was modified by its author, luuvong99, on 11/26/02 10:15 PM.

I ordered a Planar pl201m 20 inch lcd Black and when I looked on Dell's website the next day they had a white one on order so I called and had to cancell the order and reorder the black one again, that part isn't so bad but when they said it would be thirty days before my credit card would be credited for the white one that I cancelled that's way to much to stand now I have a credit card bill for about $2500 which I only owe $1250, I don't know about you but I don't like loaning muti billon dollar companys $1250 for a month interest free, I have a Dell computer that I got a couple of years ago but never again. DON'T BUY FROM DELL......

Great to deal with. Order was shipped out fast and arrived within three days. They kept me informed along the whole time of where it was.

I placed my order online since I knew what I wanted. It was easy and there were no problems. The computer arrived one day later than promised. Everything worked perfectly on setup and I have not had any problems.  
 
I owned Dell about 3 years ago and had several occasions to call their support techs. Generally the support given was adequate although one time it took the techie a very long time to come up with an answer.  
 
I think Dell has a quality product at a fair price.

This review was modified by its author, leveck, on 10/14/02 6:25 PM.

I purchased a Dell Inspiron 4100 notebook computer to replace my aging Compaq Armada notebook. I placed the order on a Friday and received the computer the following Wednesday--that was fast! I had previously attempted to order a computer from them last year, but after three weeks of waiting and no end in sight, I gave up and cancelled the order (I never did reorder until this year).  
 
I am very pleased with the notebook. It has a 1 GHz Pentium III CPU and a 14.1" display with 1600 x 1200 resolution. The top two reasons for selecting the computer was price and the high resolution display with a NVidia GeForce2 Go display. Setup, packaging, and shipping were professionally done. However, I was not very impressed with the online order status. The status was still not yet shipped even the day the UPS man showed up at the door.  
 
The notebook has performed almost flawlessly over the past 9 months. I am extremely pleased with the 1600x1200 lcd. The display is very sharp with vivid colors. However, there are a couple of things that I can nitpick about. I wish they would use a different vendor for the hard disk. The IBM TravelStar installed in the notebook is rather noisy (many times worse than the hard disk on my Armada). Also, according to IBM's web site, the proper use of the TravelStar hard disk is something like less than 8 hours per day. So much for a desktop replacement.  
 
The speakers are weak and tinny. Also, they could use a more sturdy, higher grade of plastic for the case and keyboard. The Compaq Armada had a much nicer case and keyboard. However, Compaq made up for it by skimping on the motherboard and other internals--performance was pathetic. I would rather they skimp on the cosmetics and concentrate their effors on providing the best technology inside the case like Dell.  
 
The only two problems I have noted are a whining noise comming from the motherboard when running certain programs, and installing Crucial memory which I purchased after receiving the computer (Dell charged too much for their memory and I mistakenly thought that the Crucial RAM was superior). The whining can be mitigated by adjusting the Windows XP power management setting to notebook--I no longer notice it.  
 
The first problem I had with the Crucial memory is getting the computer to boot. It took several tries to get the memory seated properly. The second problem is the performance of the memory. The memory is rated CL2. I cannot get the memory to run at any other speed than CL3. I don't know who is to blame--Crucial or Dell. Anyway, the memory works, albeit a bit slower than I had wanted.  
 
The technical support (downloads and information) and forums at Dell's web site is first rate. I believe Dell gave me the "best bang for my buck". Every other vendor I considered charged significantly more for equivalent notebooks. I very pleased with the notebook--I only have the minor complaints mentioned above. I would not hesitate to buy from them again provided their prices remain competitive.  

This review was modified by its author, larryholmquist, on 10/13/02 7:50 PM.

I purchased the new laptop from dell with the rebate promotion of 300, combined with 10% off coupon, it is a good deal.

This review was modified by its author, jam111, on 10/11/02 2:43 AM.

I owned a Latitude 800. The serial port was bad so they tried to replace it. Their fix made the mother board go bad. They eventually replaced the whole machine. Worked like a charm.  
 
Then my machine got stolen.  
 
I used the insurance money to buy a new one. I bought the Latitude C400. It locked up everytime I used the external CD-ROM drive trying to intal software that required activation. I sent it back. Havn't bought anything yet. Looking at the Sager and a used Dell on EBay.  
 
Their customer service was excellent. They solved my problems. Biggest issue with Dell is that my Dad and younger brother both had the same experience with the whole machine having to be replaced. My Dad had the Inspirion 8000 and Windows 2000 and my younger bro- had a Latitude 810 with Windows XP. What is their problem?

I bought a new computer after my old PC died. I desided to go with dell because freinds of mine told me that they are the best. I think my feinds are right because I have not had any problem with this computer sence i got it.  
The only thing I did not like about it is that when I customized it at dell's site I could not have them not include the microsoft's word program, I do not need a new word program I use Wordperfect.

There were 6 ways I could possibly have purchased a Dell laptop.  
Online: 1. as an individual, 2. as a small business (my wife has a VERY small company - just her, lol), 3. as faculty (I teach at a college), 4,5,& 6 ... same as above but via telephone.  
 
Being the persistant S.O.B. that I am, and having some free time, I was determined to get the best price, even if just for the challenge of it. However, I found out it is not simply a matter of 6 ways, it'a probably more like 12 or 18 or 24.  
 
Navigating the Dell website requires both advanced degrees and good eye-hand coordination. The company is trying to stop you from making a low-end purchase, even if it is the low-end of a high-end computer. You can start with the very basic machine and add extras, or start with a higher configuration and work downward. First of all, it is very difficult to find the BASE model. Many other choices are given as huge boxes or other colorful places to click, while it took me 3 or 4 passes to find the tiny hyperlink I needed. If you build upward, you put together the configuration you want, but nowhere along the line was I able to find the 3 year mail-in service plan, even though it was listed as part of a large number of plans. All I could get was a 1-year plan.  
 
So I tried the downward approach. However, I found that it was now impossible to get to the machine I wanted. Even if I thought the configuration seemed EXACTLY the same it was now $300 or so higher. AND the service plan I wanted was still unavailable. All I could get was a full-coverage 3-year plan for an extra $300 and change.  
 
I gave up and called sales. Funny, the salesperson had access to the plan I wanted, but the overall price was more than $100 higher than the online price (if you added in the $119 for the plan you couldn't get). Then I tried another salesman and was now quoted an even higher price.  
 
This went on and on as I tried to be a small business, and later, a faculty member. When all was said and done, I had 12 DIFFERENT prices with a $500 swing from lowest to highest, plus the differences in coverage came to over a $700 difference. Even the sales people did not have all the options for coverage and/or parts.  
 
My favorite was, when I finally settled on the salesman/faculty option, at the end of the transaction, the guy told me I owed a $130 in sales tax. Having bought Dells in the past I never paid tax before. The salesman told me thet as Dell did business in NY with colleges and school systems I would now have to pay sales tax. ???????? Needless to say, I cancelled the order. I finally bought one from a woman as a "home user" that cost $40 more than the education price but the sales tax magically disappeared.  
 
What the h*ll is going on? Add Dell to my long list of lousy companies! (They could at least have bought me a sandwich to eat while I worked).  

Two very different experiences, one great, the other one I ended up canceling my order.  
The first was with a set of z560 speakers, about a year ago, they were backordered but dell upgraded the shipping to next day from ground for free, and managed to send them eariler than when they had said.  
 
My latest expience involves two Samsung 900NF monitors. When I ordered them, they said they would ship on the 29th of August. This was later bumped upto the 19th of September which I was not pleased with but was ok with. Then on the 19th they futher bumped the shipping date upto the middle of october, about a month and a half after I had ordered. I proceded to cancel my order after that...

Bought UPS with 15% off and $10 coupon and free ground shipping. Shipped within 1 day and arrived in good condition.

This is the second time to purchase from Dell. I advised my sister to do so about 2 weeks ago, and I was very impressed with their system that I ordered one for myself as well. Prices are alright for a pre-made system. Normally I would build my own (such as my current system), but I was lazy. I got a good deal on this systemand it's much easier than having to order from different stores and building. The service department is excellent for me, no delays and I foudn the online tracking helpful.

this is unbelievable  
i ordered a Lite-ON 40x12x48 burner from dell on 9/12 and it showed "usually ships 1-3 days" under avaibility and after i ordered it  
the status was immedately delayed till 9/17/2002  
the funny thing was that first i called customer service asking why is it delayed and they said its in-stocked then i called dell spare parts sales and checked if they have SKU#A0011904 and they said "we have 1375 units avaiable"  
DO NOT BUY PERIPHERALS FROM DELL!!!  
i emailed them and still furiously waiting for their reply...  
unbelieveable from dell...

This review was modified by its author, dontbuydell, on 9/17/02 4:44 PM.

I cancelled my order for a 4500S (2 Ghz) when I found out that their prices are WAY TOO HIGH. As a systems engineer and a hardcore gamer I like to upgrade my systems when I feel like it. It turned out that the 4500S is a slim line deck, so you can never put anything else in it (like video card or more HDD's, extra cdrw or zip drive, etc). So after cancelling I got myself a nice barebone and saved myself over $200 (plus I got more memory and a nicer video card)