Our office is small. We only have four employees. But all four of our computers are Dells, and we are looking to buy two new computers this fall. I had assumed that they would be Dells as well, but now I know they won’t. And I wish I could convince everyone I know also not to buy Dell, because this experience was so bad.

Back story: my last laptop was a Dell. It died two weeks after the two year service contract expired last fall. Dell was not sympathetic. But for some reason, I replaced it with a Dell. I’ve had nothing but trouble with this computer, but when the office needed a new laptop this past spring, I still decided to go for a Dell. Why? I don’t know.

I bought this new company laptop from Dell in May. On paper, it’s really nice: LED screen, good resolution, backlit keyboard, good processor speed and RAM, etc. It’s a Latitude, which used to mean no-nonsense, quality business components that would last. It doesn’t have frills like media buttons. It’s just a good, light, sturdy laptop for business use.

And it’s never worked.

We got it in May and sent it back to Dell in July. The touchpad – which had never worked quite right – had completely ceased to work, and the keyboard was acting wonky, too. As soon as we got it back, after two weeks, it was obvious that it still wasn’t “right,” but it is a business computer, and we needed it for business. I didn’t have time to deal with Dell and sending it back again.

But by September, the touchpad had again completely stopped working. Oh, and it crashed at startup. I did discover that the crash didn’t happen if you turned off bluetooth. Therefore I could use the six-month-old computer with an external mouse and after disabling bluetooth.

Nuh-uh.

So back to Dell it went. That was two weeks ago. The guy assured me that this time they would replace the motherboard in addition to the touchpad. And he said they would expedite the order, since this was the second time in six months with a brand-new computer. He would personally call me when he knew anything.

Did I mention that was two weeks ago?

So I called Dell this morning. I figured I’d get a polite “sorry, sir, this was a big mistake on our end. Won’t happen again. In fact, the computer is already fixed and should be arriving at your business any day.”

Nope. What I got was five minutes of talking to computers, repeating the same damn number over and over again (and for some reason, Dell thinks it’s easier if you talk to them instead of just typing it into the phone, but I digress, because even that would’ve been obnoxious). When I finally did reach a human being, the best he could offer was that they would look into it and someone would call me back “in four to eight hours.”

Pathetic.

So sometime today or tonight, I might find out what happened to the computer that by all rights should be in great shape for another two to three years. And that’s assuming Dell calls me back this time. I haven’t even finished paying off the computer, and it’s been in the shop for a month out of five, not to mention time lost because it was broken but still in use. And they didn’t even apologize for the delay or the problem.

It seems like Dell used to be a pretty good company. It seems like their computers used to be the ones to buy. I don’t know what I will buy this fall when it’s time for replacing the two old office computers, but Dell won’t be getting another cent out of me. And I’d love for you to pass the word, too, before Dell does this to you, too.

Update: When I called yesterday (October 12), they said they would call me back in four to eight hours. They did not. So I called them again this morning, and they said that FedEx had just delivered the package yesterday and that the techs are working on it right now. Uh-huh. I’m wondering how many more ways they can screw this up.

Update 2: I just found out from FedEx, through an extremely helpful employee, that the package was delivered to Dell on time and arrived last Monday. Dell then did nothing with it for a week – until I called and asked. It’s a smaller time frame than I thought, but considering that the computer has now been out of my hands for one month out of five, and considering that Dell promised to expedite it, well, it’s still pretty all-around pathetic. Also, I found out from FedEx that while Dell did promise to expedite the shipping, they only sped up the pickup from me. They made that overnight and kept everything else (from here to Dell, from Dell back to here) two day. Not exactly nice.