For the past five years I have recommended Dell products to everyone I know as it was the one brand I could always believe in. Today I can no longer do this; the products have gone downhill so much that I will not stake my name on the Dell name. The final straw came today while working on one of my coworkers laptops where the battery has died for a second time in a year and a half.
Let’s dive a little further into the current issue. On my recommendation my coworker bought the Inspiron B130 as he just needed a cheap system as it is primarily used for surfing the web and having the ability to run a piece of video software if needed for his job. Other than that one piece of software everything else is done via a browser.
After about three months of using the computer I was informed that when he tried to run off the battery it did not work. Clearly the battery was dead and would not take a charge. After chatting online with the support tech they sent out a new battery along with a motherboard. I replaced the motherboard and battery and everything worked for my testing at that point in time.
Today I was told the same thing as before, the battery will not hold a charge. I was also informed that the computer has never ran off the battery in this past year, it has always been plugged in. I understand that a battery will lose its capacity if never used, but it seems that I am not the only one with this issue. When I went to the Dell website to find a replacement I found a battery with a rating of 1.4 out of five stars with seventy reviews. On top of that the battery is $129.
At this point the option for this computer is to buy a $129 battery that will just die again, pay around $130 to extend the support, or have a computer that is not able to run on a battery. The first two are just not worth it and the last shouldn’t be our only option.
What this really means is that I can no longer recommend buying Dell products. This is not my first issue with Dell and I am sure it will not be the last, but it is my final straw. From this point forward I will no longer buy Dells for myself or anyone else.
