As a PC consultant, Dell Owner, and often user of Dell Support, I encourage Dell to require that "any" support personnel be able to demonstrate that they can speak and be clearly understood in English, or any other language, as a requirement for employment by either Dell or off site support facilities.
I am tired of having Dell customers give up on Dell when they try to call Dell Tech support. It is because they get techs who truly try to speak English, but their native tongue and dialect prevent what comes out from being recognized as English.
What took the cake for me in this matter was a customer who had paid for a business Latitude along with 4 year support. I was called in to handle a warranty issue (back light dead). I called Dell Support and got a "foreign" English student for support. Supposedly he was located somewhere in Canada(???). I spoke slowly and repeatedly enunciated what I wanted and repeatedly told him to slow down and repeat himself for each question he asked, just to understand what he said.
Secondly, get rid of the scripts. All callers are not idiots. I called clearly understanding the problem. No amount of talking could draw this tech away from the script or convince him that the screen was black, period. Anything he wanted me to do or try would not bring the back light back to life or make the screen bright enough so that I could answer questions about what the computer was doing or saying.
My customer sat nearby, listening on speaker phone, as I worked my way through to the final diagnosis that indeed the back light needed to be replaced under warranty. This customer stated that the call took twice as long as necessary and she clearly would not have had the patience to work with the Dell tech. She stated that she would think twice next time she needs to buy a new computer. She did not feel that she should need to have "paid tech support" to call and talk with Dell tech support.
Sony's has a big winner with their Carbon Fiber based Vaio laptops. Carbon Fiber has become extremely cheap over the past several years so for little cost, Dell could reduce the weight of some of their laptop lines significantly while actually improving structural integrity.
This would make the Laptops just as competitive as the standard Desktop market. And would introduce a new corner of the market for "tinker's" of Laptops.
This would also let gamers be able to keep up in the development of games. 1 Comment »
Dell became a top company by providing choice and customer service to a customer that wasn't available at the time but has since fallen behind the pack in these areas. Needing a translator when calling customer support is unnacceptable and other companies are rapidly passing Dell in technology advancements. While this site is a good start, many things need to be changed for Dell to become the market leader again.
1. Customer support needs to be in well spoken English and with employees who are allowed to do more than just read from a script. If they are speaking with a computer savvy customer the rep should be allowed to deviate from the script as long as they don't go outside the relm of normal policy.
2. Better options: Other companies offer high end components in small computers but Dell only supplies intel video processors in its 14" laptop. Dell needs to allow customers to get the size computer they need but with options from low cost through the high end so they can get a computer that is "Purely you".
3. Less forced options: I hate that I am paying for and XPS with internet security when I don't need it because I already have a subsciption that will transfer over or AOL is installed when I know I don't need it. They need to add an option of none of the above to all the added software sections.
4. Better pricing: Why is it over $200 to upgrade from 1 GB of 533 MHZ ram to 2 GB of 677 MHZ RAM? I can go to Crucial.com and get the 2GB 677MHZ kit for under $200. Upgrading with Dell after you own is even worse at over $300 this is crazy.
5. Custom Dell website: Customers want to feel special why not make a MYDELL website that when you log in you get a site designed the way you want it. If you aren't interested in the small business site it gets removed, you don't like to go thru the accessories sections when customizing a system so you don't see that section. Click on customer support and a list of your computer pops up asking which one you need help with and only shows the options for that system.
6. Customer loyalty rewards: I have bought 6 Dell systems over the last few years, why can't I get better customer service or pricing due to my loyalty to the company? 78 Comments »
A solid state drive is primarily a data storage device, for use in computing applications that traditionally use a hard disk drive.
A solid state drive is based on non-volatile memory instead of the spinning platter and mechanical-magnetic head found in a conventional hard disk drive. With no moving parts, a solid state drive eliminates seek time, latency and other electro-mechanical delays and failures associated with a conventional hard disk drive.
Advantages
* Faster startup - Since no spin-up required. * Faster read time – In some cases, twice or more than that of the fastest hard drives. * Low read and write latency (seek) time, hundreds of times faster than a mechanical disk. * Faster boot and application launch time - Result of the faster read and especially seek time. But only if application already resides in flash and is more dependent on read speed than other issues, eg. OS bootup that detects devices will not be significantly sped up even with faster seeks & reads. * Lower power consumption and heat production - no mechanical parts results in less power consumption. * No noise - Lack of mechanical parts makes the SSD completely silent. * Better mechanical reliability - Lack of mechanical parts results in less wear and tear. High level of ability to endure extreme shock, vibration and temperatures, which apply to laptops and other mobile devices, or when transported. * Security - allowing a very quick "wipe" of all data stored. * Deterministic performance - unlike mechanical hard drives, performance of SSDs is constant and deterministic across the entire storage. "Seek" time is constant, and performance does not deteriorate as the media fills up (See: Fragmentation). * Lower weight and (depending upon type) size * Faster than conventional disks on random I/O Check out the Idea in Action on the SSD enhancements Dell is making.
Manufacture desktop and notebook systems that support future memory expansion well beyond 4GB.
In a world where 2GB is rapidly becoming the standard base memory for new desktops and notebooks, selling computers that will never support memory expansion beyond 2 or 4 GB is an extreme example of premature obsolescence.
Moore's law will force the universal adoption of 64 bit addressing support in operating systems and application software in the very near future.
A system that is purchased today should not be unnecessarily crippled 5 years from now because a Dell motherboard designer decided to cut corners and eliminate the address runs required for future memory expansion.
The only systems that Dell currently offers with significant potential for expansion are servers such as the PowerEdge SC1430, which does not officially support Windows XP/Pro or Vista. 9 Comments »
Edit: Since these tags already exist, perhaps they should be made more visible, and include a (Unnoticed - Vote!) tag. :-)
Original text: This would be a relatively simple click/confirm process for the admin at Dell If you're going to respond to a vote providing information about how Dell is doing on something, why not have a little graphical status tag, with an icon, and phrases like:
Dell already does this! Dell is considering this! Dell has decided to do this! Dell is implementing this! Dell now does this!
..please don't forget to include the exclamation points. 2 Comments »
The XPS and E series notebooks are great, but a move into making 12.1 and 14.1 inch tablet PC convertible notebooks would be fantastic. I can easily see the m1210 and the e1405 being ported to the tablet medium. Check out what Glenn from the tablet team has to say about the Latitude XT.
I'm not an idiot, so don't treat me like one! When I call the customer support hotline, I'm tired of being told to "click twice on the that looks like the world behind a brick wall" or something like that. Customer service reps should be able to recognize that if I'm asking, say, what port I need to open to do X or Y, or something of the like, I'm probably not a user who doesn't know how to turn the computer on. Instead, how about "You need to open port *number* UDP and port *number* TCP. Do you know how to do that?
Being told to first turn on my computer, then login is annoying, time-wasting, and is offensive to me, that I'm being treated like an idiot. 14 Comments »
One of the greatest failings with IdeaStorm's otherwise wonderful concept is that many similar posts are created - and although they all get votes, no one post gets enough votes to rise to Dell's attention.
When you submit a post, I would like to see IdeaStorm search for similar posts, and if it finds any, prompt you:
Your post seems similar to this/these post(s):
1. Yes, it is. Please make my post a comment to the existing post instead (& I will vote on that post).
2. No, they are different - but related. Please associate my post to the existing post.
3. No, my post is not related - continue posting.
#2 is related to my suggestion to be able to be able to associate similar posts:
For all of this to work, Dell would have to vastly improve it's search ability within IdeaStorm (perhaps collaborate with Google?)! Use Google's advanced search features, with www.ideastorm.com as the domain to search, if you want to see for yourself the differences in how well the search features function.
Duplicate ideas suggestion feature has been added. 41 Comments »
This forum is a great idea to get Dell back to #1.
What I like to see is new and innovative styling across the board on notebooks and desktops. Dell's product line looks 5yrs old and needs a total refresh.
As you can see Apple Inc. is winning conumers hearts because Apple owners are actually proud of displaying them in the living rooms instead of hiding them. Get rid of that XPS desktop design that thing is so ugly.. and come up with something consumers would be proud of displying in their media rooms.
Also I would like to see Dell create a sleak new design for a media center box so we can utilize vista home for the entertainment room and display it next to my audio and video units.
Thanks for listening Mr. Dell.
Hope_l talks about how passionate we are about design in this thread. To read more about how this idea is being put into action click here. 222 Comments »
Notebooks get carried everywhere. Shouldn't Dell offer an aluminum or otherwise metal casing/construction as an option?
If I am going to drop two grand on a laptop, which I just did, I sure as heck want it as rugged as possible. I don't care about weight or additional cost. I want it to last.
Plastic is brittle. A dent in the metal is better than a crack in the plastic. It's also easier to recycle.
I find myself many, many times in dark or poorly lit environments having to guess the various keys - would be fantastic to have a backlit keyboard - with backlit individual keys as the best option.
I would actually pay extra for that convenience if the option was available. This could be done for desktops or notebooks.
Check out Vida_K's comment below on the New Latitude.301 Comments »
I know there has been a lot of articles and talks on Inductive coupling as of recently and I really wish Dell started making Notebooks with Inductive coupling, thus Eliminating that concept of the plugging in too many things. for more on Inductive Coupling ref : http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/wireless-power.htm2 Comments »
People buy computers to find music, listen to music and organize their music. I enjoy using the free music sharing service iLike. I would suggest that Dell computers come with a link to ilike.com in the browsers (Firefox, Explorer...). Comment »
Every time I see a Dell laptop, all I can think of is a noisy loud fan. Loud fans to me give a very annoying background noise, and also creates more heat than needed. I say Dell should make or find fans that will be equally effective, but half the sound. That way it's the happy way to go for the user and anyone who have a Dell laptop next to them. 1 Comment »
I'd love to see a small camera built into the lid of the notebook - just above the display. Some notebooks (like Asus) already have it and it works great for video calling. This would save people having to lug a web cam around... 4 Comments »
track my votes
