Condemn Dell Computers!

From now on, I am condemning all Dell products and services. My one and only experience with Dell customer service left an extreme bitter taste in my mouth. Not only they are extremely unreliable, they are also unrepentent.

I was helping one of my executives to purchase a Dell laptop as a replacement. The supposed estimated time of arrival (ETA) given by Dell was stated as 23 December 2008. However the ETA lapsed and no one from Dell deemed it fit to contact us to say that a delay had occurred. And so, I had to call back the sales person to check on the status of the delivery. The worst part of the thing is that the sales person is extremely hard to contact. Numerous calls went unanswered. Emails were either not replied or were sent late. In short, it's a disaster.

Then Dell gave a second ETA as 5 Jan 2009. The day came and went and there's still no sight of the laptop at all. Yet again, calls went unanswered and emails were replied late. They were supposed to reply back to us on the status of the delivery by yesterday. However the stupid sales guy only sent out the reply today.

Again, the ETA was pushed back. This time round, the new date is 22 Jan 2009. The reason given is that they need to do a firmware update on the laptop and hence delivery will be delayed. It's very frustrating to keep getting news that the laptop is unable to arrive on time. Don't Dell install calendars and clocks at their offices so that they can be punctual to their own customers at the very least?

Dell people are rude in the sense that they never bother to get back to you on the status of the orders made and all the dates they proposed were eventually lapsed. By the time 22 Jan 09 comes, it will be yet another new ETA from Dell. I can bet my moolah on that.

Dell = untrustworthy and unreliable.

Nothing from them is worth the thousand dollars paid for the laptop. So, in future it would be everybody's best interests to avoid purchasing any products from Dell. I have written to Acer to check on their laptop stock instead. Hopefully everything goes well and the new laptop might just be on its way. I'm exhausted from all the chasing and there's no reward for doing all those tasks. It's quite meaningless actually. Even I don't get to use a proper desktop. My office laptop is a permanent loan unit and it sucks.

It only has 512MB RAM and this makes it slow to respond to commands. I try to minimise any heavy usage of the laptop but it will still hang sometimes. Crazy little fellow.

*sighs*

MSI Wind Now Selling in Carrefour

According to Corbell on HardwareZone, the MSI Wind is now being sold at Carrefour's Tech Fair at Plaza Singapura (PS) from 6 Oct to 12 Oct.

It's also stated that the Wind advertised for selling is while stocks last. Will consumers rush down to PS to buy the little netbook? Stocks of the netbook has been very inconsistent in Singapore and it's very hard to get hold of one unless you manage to get on a preorder list.

Or maybe the hype for the Wind might have died down by now and consumers are probably choosing ASUS's eeepc over the Wind. Who knows? I am not too sure but I ain't heading down to PS just to check the stocks availability.

I am already the proud owner of the MSI Wind for quite some time and I am mostly satisfied with it. Its battery life problem still plagues me though. Nonetheless, I am not letting the battery life bug me down since I'm using AC power for most of the time.

The other thing that still bothers me is the lack of a DVD drive. Initially I thought it would not be a problem as I don't use the DVD drive very often. However some of the gadgets that I bought came with CD installation software and I can't use my Wind to utilize them.

Oh well. I'll just have to make do with using both my Wind and my Acer desktop when the need arises. It's just a matter of adaptability.

No problem, man.

Really Old Piece of "Antique"

Look what the cat had brought in! Figuratively speaking, of course. Actually it was my mum who found this gem but then she dismantled apart for the sake of taking out the copper wire for sale. Take a look at the pictures below:







Yep, it's a very old piece of computer keyboard. One that you thought you'll never see it again. This probably belongs to the 486 series or perhaps much earlier. Notice that there are no Windows buttons that mark today's keyboard.

The placement of the F1 to F10 keys are also not your typical keyboard style. The control button is also different and the number pad has no Enter key.

This is such an old, old piece of "antique" which used to belong to my cousin. Now my mum has tore the computer apart to get to the wires. Sad though, I didn't manage to get a picture of the whole computer. Not even the mouse. Mum had threw it away by then. =(

Such a special equipment deserves a little mention. Wee...

Yay! I finally gets my new Wind!

It has been a very long wait for this baby to come along. I had placed order for it in early June and was told that the estimated date of arrival is in July. Finally, after a month of waiting, my baby has come.

Ladies and gentlemen, here comes the MSI Wind.

I received the much awaited phone call from M/s Corbell yesterday afternoon to notify me of my wind's collection. How I wish I could go down to the office immediately to take the wind but it was not yet time for dismissal and their office hours are the same as mine. *sighs* I could only wait till today in order to go down and collect my wind.

And so, after 1 whole day of charging the batteries, I finally get to tinker with my new baby. Here are some pictures that I took of my new Wind: -

My Wind in comparison to my Sony Ericsson K800i

I bought the Wind for $864 with an upgrade of my existing 1GB RAM to 2GB RAM. Besides using the latest Intel Atom chipset, my Wind also has a 80GB hard disk, wifi, bluetooth, 1.3MP webcam, 3 USB ports, 1 ethernet port, 1 kensington lock port, 1 vga port, 1 mic port, 1 headphones port and a 10.1 inch screen. For the operating system, it comes packaged with Window XP home basic, which I prefer to use. =)

Setting up a wifi connection by myself sounds very daunting to me and I went about doing it pretty much reliance on a CD. This CD is supplied together in the package of the Linksys wireless router that I specially bought for use with my Wind. Now I can happily say that everything went well, from the connection to the security of my network. Now both my desktop and laptop get to surf Internet without any worries. Wee! =)

The only bad thing about the Wind is that it has a short battery life with the supplied 3-cell battery. If I were to wait for the 6-cell version, it would be another long wait again for its expected release period is September. Plus MSI has this bad habit of pushing back the release date so I decided to take the 3-cell version. I can't bear the long wait again. But the battery power life really sucks big time.

Other than that, everything is good. The keyboard is manageable. The screen is also relatively good. I don't own a EEE PC so I can't really compare the two netbooks together.

Nonetheless, I am loving my Wind a lot and since it's supposed to be power-saving, I am going to be using it more often than my Acer desktop. This should help to save a bit of electricity.

With the upgraded 2GB RAM, I am seeing a fast response to my applications as well. Unlike my 512MB RAM Acer desktop which works so slowly. Everything is so zippy on the Wind and I am more than delighted at its performance. Though the webcam is not quite good and the mic doesn't capture my voice at all. So when I tried out video-conferencing with Mayi, she can't hear what I'm saying and the image freezes occasionally.

All in all, I would say it has been really worth it. I don't regret buying this netbook and I hope it will be a faithful companion to me the way my Acer desktop is.

Acer's own mini laptop?

The ultra-mobile pc world has just gotten another newcomer, according to this post here. Acer's new baby has been spotted online with some new pictures to share with the world.






No other facts were given so I guess all we can do now is to be patient and wait. But it sure makes me re-think about my final choice of laptop that I'm going to buy eventually. Looks like the EEE PC is already a thing of the past. Poor Asus. =P


PS. Pictures all not mine.