Ha. I don’t know whether to disparage Dell over my laptop’s second motherboard failure, or to praise them for their prompt and hassle free service. Regardless, I feel bad for them– at at least $400 per, the two motherboards that Dell has replaced certainly has cost them a pretty penny. But, alas, I don’t believe it’s through any fault of my own that the motherboards have failed (both times it’s been a very gradual thing, thankfully!). Overall, I’ve been very pleased with my Dell purchase. Strange, yes, that I should be so pleased given consideration to two hardware failures, but when functioning correctly, my laptop has been wonderful, and when on the brink, Dell’s service has been top notch. No hassles. No many-hour conversations on the phone with tech support, going through stupid and pointless tests. No waiting on hold to talk to a tech-support agent. And all my tech support agents (even here in Thailand, to a lesser or greater extent) have spoken fluent English (even though one American that I talked to didn’t know where Bangkok was. “Bangkok? Is that in India?” / “No, it’s in Thailand.” / “Oh. … Is Thailand in Europe?” / “Yes. It’s a small, war-torn facist state between France and Germany. You wouldn’t believe how many people don’t know where it is.” Heh. No, but the last is what I SHOULD have said!).
The long and short of it is that, once again, I have a happily functioning laptop.
Additionally, I’m feeling quite a bit better, although I’m not sure if that will be the case after tomorrow’s mid-term. =)
Those pictures are still in the works. I hate to say it, but I miss resnet– I miss having a connection that would let me upload 250mb+ in five minutes, rather than 50 minutes or… on dial-up, 5 days…
I will also purchase other things from Dell (not computers, but things like LCDs and whatnot) because they do have GREAT customer service. I scratched my LCD and they sent me a refurbished one right away.