jeffanderson.us|Blog

It was mid-July in 2005.  I was working toward my Computer Science degree and realized I needed a laptop in order to work on projects and homework while away from home.  I’d heard good things about Dell laptops, so I chose to purchase a Dell Inspiron 9300.  It was a behemoth, but no XPS (actually, it was one step below an XPS, and without the frilly LED lights everywhere).

Here are the specifications:

• 1.86GHz Pentium M 750 (Dothan)
• 256MB DDR2 (Upgraded to 2.0GB OCZ modules)
• 256MB nVidia GeForce 6800 Go
• 60GB PATA Hitcahi 7200 RPM Hard Drive
• 17″ WUXGA+ 1920×1200 LCD Panel
• Intel Wireless 2200 and Toshiba Bluetooth

This laptop would serve me well, and I thought would far outlast the 4 year warranty and protection plan I bought along with it.  I thought if I had any problems along the way, and being that this was a laptop that would be going to campus everday with me, that getting the Accidental Damage Protection plan would be worth the money.

It wasn’t until very recently I realized how right I was about that ADP warranty.  It was a Friday, and I was still half asleep.  I awoke and made a cup of coffee as I usually do.  As it was brewing I started my morning ritual of loading up 8000 tabs of Digg stories in Firefox.  I grabbed a cup of coffee and started to sit back down at my desk when my hand decided it still wasn’t awake enough to properly put a cup of hot sugary coffee down where I wanted it to.  So, my hand decided to just dump the contents into the keyboard.  I am pretty sure I never ran so fast to get a towel and a screw driver.  By the time I came back, almost 20 seconds later, the computer was turned off.  I knew it was dead.

I quickly pulled the battery, pulled the RAM, and pulled the hard drive out.  Coffee was seeping through every vent hole.  I  immediately called Dell Technical Support to see if my ADP warranty covered this.  After spending a few minutes on hold and entering various numbers into their system, I was greated with a gentleman by the name of Jhonson.  He told me not to worry, that liquid spills were covered under my warranty and that he would put in an order for Dell to ship out another laptop.  He explained to me that Dell no longer offered Windows XP and that my replacement laptop would be bundled with Vista.  He also explained that Dell would never downgrade a piece of hardware and that the upgrade procedure the technicians would take would be to match as closely as possible the line-by-line printout of my original order.

So I thought, “Okay, that wasn’t so painful.  They’ll try to piece me together a replacement laptop and in two weeks or so I’ll just need to swap drives and memory and I’ll be back up and running like nothing happened.”  I’d realized right then that the $400 I’d spent on the ADP warranty had pretty much just paid for itself.

Fast foward one week.  I get a call from Dell Customer Support at about 12:30 in the afternoon stating that my replacement unit was on the truck, and not 10 minutes after hanging up the phone with Dell, DHL was knocking on my door.  I had my replacement laptop.  So I begin to unpack the box, and it quickly becomes apparent that Christmas had come early.

Sitting inside the box was a 17″ Dell notebook computer with a navy blue LCD lid.  I thought to myself, “Inspiron notebooks only recently got colorful lids” and I continued unpacking.  I opened the screen, and my jaw dropped.  “Inspiron 1720″ was printed on the plastic above the function keys.

At first I’d thought Dell had simply made a mistake.  Maybe they packed up the wrong laptop or put the shipping label on the wrong box.  But then I realized. The Inspiron 9300 was outdated shortly after I bought it. Dell would have needed to upgrade every part in a custom built system just to get something comparable to what I bought in 2005.  Instead of spending all that time and effort, they opted to just send me a new, fully loaded, less-than-one-year-old “Certified Refurbished” laptop.

Here’s what I mean by fully loaded:

• 2.2GHZ Core 2 Duo T7500
• 4.0GB DDR2 RAM
• 512MB nVidia GeForce 8600m GT
• 2x320GB Samsung 5400RPM Hard Drives
• 17″ WUXGA+ 1920×1200 LCD Panel
• Broadcom b43 Wifi / Broadcom Bluetooth
• Webcam / Integrated Microphone

Here I was expecting at most a laptop that was a year newer than my previous coffee-laden paperweight.  What I got was a near-new powerhouse that is better in pretty much every specification to my old laptop, and even my custom-built desktop.

People can say all they want about Dell tech support.  I’ve never had an issue with them when I’ve needed to get a power supply or battery replaced.  Or, now, even a laptop replaced.

I would receommend anyone who is reading this to look over the warranty options when choosing a laptop, especially if that laptop is going to be in places that might be prone to…accidents.  The Dell ADP warranty saved my butt.  If its an option for you, I would recommend investing in the added insurance an ADP warranty provides no matter what laptop manufacturer you choose to buy from.  Most major manufacturers offer some kind of Accidental Damage Protection that covers spills, drops, etc.

If you have a similar experience to share, leave a comment.