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January 11th, 2025 21:10
Inspiron 15 3520, December 2022, CostCo, issue with hinges
We purchased Dell Inspiron 15 3520 laptop from Costco in December of 2022. Exactly in two years (right after Costco 2 years warranty has expired) laptop hinges got broken. After searching the web in attempt to fix it, we found that this problem is very common for Dell laptops. When we disassembled our laptop to get an access to the hinges, we found that it is clearly a design flow. If you are a very mediocre mechanical engineer, you will immediately understand that an idea to use self-tightening hinge pins is a complete nonsense. This pin supposed to be tight to the extend it can keep a laptop cover open. But if this pin with time get tighter and tighter, it would provide more and more stress to the screws attaching hinge to the laptop cover. Those screws are screwed to the plastic nests, which eventually break because of stress, and loose hinge damages other laptop parts. Who would design plastic nests for screws under stress? Dell did! It is really surprising that Dell has such a design flow for years and simply ignores it. If Dell approach is to force consumers to purchase a next Dell product when an original one got broken, they are absolutely wrong: we would never purchase a Dell product again. So question is: what Dell does to rectify this problem?
<Read the Dell USA hinge/hinge assembly policy DELL-Admin>
ejn63
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January 12th, 2025 23:01
Same for HP and Lenovo -- along with ASUS and MSI.
If you want sturdy hinges, make your next system a Latitude, Thinkpad or Probook.
The problem is simple: you cannot build a durable notebook and sell it for $700. Doesn't matter whose name is on the outside -- these are simply disposable notebook computers, all of them.
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ejn63
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January 12th, 2025 16:22
If the system is out of warranty, repair is at your expense. Consumer-grade budget notebooks are built to a price, and designed to last 2-3 years at most. You won't find the situation any different with an HP, ASUS, Lenovo Idea Pad, etc.
There are notebooks with much more robust construction -- Dell XPS, Latitude, Lenovo ThinkPad, HP Probook, Apple Macbook -- but they're in a higher price class. With any consumer grade notebook (Inspiron, Vostro, HP Envy, etc.) you get what you pay for.
MishaPO
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January 12th, 2025 22:00
@ejn63 are you saying that this $700 laptop has a purposely designed flaw that limits this laptop use to 2-3 years?
ejn63
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January 12th, 2025 22:16
Not at all. The reason the system costs only $700 is because it's built to that price. The 2-3 year lifespan of the system is directly tied to the unwillingness of buyers of such systems to pay for one that is designed to last longer.
MishaPO
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January 12th, 2025 22:37
I am an engineer and have been working on the design of consumer products over 20 years. I can assure you that the way Dell designed hinges is clearly a design flaw.
<Violations removed as per the Forum Code of Conduct to which you agreed to when joining. DELL-Admin>
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less than impressed
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January 15th, 2025 14:35
The right hinge broke on my inspiron 3520 so i went online for a fix and there is one that describes how to take the laptop apart and glue the hinge back in place. It had called for super glue so i purchased lepage super glue and went at it. I did exactly what was described in the video and i added a step by loosening the self tightening pins. The fix seems to have worked but i dont open and close the laptop at home i leave it open and just shut it down when i am not using it. I will not be purchasing any other dell products unless the hinges have a lifetime warranty.