I am putting this year in the hopes that it will reach someone at Dell who cares enough to do something. I am a first time Dell owner after 12 years with Apple. I was willing to overlook the fact that the keyboard started failing (one bad key) after 8 months, although it did make me uneasy about what life after my customer care ran out might look like.

What I cannot excuse is the AWFUL customer support. At first I was impressed that Dell did house calls. I now realize I would be much better off with a store to walk into like the competition. The cable company can give a 4 hour service window, but Dell forces you to be available all day. Friday I was expecting a call before the tech showed up, he just arrived. After 20m to completely disassemble to remove the bad KBD, turns out the KBD they shipped was not correct (packing slip was right but not the part). 20 more minutes to re-assemble. Being a qualified tech/engineer myself, I asked the tech if there were some hardware diagnostics he could run to make sure everything was connected correctly. "No, just search the web and type something to make sure it works" 20m after he leaves, I noticed that the balkiness was not getting better, battery indicator showed no batter (big X). THE TECH DID NOT CONNECT THE BATTERY CORRECTLY. Called support back, turns out there IS a hardware diagnostic that the tech could/should have done. They walked me through, battery not connected. After screwing up my computer, they could not send a tech out Friday. I had to wait through the weekend. I got an email saying tech would be here Monday (again, no service window, have to give up my whole day) To add insult to injury, THE TECH NEVER SHOWED UP, AND NO CALL! Nothing until I called service. Dell should be able to do better than this. I do not live in some backwater. It's Washington DC metro area.