Today for customers in the United States, we’re officially launching the first Dell Mobile app for Android. It focuses on bringing two core capabilities to your Android device 1) Shopping and 2) Support.
On the shopping front, our team worked to enable a secure, end-to-end shopping experience. On the support side, they focused on providing robust product support options on the go.
Some of you may have already seen Michael Dell’s recent update in Google+ where he asked Android users for feedback on the Dell Mobile app. Thanks to users such as Jacob Chappell for taking the time to leave detailed feedback. I’ll try to address some of the initial recurring questions and suggestions throughout this post.
As an impatient, straight-to-the-point shopper myself, I can particularly appreciate the app’s clean, simple user interface with easy navigation to popular items, tech specs, reviews, order status, and tech forums. Steps to checkout are short and straightforward, and you can track your order regardless of whether it was purchased through the app, Dell.com, or a phone representative.
As requested by Jacob, below is a list of noteworthy features the app includes along with those it does not include:
Shopping Features Included
- Categories allowing you to shop by All Products, Featured, Popular Laptops, Popular Desktops, and Electronics. You can sort items within these categories by price, rating, or relevance.
- Shop Assist – Generates personalized laptop and desktop recommendations based on criteria you indicate through scroll buttons. These criteria include budget, shipping timeframe, and priority of key features (e.g. portability, gaming, media sharing, social networking).
- Compare tool – My favorite feature within the shopping category. Simple but very useful, as it allows you to directly compare price and tech specs among up to three products.
- Customer Product Reviews
Does not include
- Configurability. All systems currently offered through Dell Mobile app for Android are pre-configured. If you’re looking for a particular configuration that’s not available on the app, Dell.com may be a better fit.
- Business product offers. We appreciate the app feedback and enthusiasm expressed by our business customers on Michael’s post, but this app is specifically intended for folks in search of home-computing solutions.
- Order Status – Track your order details by either signing into your Dell My Account or providing two identification pieces, such as your Dell Purchase ID and Customer Number.
- Community- Features forum-based assistance and information from Dell experts and other customers
- Help topics – Provides links to troubleshooting instructions. Keep in mind that these links take you out of the app and into the support.dell.com mobile browser.
- Videos – Allows you to watch how-to’s and trouble-shooting instructions in action
- Contact Us – Instant click-to-call feature for both phone sales and support. Note that while this feature lives on the Support view, it offers contact to sales representatives—in other words, the Shopping side—as well.
- Service tag barcode scanner. I know that some of you, including Hector Sotomayor have been asking for this feature. User Georges Merchak suggested a good alternative – the Dell Service Tag app for Android, (not developed by Dell), allows you to scan service tag barcodes and retrieve warranty info from support.dell.com. I tried the app myself, and it worked pretty well. The only inconvenience is the two-step initial install process: after downloading Dell Service Tag, you then need to install the actual scanner functionality within the app.
You can download the light-weight app through Wi-Fi or 3G by using any one of the several download methods below:
- Search “Dell Mobile” within the Android Market
- Text “APP” to 335548 – a download link will be sent directly to your Android mobile device
- Visit dell.com/appdownload – you’ll be sent directly to the Dell Mobile landing page within the Android Market
- Visit m.dell.com on an Android mobile device – a pop-up page will appear and give you the option to “Download the app”
Many of you have been asking for the app on different platforms and regions, but currently it is only available on Android phones within the U.S.—will keep you posted on any future launch updates!