Need a Centrino laptop for £600!

Myosin

Hello Techies,

I bought a Dell Inspiron 6000 following a lot of advice from you guys (thank you ) but unfortunately Dell have managed to send me a used machine when the invoice is clearly stating it will be built for me.

The first laptop (which I still have now) arrived with worn out keys, a faulty screen (dead pixels) and family pictures on the My Pictures folder. It obviously isn't a new one which is what I ordered.

I contacted them and they sent a replacement, however, the rubber pads on the bottom were badly out of place, so every time I tried to open/close the lid, the laptop slid around.

I contacted them again and they sent another replacement, again, the pads at the back didn't make contact with my desk surface. This seemed very odd, almost as if I was being pushed around by the idiots who work at their manufacturing place in Ireland - the first laptop grips any surface like glue, I wonder why not with these ones :mad:

It's worth pointing out that I did try them on many different surfaces just in case my desk was somehow curved.

I contacted them again, and they said that they would pick up the replacements and see what had gone wrong with them and why they were dispatched while faulty.

Before the laptops were collected I was contacted every couple of days non-stop. Since they picked them up I've heard nothing and when I email Customer Services I hear nothing back. I've had silence for the last month and to be honest I'm fed up. I'm still using the first laptop which is clearly second hand, not new, but have paid full price for a brand new one.
I contacted them today but they say that as they've already replaced it twice so they can only repair the existing one. Not to mention the fact that both units were faulty. They are prepared to replace the Hard Drive, entire Screen Unit, and keyboard, which is pretty much the entire laptop (apart from the actual internal components) if you ask me!

Anyway, It's a Intel Centrino 1.6Ghz, 40GB, 512MB DDR2 RAM, DVD-RW-8x, 15.4" TFT, Wi-Fi. I'm not sure if it's possible to get one from anywhere else for that price, if I do go ahead and get Barclaycard to invoke the Consumer Credit Act and actually withdraw the £600 payment.

Is there anywhere I could get an equivalent/better spec laptop with the refund? Or could I claim for the extra cost of buying a replacement elsewhere from Dell/Barclaycard? If so that would open up many other routes in terms of dealing with incompetent Dell. They obviously have no regard for customers once they have paid for the machines and can't be trusted to build satisfactory laptops. I've already started advising people against Dell unless they want living hell when something goes wrong with it.

I think this little picture sums them up quite nicely:


Thanks to Moneysaver "Intel" for this graphic :snow_grin . Really made me laugh - I would have emailed it to them to prove a point, but I doubt the people in their Indian nerve-centre would have had a clue...

steve_r123

PC World have got a Toshiba one with a very similar spec, apart from it is Celeron and not Centrino for under £600.

Toshiba laptops have usually got really good build quality, unlike every Dell laptop I have ever touched.

ichiban1962

wait till after xmas
and catch something better in the sales

Myosin

I was under the impression that Centrino was a more powerful processor than Celeron. That is the case isn't it?

Yes, I agree, Dell laptops are shoddy and poor quality. No wonder they can afford to knock prices so low. It's because you're getting a load of c***! :mad:

God bless the Consumer Credit Act, for I shall soon have my £600 back, not before Feb though judging by the average length of time taken to process claims.

£$&*"($£&(

Staple have one fairly cheap with good specs - check the cheap laptop thread at the the top of this forum. Centrino isn't a processor - Centrino laptops have Pentium-M processors. Yes it's better than a Celeron-M though not hugely though Celeron-M usually come with slower speeds. £600 on a Celeron laptop is not a good price.

must_dash

Just bought an Acer 1691 from Comet for £589 delivered.
http://www.comet.co.uk/comet/html/cache/572_263974.html

In a nutshell it is:
Processor speed: 1.60 GHz
Processor: Intel Pentium M
Screen size: 15.4" brightwidescreen
Storage: 60 GB
RAM: 512 Mb
Records DVDs: 8x

You also get a free Vodaphone connect card and half price case or USB2 hub.

Myosin

This looks like a pretty high spec laptop! I've heard bad things about Acer though so as I've already had a bad time with Dell I wouldn't rush to get an Acer Laptop at the moment, with the negative stories I've read and heard about lately...