Inspiron 9100 - Awful (Dell Inspiron in general)

Member Name: littlenick

Product:	Dell Inspiron in general
Date:	28/07/05 (345 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Wonderful to use...when it works - fast, seems to run anything you throw at it!

Disadvantages: Has been broken more than worked! Customer support VERY poor

Bought this laptop about 9 months ago, was a dream for the first 2 months. Then it decided to stop working, blue screens all the time. Sent it back, where they decided that the CPU had overheated and the fans weren't coming on properly. I got it back and it wasn't the same, windows would take ages to book up and shut down, loads of issues. Also said the memory was changing size. I tried to contact Dell - they would use this call back person, who said they'd call back but they never did. I gave up and decided to carry on using it. 2 months later, it started again, blue screens, changing memory size every time I booted up, and then finally it completely refused to boot. Got hold of dell who said send it back, but they warned me it could be a long time as they have no idea what is wrong. 3 weeks later it came back, still changing its memory size. More frustratingly though... they had replaced the hard drive and I lost all my work. I checked that hard drive and there was nothing wrong with it. Further to this, they put a far cheaper drive in of the same size, it was only because it made a different noise that a checked that. Had to contact them again, got new memory and new hard drive. It is eventually working, but it has only 3 months warranty left, and I dare not use it! After loosing so much work on it, I am less than impressed. I recommend avoiding Dell laptops; two other people with them have both broken and had to be repaired. Other brands do no seem to have any where near as many issues as this.

The good points when it works are:
- It's fast in general use and plays games amazingly well
- Good screen - once you use that screen at 1920x1200 you never want to go back to a normal screen
- Nice keyboard - i prefer it to my desktop one!
- Good quality sound for a laptop

Bad points are:
- Unreliable at best of times
- Awful track pad
- Looks cheap and feels a bit cheap
- DVD burner has never managed even close to 8x, says its highest is 6x in Nero, but it takes a very long time even for 6x to burn. This is even with the best of DVD's

Summary: Nice until it breaks! Awful at repairs!

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