Add the draft of the DELL post.

content/blog/dell_is_horrible/index.md

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+---
+title: DELL Is a Horrible Company, and You Should Avoid Them At All Costs
+date: 2020-07-17T16:23:34-07:00
+draft: true
+tags: ["Electronics"]
+---
+
+I really do not want this to be a consumer electronics blog. Such things
+aren't interesting to me, and nor do I have much knowledge
+about them. However, sometimes, ripples from these areas make their way
+into my life, and this is one such instance. Let me tell you
+{{< sidenote "right" "source-note" "a story" >}}
+I originally wrote about this in
+<a href="https://www.dell.com/community/XPS/Ridiculously-Bad-Support-Experience/td-p/7554383">a thread on DELL's support website</a>. Some of this post is
+going to be adapted from the support website, but some things have happened
+since. You will probably notice the change between the terse language I used
+in the original post and the fresh text that I'm writing now.
+{{< /sidenote >}} of
+my experience with DELL and their XPS 2-in-1 laptop, which has gone on since
+around January of 2020, and is still going at the time of writing, in July
+2020, half a year later.
+
+I was, until recently, an undergraduate student in Computer Science. I will
+soon be starting my Masters in Computer Science, too. I say this to make one
+thing clear: I need a computer. Not only is it a necessity for my major,
+but the majority of my hobbies -- including this blog -- are digital, too.
+Since my university is a couple of hours from my home, I travel back and forth
+a lot. I also have a cozy little spot in the
+{{< sidenote "right" "offices-note" "graduate student offices" >}}
+They're a bunch of cubicles in a keycard-protected room, really. Nothing fancy.
+{{< /sidenote >}}at my university, but travel by bus, so I find myself spending
+roughly equal portions of my work time at home and 'elsewhere'. A laptop
+as my primary machine, I thought, made sense. But it had to be a decent one.
+Persuaded by one of my instructors, who stressed the importance of vision and
+a decent screen, I settled on a DELL XPS, which at the time came with a 4k
+display.
+
+As is commonplace, things went great at first. The screen _was_ really nice,
+all of my code compiled swiftly, and even the games I occasionally played ran
+at a solid 60fps. I was happy with my purchase.
+
+There was one hiccup before things went really downhill, a sort of
+foreshadowing of things to come. My trackpad didn't work at peculiar times.
+
+### Prologue: Trackpad Hiccups
+While working, booted into Linux, I noticed that my trackpad was having some
+trouble. It was stuttering, and occasionally wouldn't work at all for seconds
+at a time. I assumed that this was a problem with the trackpad drivers on
+Linux, or perhaps the whole system was freezing up. I rebooted, and the
+problem went away.
+
+Until it came back.
+
+A few days later, my trackpad was freezing virtually every minute.
+It was strange, but fortunately, I'm used to a keyboard-based workflow, and
+the malfunctions did not affect me too much. It was just a little troubling.
+What soon made it more troubling, was that I noticed this exact same issue
+occurring on Windows. To me, this meant one dreadful thing: it was a hardware
+issue.
+
+I poked and prodded for a little bit, and finally discovered the cause:
+whenever I put my hand on the left palmrest, the trackpad would reliably stop
+working. Knowing what the issue was, I called DELL. I spoke to a guy on the
+other end, who had me run through diagnostics, driver updates, and BIOS
+settings (I imagined this was procedure, so I didn't mind doing the extra
+work to make the other guy's job easier). Finally, he scheduled a repair
+appointment. A technician came into my house, took off the laptop cover,
+and said something along the lines of:
+
+> Now look. They gave me a whole new motherboard and case to replace yours,
+but in my personal opinion, this is a bad idea. Things are bound to break
+when you do this. See how the replacement case has an insulating piece
+of fabric under the left palmrest, and yours doesn't? Why don't we rip
+the fabric off the replacement case, and tape it in place on your machine,
+without any reassembly?
+
+This man was wiser than any of the other DELL technicians, I now understand.
+The repair went without a hitch. He grilled me for going to college instead of
+just picking up a trade, which was cheaper and offered more job security.
+In the end, I felt a little weird about having a piece of fabric duct taped
+inside my computer, but the trackpad had no more issues ever since. All was
+well.
+
+### Service Request 1: Broken D Key
+All was well, that is, until the middle of winter term. I was typing up an
+assignment for a university class. I was working as usual, when I suddenly
+noticed that the "d" key stopped working - it had to be pressed rather weird
+to register on the computer. I looked down, and discovered that the key had
+snapped in half. The top part of the key fell off shortly thereafter.
+
+{{< figure src="brokenkey.jpg" caption="The broken D key shortly after the above events." >}}
+
+At that point, I was more surprised than anything. I hadn't heard of something
+like this ever happening, especially under circumstances as normal as typing.
+Regardless, I contacted support, and set up a repair appointment. Things only
+went downhill from there.
+
+Again, the appointment was scheduled, and only a few days later, another
+technician arrived at my house. The only way to repair the key, he said,
+was to replace the whole keyboard. They keyboard happens to be located
+underneath all the other hardware, and so, the entire laptop had to be
+disassembled and reassembled from scratch. He worked for about an hour, and
+eventually, he put the machine together. The words of the previous
+technician, who wanted to avoid doing exactly what had just been done, echoed
+in my head:
+
+> Things are bound to break when you do this.
+
+I asked him to test it, just to make sure everything works. Sure enough,
+not everything did work: the machine no longer had sound!
+
+### Service Request 2: No sound
+During diagnostics, the laptop did not emit the "beep" it usually does. This
+was the first sign. Booting into Windows, the sound icon was crossed out in
+red, and no sound was present. Booting into Linux led to similar results.
+The microphone on the machine did not seem to work either. The service
+technician said that he didn't have the parts to repair it, told me he'd call
+it in, and left. Soon after, I got an email asking for times I'm available to
+call: I said "any time except for 1-4 pacific time". DELL support proceeded
+to call me at 3pm pacific time, when I had no service. Unable to reach me,
+they promptly notified me that they are archiving my service request.
+
+This all occurred near finals week at my university, so I had to put the issue
+on hold. I had to maintain my grades, and I had to grade heaps of assignments
+from other students. Though the lack of sound was annoying, it wasn't as
+pressing as preparing for exams, so it was during spring break that I finally
+called again, and scheduled the service appointment. By then,
+{{< sidenote "right" "pandemic-note" "the pandemic was in full swing," >}}
+Just for posterity, in 2020, there had been an outbreak of COVID-19,
+a Coronavirus. Many states in the U.S., including my own, issued
+the orders for lockdown and social distancing, which meant the closing
+of schools, restaurants, and, apparently, the cessation of in-person
+repairs.
+{{< /sidenote >}}and DELL told me they'd mail me a box to put my laptop in, and
+I'd have to mail it off to their service center. Sure, I thought, that's
+fine. If it's at the service center, they won't ever "not have the required
+parts". I told the tech support person my address, he read it back to me, and
+so it was settled.
+
+Until, that is, the box arrived at the wrong address.
+
+I had received the machine as a gift from my family, who purchased the
+computer to arrive at their address. The box arrived at that address too,
+despite my explicit instructions to have it deliver to my current residence.
+Since my family and I live 2 hours apart, it took 4 total hours to get the box
+to me (a drive that couldn't be made right away!), and by the time I had it,
+DELL was already threatening me again with closing the service request.
+Eventually, I was able to mail the machine off, and about 5 business days
+later (business days during which I did not have a working machine, which is
+very necessary for my school and job) I received it back. I was excited to
+have the machine back, but that didn't last very long. As I was using the
+computer with Wolfram Mathematica (a rather heavy piece of software running
+under Linux), I noticed that it was discharging even while plugged in. I
+booted into Windows, and was greeted with a warning, something along the
+lines of: "you are using a slow charger. Please use the official adapter".
+But I was using the official adapter! I also tried to plug my mouse into the
+relevant USB-C port, only to discover that it did not work. I had to make
+another service requests.
+
+### Service Request 3: Broken Charging Port
+This time, I made sure to tell the person on the other end of the support
+call to please send it to my address. I asked if there was anything I can do,
+or anyone I can contact, and was told "no, just mail the computer in again."
+I obliged. The box arrived at the right address this time, so I was able to
+ship it off.
+
+In the "describe your issue" field on the provided form, I begged the
+technicians to send me a working machine. "Please", I wrote "Last time I got
+a machine back from support, it was still broken. I really need it for school
+and work!". 5 business days later, I received the machine back. I plugged it
+in to make sure it worked, only to find out . . . that the very same charging
+port that I requested be repaired, is still broken! It would've been funny,
+if it wasn't infuriating. How is it possible for me to receive a machine from
+repairs, without the thing I asked to repair being as much as improved?!
+
+Worse, a day after I received the machine back (I was able to keep using it
+thanks to it having two USB-C ports capable of charging), the LCD suddenly
+flashed, and started flickering. Thinking it was a software glitch, I
+restarted the machine, only to discover the same flickering during the boot
+animation and menu. Not only was the charging port not repaired, but now my
+LCD was broken! (in the below picture, the screen is meant to be blue, but
+the bottom part of the display is purple and flickering).
+
+{{< figure src="brokenlcd.jpg" caption="The broken LCD." >}}
+
+### Service Request 4: Broken LCD
+I called in to support again, and they once again told me to ship the machine 
+off. What's worse, they accused me of breaking the port myself, and told me
+this was no longer covered under basic warranty. I had to explain all over
+again that the port worked fine before the fateful day the D-key snapped. They
+told me they'd "look into it". Eventually, I received a box in the mail. I
+wasn't told I would be receiving a box, but that wasn't a big deal. I mailed
+off the machine.
+
+The UPS shipping was always the most streamlined part of the process. A day
+later, I was told my machine was received intact. Another day, and I was
+informed that the technicians are starting to work on it. And then,
+a few hours later:
+
+> __Current Status:__
+> The part(s) needed to repair your system are not currently in stock.
+> __What's Next:__
+> In most cases the parts are available is less than five days.
+
+A few days is no big deal, and it made sense that DELL wouldn't just
+have screens lying around. So I waited. And waited. And waited. Two weeks
+later, I got a little tired of waiting, and called the repair center.
+An automated message told me:
+
+> We're currently experiencing heavy call volumes. Please try again later. Goodbye.
+
+And the call was dropped. This happened every time I tried to call, no matter
+the hour. The original status update -- the one that notified me about the
+part shortage -- came on May 8th, but the machine finally arrived to me
+(without prior warning) on June 2nd, almost a month later.
+
+The charging port worked. Sound
+worked. The screen wasn't flickering. I was happy for the brief moments that
+my computer was loading. As soon as I started vim, though, I noticed something
+was off: the fonts looked more pixelated. The DPI settings I'd painstakingly
+tweaked were wrong. Now that I thought about it, even the GRUB menu was
+larger. My suspicion growing, I booted into Windows, and looked at the display
+settings. Noticeably fewer resolutions were listed in the drop-down menu;
+worse, the highest resolution was 1080p. After almost a month of waiting,
+DELL replaced my 4k laptop display with a 1080p one.
+
+### System Replacement: Worse LCD Screen
+
+I admit, I was angry. At the same time, the absurdity of it all was also
+unbearable. Was this constant loop of hardware damage, the endless number of
+support calls filled with hoarse jazz music, part of some kind of Kafkaesque
+dream? I didn't know. I was at the end of my wits as to what to do. As a last
+resort, I made a tweet from my almost-abandoned account. DELL Support's Twitter
+account quickly responded, eager as always to destroy any semblance of
+transparency by switching to private messages:
+
+{{< tweet 1268064691416334344 >}}
+
+I let them know my thoughts on the matter. I wanted a new machine.
+
+{{< figure src="dm_1.png" caption="The first real exchange between me and DELL support." >}}
+
+Of course we can proceed further. I wanted to know what kind of machine I was getting,
+though. As long as it was the same model that I originally bought,
+{{< sidenote "right" "replacement-note" "it would be better than what I have." >}}
+At least in principle, it would be. Perhaps the wear and tear on the replacement
+parts would be greater, but at least I would have, presumably, a machine
+in good condition that had the 4k screen that made me buy it in the first place.
+{{< /sidenote >}}
+Despite this, I knew that the machine I was getting was likely refurbished.
+This _had_ to mean that some of the parts would come from other, used, machines.
+This irked me, because, well, I payed for a new machine.
+
+{{< figure src="dm_2.png" caption="Ah, the classic use of canned responses." >}}
+
+Their use of the canned response, and their unwillingness to answer this simple
+question, was transparent. Indeed, the machine would be made of used
+parts. I still wanted to proceed. DELL requested that I sent an image of
+my machine which included its service tag, together with a piece of
+paper which included my name and email address. I obliged, and quickly got a response:
+
+{{< figure src="dm_3.png" caption="If it was me who was silent for 4 days, my request would've long been cancelled. " >}}
+
+Thanks, Kalpana. Try to remember that name; you will never hear it again, not in this post.
+About a week later, I get the following beauty:
+
+{{< figure src="dm_4.png" caption="Excuse me? What's going on?" >}}
+
+My initial request was cancelled? Why wasn't I told? What was the reason?
+What the heck was going on at DELL Support? Should I be worried?
+My question of "Why" was answered with the apt response of "Yes",
+and a message meant to pacify me. While this was going on, I ordered
+a
+{{< sidenote "right" "pinebook-note" "Pinebook Pro." >}}
+The Pinebook – a $200 machine – has, thus far, worked more reliably than any DELL product
+I've had the misfortune of owning.
+{{< /sidenote >}} It was not a replacement for the DELL machine, but rather
+the first step towards migrating my setup to a stationary computer,
+and a small, lightweight SSH device. At this point,
+there was no more faith in DELL left in my mind.
+
+Soon, DELL required my attention, only to tell me that they put in
+a request to see that status of my request. How bureaucratic. Two
+more names -- Kareem and JKC -- flickered through the chats,
+also never to be seen again.
+
+{{< figure src="dm_5.png" caption="Not much of a conversation, really." >}}
+
+Finally, on July 9th (a month and six days after my first real message to DELL
+support), I was notified by my roommates that FedEx tried to deliver a package
+to our house, but gave up when no one came to sign for it. On one hand, this
+is great: FedEx didn't just leave my laptop on the porch. On the other hand,
+though, this was the first time I heard about receiving the machine. I got
+to the house the next day, unpacked the new computer, and tested all the things
+that had, at one point, failed. Everything seemed to work. I transfered all my
+files, wiped the old computer clean, and mailed it off. I also spent some
+time dealing with the fallout of DELL PremierColor starting on its own,
+and permanently altering the color profile of my display. I don't have the
+special, physical calibration device, and therefore still suspect that my
+screen is somewhat green.
+
+Today, I discovered that the microphone of the replacement machine didn't work.
+
+### Am I The Problem?
+When the mysterious FedEx package arrived at my door on July 9th, I did some
+digging to verify my suspicion that it was from DELL. I discovered their
+HQ in Lebanon, TN. This gave me an opportunity to
+{{< sidenote "right" "reviews-note" "see" >}}
+See, of course, modulo whatever bias arises when only those who feel strongly leave reviews.
+{{< /sidenote >}} whether or not I was alone in this situation. I was genuinely
+worried that I was suffering from the technical variant of
+[Munchausen Syndrome](https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/munchausen-syndrome#1),
+and that I was compulsively breaking my electronics. These worries were
+dispelled by the reviews on Google:
+
+{{< figure src="reviews_1.png" caption="Most of the reviews are pretty terse, but the ratings convey the general idea." >}}
+
+There were even some that were shockingly similar in terms of the apparent
+incompetence of the DELL technicians:
+
+{{< figure src="reviews_2.png" caption="Now, now, Maggie, I wouldn't go as far as recommending Apple." >}}
+
+So, this is not uncommon. This is how DELL deals with customers now. It's
+awfully tiring, really; I've been in and out of repairs continuously for
+almost half a year, now. That's 2.5% of my life at the time of writing,
+all non-stop since the D-key. And these people probably have spent considerable
+amounts of time, too.
+
+### It's About the Principle
+The microphone on my machine is rather inconsequential to me. I can, and regularly do,
+teleconference from my phone (a habit that I developed thanks to DELL, since
+my computer was so often unavailable). I don't need to dictate anything. Most
+of my communication is via chat.
+
+Really, compared to the other issues (keyboard, sound, charging, USB ports, the broken or low-resolution screen)
+the microphone is a benign problem. As I have now learned, things could be worse.
+
+But why should the thought, _"It could be worse"_, even cross my mind
+when dealing with such a matter? Virtually every issue that has
+occurred with my computer thus far could -- should! -- have been diagnosed
+at the repair center. The 'slow charger' warning shows up in BIOS,
+so just turning the computer on while plugged in should make it obvious something
+is wrong; doubly so when the very reason that the laptop was in repairs
+in the first place was because of the faulty charger. I refuse to believe
+that screens with different resolutions have the same part identifier,
+either. How have the standards of service from DELL fallen so low?
+How come this absurd scenario plays out not just for me, but
+for others as well? It would be comforting, in a way, to think
+that I was just the 'exceptional case'. But apparently, I'm not.
+This is standard practice.
+
+### Tl;DR
+Here are he problems I've had with DELL:
+
+* The machine shipped, apparently, with a missing piece of insulation.
+* The "D" key on the keyboard snapped after only a few months of use.
+* While repairing the "D" key, the DELL technician broke the computer's sound and microphone.
+* While repairing the sound and microphone, the DELL technicians broke a charging port.
+* The DELL technicians failed to repair the charging port, mailing me back a machine
+exhibiting the same issues, in addition to a broken LCD screen.
+* The repair of the LCD screen took almost a month, and concluded
+with me receiving a worse quality screen than I originally had.
+* The system replacement that followed the botched LCD repair took
+over a month to go through.
+* The replaced system was made partially of used parts, which
+DELL refused to admit.
+* The microphone on the replacement system was broken.
+
+### Closing Thoughts
+I will not be sending my system in again. It doesn't make sense to do so -
+after mailing my system in for repairs three times, I've measured empirically that
+the chance of failure is 100%. Every service request is a lottery, dutifully
+giving out a random prize of another broken part. I no longer wish to play;
+as any person who gambles should, I will quit while I'm ahead, and cut my losses.
+However, I hope for this story, which may be unusual in its level of detail,
+but not its content, to be seen by seen by someone. I hope to prevent
+someone out there from feeling the frustration, and anger, and peculiar amusement
+that I felt during this process. I hope for someone else to purchase a computer
+with money, and not with their sanity. A guy can hope.
+
+If you're reading this, please take this as a warning. __DELL is a horrible
+company. They have the lowest standards of customer support of any
+U.S. company that I've encountered. Their technicians are largely incompetent.
+Their quality assurance is non-existent. Stay away from them.__

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