My new Dell XPS 400
So after driving over to the UPS depot to pick it up, I finally got my new Dell XPS 400 on Tuesday night. Drove home, hooked it up, and hit the power button.
The first thing I noticed was the awesome new and simplified interface.
I thought I had ordered the box with Windows XP MCE 2005 on it. But instead I guess I have some better version made by Dell. Rather than all those confusing icons and menus, my computer just says:
No boot device available - Strike F1 to retry boot, F2 for setup utility
See, simple! Only two options, and hitting F1 takes me right back to the same two friendly beeps and error message. Pressing F2 lets me click around many menus indeed.
Plus I had the chance to (so far) spend 111 minute and 58 seconds on the phone listening to relaxing music and speaking to people in exotic and distant lands.
Yay for Dell! And yay for my new Dell DOA 400!
Update: I guess I’m not the only one… Woe betide my Dell
More: Read my follow-up post to this one to see how this all worked out in the end. Not good.
July 21st, 2006 at 4:33 am
Man… GetAMac. ;-)
July 21st, 2006 at 8:05 am
Why, because Macs don’t ever have hardware failures?
July 21st, 2006 at 5:12 pm
Some tech from Banctec is supposedly coming over tonight to fix it for me. I’m sure this will be a wonderful time.
Grrrr….
July 21st, 2006 at 6:34 pm
Matt: They have. It’s just that they are CoolNevertheless™. ;-)
July 23rd, 2006 at 10:24 pm
Well be it PC or Mac, I can assure you I will never purchase another product from Dell ever again. It’s been an absolutely horrible experience from beginning to end.
After spending even more time on hold, I finally got a RMA number. So tonight I re-packed the DOA computer to drop it off at the UPS Store tomorrow for return to Dell. I plan to get my money back and wash my hands of the entire purchase.
August 2nd, 2006 at 7:10 pm
[...] I brought it home and promptly hooked it up and powered it on. The first thing I noticed was that for a supposedly “silent” case, it sounded like a jet engine. The second thing I noticed was that it was dead on arrival. [...]