Third Time's a Charm...

...maybe.

I finally decided to get me a laptop. I never actually owned one, just bought a couple before for my mom. The desktop computer at home was my brother's, and now that he moved, he took it with him. So, I was left with no electronic connection to the outside world. (except the phone and TV, of course)

I researched and checked out few of them during December. My minimum requirements were: 2.1GHz+ processor, 4GB RAM, 320-500 GB HD, 15"+ display, and 3+ hour battery life. I first found one Dell Studio that was a steal price for $549 at BestBuy web site, but it was not available for shipping nor in any stores in TX. After a couple of weeks, I gave up on that one. Then I found two others, Dell Studio 1745 and Sony - VAIO. Since Sony had smaller display and HD for the same price, I decided to go with the 17.3" Studio. It was on sale at BestBuy on the 2nd day of Christmas for $699.

I liked this laptop visually the moment I saw it. In addition to the nice specs, I liked the non-shiny, rubbery outside, the keyboard feel and side keys, and the wide touchpad. I also liked the 5+ battery life, although I was only able to get just over 4 hours.

The first thing out of the box I noticed whas that the plastic frame around the keyboard was not pushed in all the way in arround the corners. The keyboard was also just a bit warped in the middle, and pushing in the plastic didn't fix that. The keyboard was fine to type, but when the light hit the shiny plastic above the keys I could see the line of shade not being straight. There was also one corner under the display that when pressed would make a clicking sound. Then, after a few hours of usage, during restarting after some installation, I noticed a little red dot on the black LCD. It wasn't cosmetic, but one pixel was not giving the color.

All of these were minor, but the red dot really bugged me (even though it was only visible on black background). If you were watching Seinfeld as much as I did, you may remember an episode about a white cashmere sweater with a red dot on it, which the viewers never saw, but it was jumping at every character who looked at the sweater. That's how I felt. On the entire 17.3" screen, I only saw the one red dot when first opening the laptop.

So, after 9 days, I decided to exchange it. I actually miscalculated the weeks, and thought it was already 16 days since the purchase, so I was very happy that I didn't have to convince them to take it back passed the 14 day deadline for returns. We opened the 2nd laptop in the store to check the keyboard and started it up to look for any damaged pixels, and it was all good. However, that boot up also started the 'first use' wizard, which was supposed to guide me to create a recovery disk. When I came home, I could not start the wizard again, and had to spend hours (literally) on the phone with Dell to convince them they should send me the disk free of charge. I was successful with my arguments, but there were more problems.

Even with the first laptop, I was trying to get this one touchpad gesture feature to work, and talked, again for hours, with Dell to try to make it to work. The manual claimed that if I place the entire palm on the touchpad, I can minimize all windows. That wasn't happening and the touchpad properties didn't have an option to change such setting. I was told to upgrade to the latest driver, but that didn't fix it on the first laptop. On this second one, after installing the drivers and some of my software, it would freeze up. Even opening the Control Panel would freeze the computer.

Now, I work with computers all day, and am used to Windows freezing up, so I was patient through several tries. But, this is my personal laptop, and after it happened for 5 times, I decided it was not worth it. This one was going back, too, after only two days.

I was now on the 3rd Dell Studio 1745. This one had no red pixels, no warped keyboard, no clicking plastic. It also didn't have the ugly add sticker on the inside, and even came with the Windows 7 recovery disk (as a result of my first call, Dell sent me the recovery disk, but it was for Vista!) I thought - this one is a keeper. Third time's a charm...

But...

Again, went through the same installation process, and called Dell about the touchpad gestures. Finally, I got somebody who had the patience to do some research, and find out that the manual is wrong. The palm feature for minimizing windows is an old way. With this version of software, I could assign different actions for each touchpad corner, and when clicking on a corner minimize all windows. I liked that feature.

I also had to call the router company to set up the connection. The lady that helped me with the first laptop (which was on New Year's eve, and they were in India, working at 3.30 AM!) was very knowledgeable and walked with me right through the entire setup. The second time, I thought I remembered all the steps, but the wizard now wanted to reset the router password, which I didn't know how to do. When I called this second person, who was way less skilled, both technically and people skills, I got quite annoyed. It was also right after a 2.5 hr call with Dell, so I wasn't very charitable with this person. Luckily, with the 3rd laptop, I was able to establish the wireless connection myself in less than 10 minutes.

On the 14th day since the original purchase, I noticed that when testing the speakers under 5.1 surround setting, the sub buffer was not emitting any sound. I know I was able to get a test sound from it on the first laptop, so I decided to stop at Best Buy and have them show me how to do it again. They at first didn't believe there was a sub, until they looked at the bottom side of the computer. Then they tested their floor laptop, and it also didn't have the test sound. Their advice, since I already returned two of these, is to just get a new, completely different laptop. But I liked this one. I went home, called Dell, and after another 2 hours (It takes at least 45 min just to talk to the first person) was nowhere near to a solution. The first girl, after some convincing from my side that this laptop IS capable of 5.1 surround, had me download huge set of drivers, which was going to last an hour, because my wireless service was slow. The next girl, which I am annoyed that you cannot talk to the same representative, would not believe, first, that there is a sub, and second that I can have 5.1 surround. I kept telling her that I can see the sub speaker on the bottom, but the only solution she was offering was to walk me through the process of reinstalling windows so we can get back to default factory settings, so that she can show me she is right. Oh, how frustrating. She, and another senior technician she was consulting, would not consider that, maybe, their references were wrong and that the customer who has the product in front of her is right. I ended the call telling her, very nicely, that I was not happy with the support, the problem is not solved, and I don't want a callback from her.

After few searches from the web, and couple of hours of trying it myself, I found out that Windows audio properties dialog and another audio application have a conflict, and setting them in a certain way did allow me to hear the test sound from the sub buffer. At least it wasn't the hardware problem. Some wiz on a site posted how to set the audio to have the best base sound from the sub, and I went with that.

So, I am happy, and this laptop stays!