Wow, Dell Chat....

[queshy]

Ok, so I'm getting into the market for buying a new laptop. It must be ultraportable, so I'm ruling the macbook out for the moment. Although I love OS X (I have a 24" iMac), I'm looking to get an extremely light/portable laptop, and there are better options than the macbook. Although I am still considering the macbook,. the small form factor of the dell is appealing. I think the macbook is great,but in this case, I unfortunately might have to go PC UNLESS apple releases somethign!

Anyhoo, I was browsing the Dell website and saw the D420 - 3lbs, no optical drive, pretty much what I'm looking for. I saw dell has something called "dell chat" where you can talk to a representative about your purchase decision. I think that's a great idea - but I am really disappointed about their lack of honesty as well as their general lack of knowledge about the product. If they're offering online support (live), then they should make sure that the people are at least informed about what's inside the computer. Here is the chat transcript. I was not trying to be rude/deceiving in anyway, but when I started talking to him, I asked him about santa rosa, and he said he doesn't know;. Then I asked him why I should choose the Dell over the macbook, just to see if he'd notice the "main" difference (size, OS, but the d420 is also significantly slower...). Here's the chat transcript: ( I edited out his name)


5:05:33 PM EDT (CA) CA Sales REP 1581 Hi Queshy
5:05:52 PM EDT (CA) CA Sales REP 1581 how may i assist you
5:05:57 PM EDT (CA) You Good afternoon, I just had some questions about the D420
5:07:32 PM EDT (CA) CA Sales 1581 sure go ahead please
5:07:45 PM EDT (CA) You Well, Intel's new Santa Rosa platform came out this week...do you know when I could expect it to be incorportated into the D420?
5:08:22 PM EDT (CA) CA Sales Wajid 1581 we don't have the information yet when it would be included
5:08:56 PM EDT (CA) You Oh, and another thing. I'm looking at the Apple Macbook also. Why should I get the Dell over hte macbook?
5:12:42 PM EDT (CA) You ?
5:13:12 PM EDT (CA) CA Sales 1581 Dell comes with Microsoft operating system which is very user friendly
5:13:32 PM EDT (CA) CA Sales 1581 Dell laptop comes with 3 year of warranty for better protection
5:13:37 PM EDT (CA) You Is the apple OS user friendly?
5:14:02 PM EDT (CA) CA Sales 1581 most of the customer say its not
5:14:18 PM EDT (CA) You How so? What do you think about it?
5:18:12 PM EDT (CA) CA Sales 1581 Microsoft is widely used
5:18:22 PM EDT (CA) CA Sales 1581 its better to go with latitude for better performance and reliability
5:18:37 PM EDT (CA) You Which will be faster? The D420 or the macbook?
5:20:42 PM EDT (CA) CA Sales 1581 d420
5:22:10 PM EDT (CA) You Hm, it says on the dell website the d420 has Intel Core Duo Processor ULV U2500 (1.20GHz, 533Mhz), and on apples website it says the macbook has 2.0 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo
5:22:16 PM EDT (CA) You is the ULV from lattitude faster?
5:22:39 PM EDT (CA) CA Sales 1581 yes
5:22:57 PM EDT (CA) You a lot faster?
5:23:43 PM EDT (CA) You and which of the laptops will allow me to store more information (music, video, etc)?
5:23:49 PM EDT (CA) CA Sales 1581 i may not be able to tell you exact difference but it would be much faster
5:25:06 PM EDT (CA) You Oh ok. And what about storage?
5:25:49 PM EDT (CA) CA Sales 1581 it comes with 80 gb of hard drive
5:26:09 PM EDT (CA) CA Sales 1581 you can store good amount of videos though
5:26:44 PM EDT (CA) You More than on the macbook?
5:27:09 PM EDT (CA) CA Sales 1581 yes, and d420 has more memory
5:27:37 PM EDT (CA) You Oh ok, thanks.

I acknowledge that the rep probably doesn't know about tem macbook, but telling a customer than a ULV is faster than a C2D, is just dishonest.

 

[miniConvert]

Wow... sounds more like an ALICE bot than an actual paid employee!

Very strange :S I doubt that this sort of thing is Dell policy or anything - just a really duff rep who doesn't care (or, if it's an outsourced thing, possibly a whole bunch of duff reps who don't care).

 

[Shadow]

I had a similar experience-and at the end I just had to say "Look mate, you obviously don't have a clue about what you are talking about, please do some research before trying to tell me Windows never crashes".

Its kinda sad that they have to lie so much...

 

[queshy]

Well, to be fair, both machiens have cons. and even if he doesn't know about the macbook in particular, he should have said the f ollowing:

The dell youre looking at is an ultraportable, and the macbook is a thin and light. the dell has to have a slower processor since it's so small, etc. most ultraportables have ULV processors, its hard to find anything faster, but for normal office work it'll be fine.

he also should have said that because the machien is so small, teh hard drives are usually slower/smaller as well, and thats why the macbook seems faster.

He shouldnt have said"most customers find mac not user friendly" when he clearly knowsn othign about the mac. the only debatable point he brought up was the fact that windows is more widely used...

the claims about the dell being "faster" and having better storage options is bogus, and to make claims like that means he doesnt know anything about computers. Its not his fault, its dells for having no training for these workers...

I mean, I still probably will go for hte dell, but this really angers me. I HOPE apple releases an ultraportable, Mac OS X is so much better once you use it!

 

[elppa]

If you want an ultra portable then I would suggest and waiting if you can.

Patience is a virtue.

 

[CrackedButter]

What did you expect? The guy isn't going to recommend somebody else's product.

 

[netdog]

At least he is paid to say this crap whereas we Apple fanboyz and girlz do it for free.

I doubt that there is a dellrumors.com site with the kind of traffic we have here.

 

[elppa]

In theory they might not be wrong.

Software plays a big role in dictating how fast hardware runs.

So if the Dell ran software which was far better optimised than that on MacBook, then the claim "i may not be able to tell you exact difference but it would be much faster" is not totally unreasonable.

In theory at least.

 

[janey]

to be fair, you'd have to be completely nuts to ask questions about competing products. no sane person will go to apple sales to ask about a Dell, and nor will someone else go to Lenovo to ask about Apple.

that being said, I know a guy who works at a dell kiosk at the nearby mall, and he totally dug my MacBook and said he feels dumb cause he's being paid to promote crap that doesn't look as good as any Apple product (he's a big art guy too)

 

[yg17]

to be fair, you'd have to be completely nuts to ask questions about competing products. no sane person will go to apple sales to ask about a Dell, and nor will someone else go to Lenovo to ask about Apple.

If I'm selling Dell products, and I want to be a good salesman and be able to persuade people to buy my crap, I should know something about the competitor's products so I can say "The Dell does this, this and this, and Product X doesn't and is slower" and things like that, and not be lying about it