The Dell Inspiron - Don't Know What Inspired the Manufacture of This Laptop but it Doesn't Seem to Have Been the Notion of Efficient Functioning

OK, I've had enough now Dell. I'm not hard to please when it comes to laptops. I'm not a techie or a geek. I don't pore over computer magazines or discuss the workings of PCs and gadgets with friends.

I just want a laptop that works and nips about between windows quickly.

The Dell Inspiron isn't it.

I gather it's a bit of an 'old' machine now, or an old model, and I did buy it (in Avignon, in France) as part of a month-long promotion last year. However, athough it wasn't as expensive as some laptops it cost several hundred euros and I expected it to work reasonably well.

At first I thought the problem might be my ADSL line. I spend a lot of time online so that's where I was most aware that the laptop seemed slow. Clicking on a link produces a little wheel which turns.
And turns.
And turns.
Eventually you get connected to the url you want but it takes a lo-ng time, virtually-speaking. Cyber-minutes are a unit of measurement all on their own as every PC user knows. If you need to click links a few hundred times a day then a ten second wait after each click is quite a waste of time. The other problem with the Inspiron is that when you click a link, a window will open - but only a sliver of a window. Then it snaps shut. Handy! You need to go to the toolbar at the bottom of the page and go into the Internet Explorer space and click on the url a second time to re-open the window. It still re-opens it as a sliver but at least it stays open the second time so you can click to maximise it. But why does it behave like this? It seems to be straightforward daft engineering. If on the other hand it's my own daft laptop-use, how come it's so difficult to put it right? I've never seen an option allowing me to stop this peculiar process and just open a window normally when clicking a link. I haven't discovered any option for opening a window normally. Instead, I have to spend time dancing around the screen with the mouse every time I want to open a new window.

I quickly realised that Dell's uninspiring Inspiron isn't just slow online. It's slow all round. If you click on a file to open it, offline, it takes ages to open the file. If you want to delete a file, it takes ages to ask you to confirm deletion.

It's just a slow machine.

One of its most annoying features reveals itself when you want to turn the thing off. You hit the icon at the bottom of the screen and then go to switch the laptop off: "Arreter" in this case as I'm in France. Arreter is right next to
"Verrouiller" which locks the Inspiron. So it's very easy to hit Lock instead of Turn Off. Providing you do hit Turn Off though, the Inspiron decides to ignore the command. You can hit "Arreter" six or seven times over a space of ten to fifteen seconds before it will, you know, arreter.

I'm neither for or against Dell as a company. If anything I'm quite well-disposed towards them because throughout my career I've used company laptops that have always been Dells. I can't remember the last Dell laptop model I had but the thing worked well and never gave me any big problems (though it overheated sometimes...) True, the company paid around 1200 pounds for it I believe and the Inspiron is a cheaper 'non-professional' machine. But I'm just surprised that it performs as slowly as it does and has the weird non-opening window feature.

I contacted Dell's Customer Service one evening, described the problem and asked for help. But I got a stream of questions from the representative I spoke to. The call and email were both extraordinarly polite - but neither helped. Although, as I say, I'm not a geek and not in-the-know about PC engineering I would hazard a guess that Dell engineers and managers know very well what the shortcomings of the Dell Inspiron are. The Dell Customer Service people must have told them! Instead of trying to tie the hapless customer up in unnecessary and time-wasting questions it would probably be better if Dell plumped for one of two options when dealing with unhappy Inspiron customers.

The first would be to say: Haha. Look you're not a geek and bad luck you because every geek knows better than to buy an Inspiron. Go and buy yourself a proper Dell laptop now.

The second would be to say Ah, you bought an Inspiron? Actually, it wasn't one of our best laptops. It's pretty slow and it does this weird snapping-windows-closed-when-you-open-them thing. Plus it doesn't turn off very easily. If you want to leave the house you have to plan to switch the Inspiron off some time in advance. Tell you what - we're a huge profitable company. You've happily used Dells for years and years but you're having trouble with the Inspiron. We'll just issue you one of our newest zingiest extra-perfoming laptops as a goodwill gesture. You'll have it in 48 hours.

Fat chance!