3-Year Std Service Package (Dell Laptop)

A

allendog

Registered User
Messages
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Hi,
Now that my Dell laptop (purchased 2000) needs replacing - i.e. no CD/DVD burner, limited RAM/HD memory (4GB), slow processor, battery needing changin ('orange' light flashing on/off) - replacement costing E200(!), I'm considering of getting a new Dell Inspiron 6000, with 80GB HD, Internal 8X DVD +/-RW Drive (don't know what that means!). What puts me off is - €497 for 3-Yr Std Serv Charge. Is that worth for peace of mind?
The problem is that I've a hearing problem and therefore I can't use the telephone for contacting the helpline/calldesk, and I found contacting Dell Helpdesk by email useless - no response for ages. In the past, I had no resort but to drive up to their Bray location for troubleshooting, etc. Now that PC World's opening a new retail store in The Park near Carrickmines, which is close to my home, I couldn't decide between getting Dell online and buying Toshiba or Sony or whatever laptop at PC World.
One more question - how can most of the data be transferred from the old laptop to the new one? There's no CD burner on the old laptop....
Many thanks,
Allendog
 
Re: 3-Year Std Service Package

allendog said:
What puts me off is - €497 for 3-Yr Std Serv Charge. Is that worth for peace of mind?
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I personally don't think so but then I would tackle maintenance myself. However, if you have anybody technical that you could call on in the event of problems then this might also suffice and save you almost €500. It's really your call to determine how valuable this cover would be to you, how likely you would be to use it and how much you would value the peace of mind that it gives you.

Surely that's a good reason not to buy the follow up service package?

Now that PC World's opening a new retail store in The Park near Carrickmines, which is close to my home, I couldn't decide between getting Dell online and buying Toshiba or Sony or whatever laptop at PC World.
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Is that another question or have you already decided on one or the other?

One more question - how can most of the data be transferred from the old laptop to the new one? There's no CD burner on the old laptop....
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See these threads for example:

 
I've found the Dixons/PC World extended cover to be worthwhile in the past. Note that they will discount the price of the cover by 30% if you push them hard. I didn't really use them for solving problems, but when I had a serious intermittent hardware failure, I eventually (after they attempt to repair twice) got them to issue a voucher for 1100 euro for a 2 year 10 month old machine, which was pretty good value to me. It meant I could replace it with a new machine at minimal cost (though I did have to buy through Dixons again).
 
I've purchased my last 2 PC's from Aldi and the last one from Lidl. Both came with 3 year On Site guarantees.

When I fried the motherboard of the Aldi (messing with bios flashing) I rang their help number and they had a guy out to my house in 2 days who replaced the board and brought me back to normal.

And that 3 year guarantee was FREE. Nearly €500? Mad!

Best reason ever for purchasing from Aldi/Lidl (Targa/Medion brands).

There is bound to be another PC offer from one of them soon.
 
I agree that is OTT.....and a company called Lenovo will compete against Dell in the next few months you watch all that OTT service crap will disappear.
 
@allendog, go to pc advisor co uk and register, they have a helpforum that is the Db's so you wont need to fork out extra money.

noah
 
[broken link removed] also lists some great free utilities and support sites.
 
podgerodge said:
Best reason ever for purchasing from Aldi/Lidl (Targa/Medion brands).

There is bound to be another PC offer from one of them soon.
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Look [broken link removed].

A three-year warranty is indeed a wonderful thing, especially when something major goes wrong in month #13...

Lidl won't offer any sort of technical support, obviously, but the thought that — without paying a penny extra! — you can just bring it back and get your money back, any time between now and October 2008, has to be a colossal perk — whatever you might think of the bang-for-buck value of that laptop's specs.

Aside: I've yet personally to hear of someone having to bring back a Lidl/Aldi laptop. Anyone got any tales to tell? I know I've never had a minute's hassle from them when returning low-value items (<€100), but I wonder how "no-quibble" they are when it comes to higher-value stuff like laptops. Logically, they'd be on a right loser if they entertained every single "gimme-my-money-back" claim in the 35th month...
 
I recently bought a PC off Dell for my parents and they were very pushy on the Warranty deal.It took 3 phone calls and eventually a supervisor to tell me I had a one year warranty as standard,but it could take weeks or months to get my PC repaired.However if I paid an extra 60 Euro for a 1 year warranty I would have it fixed in 2 days.I was also told that I may have to prove the defect was Dell's fault if I went with the standard warranty!Pity there's no BBC type consumer programs in Ireland you could report this too.
 
DrMoriarty said:
but the thought that — without paying a penny extra! — you can just bring it back and get your money back, any time between now and October 2008
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I don't know that this is true - my experience as I outlined a few posts ago was that you ring the Targa helpline and they send someone out to fix it - if they can't fix it they probably have to replace it, but I don't know if the warranty allows you to just get the money back?
 
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