Monday, May 11, 2015

5 reasons that Dell is a nightmare thanks to Google, Windows and Himself

In my many years of living (almost 30 years), I have gotten myself 2 laptops in my life. The 1st laptop was nightmarish at 1st (It was a COMPAQ CQ35). Oh gosh, how can I remember this? Because it was an amazing laptop running on Duo Core on Windows 7. The nightmare part was mainly because of Windows 7. One day, the OS just gave me blue screen because of the bluetooth software faulty. All my photos during that period were lost. Eventually, it redeemed itself being able to run ANSYS, HYSYS, MATLAB, SUPERPRO, AUTOCAD. Oh yes, those big names and not forget to mention that it helped me through my 3 years of undergraduate life and numerous tedious projects/ assignments/ final year project !

Then, before coming to UK, I decided to upgrade myself, well, which I thought to be. Eventually, it was more like frustrating marriage. For only RM 2200, the purchase was an amazing deal with all the free gifts and free Windows 8.

The specifications were quite good and just typical: Model Inspiron 15 3000 Series
  1. Windows 8.1
  2. Intel i5
  3. Nice keyboard but no backlight
  4. 4 Gb RAM 
  5. 750 GB hardisk
  6. 64-bits system

Let me talk about the gifts (the reasons I fallen prey) Hahaha, just too greedy for those goods:
  1. Typical free kits (clenaing kits, cooler pad, USD ports, headphones, etc)
  2. Power bank !!!!!!!!!
  3. A nice external speaker
  4. 8 Gb pendrive
  5. RM 50 Jusco voucher
  6. Dell wireless mouse worth RM 50
Yes, I love those gifts and I am happily using them now, especially the wireless mouse! Very nice to use! The main reason Dell Inspiron 15 is a nightmare mainly because of Windows 8.1 . I shall elaborate in details:
  1. The extremely slow response in Windows 8.1 -  I found out the the Disk Usage was 100% even though I just opened a facebook. Eventually, I found the solution as follow (here). 
  2. The google chrome decided to slow down as well - I found out that it was mainly because of Google Chrome default setting made it behaved as such
  3. The keypad didn't response properly. I need to download the Dell Software solution to get this sort out.
  4. Windows freezes whenever there is an Windows Compulsory Update!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (This makes me mad when I need to use the PC urgently) And, it takes forever to update the softwares like 15 - 30 mins (>_<)
  5. Dell's face recognition login is utterly an nightmare. It took me 12 times to completely remove from my PC. Yes, freaking 12 times!

Overall user experience (4/10) mainly due to 3rd parties compatibility. Anyhow, to solve those issues, it took quite a while. Thus, it is so exhausting to do checking programming, typing prompt language, rebooting non-stop. . . Perhaps, next time, I should change OS and PC. You can have a very good hardware but regardless how good it is, software eventually provides the user experience. Dell, I gotta to say that you have no choice but to use Windows 8.1, but that shitty Face Recognition please don't make it a necessity in your suits! Oh by way, this post also reminds me don't use own name for branding. Hahaha, when people complain, it will be the brand, not the person (^^)