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Linux on Vostro?

Linux, Vostro products submitted by dfrandin Mar 8

I recently bought a Vostro 1400, which came with Vista Home Basic.. I'd MUCH have preferred to get the system with Ubuntu installed on, but alas it appears Dell isn't planning to sell Vostro laptop/desktop systems with preinstalled Linux. Of course, the system now has Ubuntu installed on it, and other than a few nits on getting the webcam/hibernate/suspend working, it was a piece of cake. I'd just have preferred to not pay the "Microsoft Tax" on this purchase... Is there any plans to supply Linux on the Vostro line of systems? 16 Comments »

Allow purchase of Ubuntu to Business Customers

Linux, Sales Strategies submitted by arthomps Mar 8

Some teams out there use Ubuntu for software development. It's ridiculous to be told that they can't sell you an ubuntu machine because they're sold only to consumers. 26 Comments »

Prompt for PC (Image) Restore

Operating Systems, Service and Support submitted by rohe Mar 27

Too many Dell users don't know about the existence of Dell's PC (Image) Restore partition. They reformat their hard drive and then post complaints and problems on the Dell Community Forum when it's too late to rescue them using PC Restore.

It's difficult to help them pick the right hardware drivers when they don't even know if they have on-board graphics or an add-in video card, etc.

Dell should consider inserting a new screen in their Windows Reinstallation software that pops up when a user attempts to reformat the hard drive and reinstall the OS. The screen should prompt the user to use PC Restore instead.

Obviously there are times when a format/install is needed (eg, a new hard drive). But in most circumstances, telling the user about PC Restore could get their system up and running again with a "factory fresh" OS in just minutes.

Ron 5 Comments »

Used Machines for Students

Education, Sales Strategies submitted by dgillam Mar 15

I read a blog here somewhere in which the person made a great suggestion. Letting DELL owners get a $100 trade in value on their old machines to purchase new DELL machines. The blogger suggested the old machines be donated to overseas. I have a better idea. Resell the cleaned machines to American junior and senior high school students for $100. This will not only encourage DELL users to remain DELL users. It also encourages new customers as the students come to like DELL machines and tend to have brand loyalty. DELL could dedicate an entire online site to official used machines for students in much the same way Toyota has certified used previously owned vehicles. DELL could even offer affordable upgrade packages to go with the certified used machines.

As a highschool Algebra teacher, I enjoy giving my students access to on-line support and homework help. The students who are able to take advantage of this are making great strides. Unfortunately, many of my students cannot pay even $500 for a machine. They could scrape together $100 and the monthly service fee though. 15 Comments »

Xtreme Audio Sound Card

Accessories (Keyboards, etc.), Desktops and Laptops submitted by volcano Mar 19

Xtreme Audio Sound Card is curently a express card for notebooks and is internal card a couple xps desktops. why cant dell give us the option of an Xtreme Audio Sound Card in all desktops and the option of an internal Xtreme Audio Sound Card in notebooks 4 Comments »

ATX conversion kit for XPS 700 / 710 / 720

Desktops, XPS products submitted by huggy_bear Mar 19

Apparently the upcoming XPS 730 is now using a standard ATX form factor for its motherboard (vs. BTX for the previous XPS generation(s), i.e. XPS 700, 710 and 720).
Since the XPS 700 was originally advertised as upgradeable at its introduction, it would be more than welcome from Dell to offer the option of an upgrade/conversion kit for XPS 700/710/720 owners to upgrade their system to the same ATX form factor (for a decent price). Kit would provide the following components:
1) ATX motherboard backplate mount
2) Power supply connectors/ATX converter
3) back panel
4) front panel I/O connector/ATX converter (power button, LED lights, I/O (USB/IEE1394), sound...). 25 Comments »

Fix the dell ideastorm link glitch that deletes parts of the sentence before it when you post an idea

IdeaStorm submitted by theideasman Mar 27

An annoying little glitch that can ruin peoples ideas and make them not make sense. Im sure its an easy fix so hop to it and fix it dell! 15 Comments »

Reorganize 'Tech Specs' Page in a Clear, Tabular Format

Dell Web Site, Precision Workstations submitted by sgogeta4 Mar 27

Problem:

1. The tech specs page should clearly list each and every specification of this laptop that is consistent with every other laptop tech spec sheet so that people can easily navigate and compare specs. Taking the Precision M2300 as an example, I search for the words "kg" and "lbs" and nothing found. This is simply unacceptable, these important specs should be easily found.

2. The headings and pictures are nice but the description lacks any technical information on your options.

"NVIDIA Quadro® FX 360M1
The NVIDIA Quadro FX 360M offers some of the latest graphics technology to produce extraordinary visual effects, robust wide-aspect LCD support and compatibility with all major business

http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/precn_m2300?c=us&l=e...

Solution:

1. As stated above, present ALL key information in a similar format for ALL laptops. This means we need weights (and how this weight was calculated in the footnote as in other pages); pictures of each side of the laptop with the list of each port; description of each option for each section (ie. on the M2300 video card section, it says you can have 256MB discrete memory but on the selection page you only have the option of 128MB discrete memory). Clicking on the configuration for the laptop:

Video Card: 512MB Turbo Cache memory (256 dedicated)

Option: NVIDIA Quadro FX 360M 256MB TurboCache (128MB dedicated)

2. Maybe offer a few more details (source from the nVidia page):

Memory Size Up to 256MB
Memory Type GDDR3
Memory Interface 64-bit
...
Max Power Consumption 17W

The tech specs page is for those who understand these figures (even if you don't, more information is always

http://www.nvidia.com/page/quadrofx_go.html

Dell should use silver-zinc batteries: safer, longer-lasting and can be recycled

Environment, Laptop Power submitted by jervis961 03/31/07

"Zinc Matrix Power rechargeable batteries deliver up to twice the runtime of traditional Li-ion batteries. They also have an aqueous chemistry that is not flammable or toxic. As a result of the inherent safety, silver-zinc batteries are not subject to airline restrictions. Furthermore, the key components of silver-zinc battery technology can be 100% recycled and reused, making it an environmentally conscious alternative to many existing battery technologies."

also see: www.zmp.com/images/LaptopFeb1.2007.pdf 36 Comments »

Offer CPU and GPU choices in ALL products.

Desktops and Laptops submitted by ah1f Mar 20

DELL should offer all of it's prroduct lines with choices. Each system should offer AMD or Intel CPU's. Each system should also be offered with ATI or NVIDIA GPU's.
This is as easy as an AMD and Intel mother board for each line.

For notebooks the video cards would not be integrated, but would be separate and upgradeable, using the same plug or slot format for both the ATI and NVIDIA GPU's.

Notebook upgradeabilty can be as easy as one standard plug or slot. even if the cards are propriatary as the current DELL offerings are the customer would have choices available now and in the future as GPU's improve. 9 Comments »

Dell needs to pick up the pace in releasing new designs

Dell, Desktops and Laptops submitted by jervis961 Mar 13

Dell is notorious for lack of innovation and has been making strides to change. Unfortunately they are still loosing out because they take to long to get to market and by the time they do someone else has usually beat them to the punch.

Here is an example: At CES this year Dell showed off an XPS 16 inch Laptop concept that has yet to make it to market.



http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/06/dell-showing-off-16-inch-xps-concept-laptop/

Yesterday Acer (who overtook Dell in notebook sales recently) came out with its Gemstone line of notebooks.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/12/acer-unveils-the-second-gen-gemstone/



"Coming in a special blue ("Gemstone Blue," how wild), the new 16- and 18.4-inch machines feature 16:9 1080p screens, 1.5GHz Penryn processors, 512MB NVIDIA 9650m GS graphics, and those Blu-ray drives we heard about. The graphics chip is at the center of Acer's new CineReal system, which offloads BD playback to the GPU and provides Dolby headphone output (and real 5.1 sound on the bigger model)."

Pick up the pace Dell. 30 Comments »

Add Blue-Ray To All Desktops And Laptops

Desktops and Laptops submitted by aikiwolfie Mar 22

Now that HD-DVD is thoroughly dead and buried it's time for Dell to take the plunge and start adding Blue-Ray drives to all of it's desktop and laptop products. 25 Comments »

Quality Checks by Humans

Service and Support, Desktops and Laptops submitted by lambchops468 08/31/07

I ordered a Inspiron 1520 and I am fed up with the issues:

crashed hard drive (first 6 days) (I will forgive this one, happens on every manufacturer, its just luck)
vibrating optical drive (shakes entire notebook, abnormal, new one fixed it)
Grainy Screen
Headphone Noise
Casing Defect (bulge in case seam, can see inside notebook)

I think that dell should instute a quality check system on the computers they ship out. Not just tests that can be run on the computer automatically, but a actual person physically inspecting/testing the function of the notebook such as:
- Grainy Screen/backlight bleed (go get a HP laptop and see the difference, go to the store)
- Headphone Noise
- Casing Defects
- Optical Drives that make too much noise
- squeaky keys
- and other issues that cannot be detected by a hardware check running on a CPU

If you do not have the finances to create such a program, then you can add the service as part of the warranty, with a garuntee that the devices that are checked will not have problems on arrival. (So therefore the QC is optional)

This will actually make/save money because people like me won't have to send their laptops back and forth wasting your shipping money/technician fee replacing parts that would be replaced anyway at the quailty check program.

you could also send a special survey to early-adopters to identify the biggest problems in a new computer line and check those at quailty check, certifying those parts free of defects. 45 Comments »

Windows XP and Blu-Ray on XPS m1730

Operating Systems, Sales Strategies, XPS products submitted by houdini Mar 21

I am buying an XPS m1730 in a few weeks and whilst going through all the options on the Dell "customize your laptop" page I was very disappointed to see that I could only order a blu-ray optical drive with Windows Vista and not XP. This is a shame as I don't want Vista, but I want blu-ray. At first I thought it was because XP doesn't support blu-ray, but upon further investigation I came across this forum (located at end of post).

You need to ensure that if a customer is willing to spend $5k + on one of your machines then you should include all possible options available. For example you could say that if a customer wanted to have a blu-ray drive with a XP O/S then they would need to buy Cyberlink PowerDVD Ultra to get the full use out of it, or you could just bundle it in a package package

http://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=21034 6 Comments »

Use better LCD panels in laptops.

Monitors and Displays, Laptops submitted by mlazarov Feb 26

In order for laptops to be a viable platform for graphical applications, the color reproduction and viewing angles of their displays must be addressed. Most laptops use TN/CCFL displays that suffer from poor color range and color shift. Dell should at very least offer an S-IPS/LED display option in their workstation-class laptops. I realize several of Dell's laptops already have LED backlighting, but there would a significant improvement quality if S-IPS panels were used.

Update: I thought it'd be best to illustrate the difference between TN and S-IPS displays. Below is a side-by-side comparison of a TN (left) and S-IPS (right) display from an off-axis vertical angle.

http://www.notebookreview.com/assets/10884.jpg

Having such dramatic color variation at different angles almost precludes any sort of in-field collaborative image editing or similar application. The laptop on the right is a (discontinued) ThinkPad T60p.



2 Comments »

Explaine why Dell recommends Windows Vista® ?

Dell Web Site, Education, Operating Systems submitted by yesmathew Mar 12

I saw many idea related to "Dell recommends Windows". Here is one more. Based on Home user or Business user, Dell website recommends either Vista® Home Premium or Vista® Business. Explain why?

So the idea is to educate user, why Dell recommends Windows Vista? Is there any page explaining why Dell recommends Windows Vista? hyper linked to heading "Dell recommends Windows Vista®".

Otherwise does not make any sense to just display "Dell recommends Windows Vista"! 28 Comments »

The New Phenoms Are Out!!! Waiting For An XPS Phenom Desktop...

XPS products submitted by fahdriyami Mar 28

The new AMD Phenom processors are out with the new B3 Stepping which fixes/eliminates the TLB Erratum Bug. These processors are true native Quad-Cores, and since a lot of people are complaining about options, i think that Dell should offer these Phenoms on their XPS Desktop Range...
Also a SPIDER Platform would be Great and most major components work together to offer the best Visual experience and extrordinary performance!!! 8 Comments »

More feedback from Dell on popular ideas

IdeaStorm submitted by pjeff Feb 15

I would like to see more (official) feedback from Dell on popular ideas eg. +1000 ideas.
For example, many people have been requesting an LED backlit screen for the XPS M1530. Look on any forum where this model is being discussed and you will see people saying that they are holding off on purchasing until it becomes available (I'm one of them!) so it would be helpful to know what is happening.

Another example would be illuminated keyboards. Saying it is "partially implemented" doesn't really tell us anything. We know you have done that! If a popular idea is not practical or its implementation is problematic for whatever reason, communicate back so discussion can take place. This is how brainstorming works!

I also wonder how many good ideas are overlooked because Dell believe the cost would be too great for the product in question. Be upfront about your concerns regarding costs. For example, you may find that Inspiron/Vostro customers would not be prepared to pay extra for a premium screen and illuminated keyboard but XPS customers are. Post polls so that members can vote on these issues and provide you with accurate data. We are here to help so use us. 7 Comments »

Dell's Website must work with Firefox running on Linux

Dell Web Site, Linux submitted by qgonjon 07/16/07 **UNDER REVIEW**

It's discouraging to have a Tier 1 vendor (Dell) selling Linux products and yet not really tailoring to Linux. Don't get me wrong Dell, I am not trying to take away all the good you have done. Offering Linux is a step in the right direction and I would like to see more steps taken in a monthly or quarterly basis. But, it seems that the basis for your current Linux promotion is for the Open Source enthusiast like me. I use Linux at home and at work as my main operating system. I use Firefox as my browser and I'm trying to order a Dell Inspiron 1420N. However, it seems that the embedded flash script that shows the different colors choices for the Inspiron is not working under Linux. It also shows that I can't see the different images thereafter. It works with Windows running Firefox as my vmware machine verified. But that is not the type of user that will most likely purchase a Linux laptop.

My request is simple. Can someone fix and verify that this page works well with Linux browser technology? So, that users can enjoy purchasing your Linux products and demonstrate that Dell really cares about their customer's operating system preference.

Dell I wish you the best in this venture as your success in this territory will help the Linux Desktop become a reality to the open source community.





72 Comments »

Start Warranty periods when the system is received, not shipped!

Service and Support submitted by markj2k Jan 31

I have purchased several Dell systems over the last month or so for myself, and some consulting clients. I've noticed in each case that the warranty start date is the day the PC shipped, not the day the PC was received by the purchaser. This needs to be changed. The order status page changes to show when the system was delivered, so Dell knows when the delivery date is. That is the day the warranty should start.

It might even be required from a legal standpoint in some areas, not sure about that. 15 Comments »