Dell: 3, Momotaro: 0

About three weeks ago, I take my laptop to work and plug it in and start working. About an hour later, I notice that the battery icon is on, indicating that I'm running not on AC power, but DC power. This wouldn't be a problem, had it not been for the fact that I was plugged right into the AC adapter and not getting any juice. I was horrified.

I check the cord, it looks ok except for some small nicks in it. Upon further investigation, it seems that Mandy (our dog) had chewed on it some and caused an interuption of the wire path in the power cord. No problem, I write Dell Tech Support, and they tell that it would be no problem to get me another one. This was on a Thursday morning that they told me this. Friday morning, a little package showed up at the door, with a fresh power cord.

I try it out there at the house, and it works fine. So I go into work Friday night and it works fine all night long. This time, I just disconnect the power cord from the AC adapter, and just take the cord with me, leaving the adapter there at the desk. When I come in Saturday night, I find that it doesn't work anymore. ARRHH! Now this means I have to write Dell Tech Support again and go through the process one more time. They tell me no problem, and will quickly get a whole replacement out to me.

Tuesday comes, as well as another package. This time it's a whole AC adapter. But wait, what's this? The packing slip says "RETRO". Hmm, I think to myself, that seems odd. I open the box up and am unwrapping the plastic sleeves when I notice the plug. It's a square-ended type plug with three holes in it. Mine was just round with one hole. Well, it doesn't take Stephen Hawking to figure out that this isn't going to work. So I fire out a very angry email to Dell, wanting an explanation. They take a full day getting back to me with my information, and on Wednesday morning they tell me they will send me a replacement part. I sent a reply back, telling them to personally verify that they are going to send the correct part this time. I hear nothing back.

Last Friday, I get my third package from Dell concerning this matter. Horray! A complete AC adapter with matching power cord. I try it, it works. I gingerly remove it from the power strip, taking great care to place it into my laptop bag, treating it as if it were a fragile as an egg, and take it to work. Good news, it worked there too! And so far it's been working since. So I'm not sure if Mandy had bit something else on those cords, making the adapter useless, or if it was just wonky. In any case, I've got a working one now and I'm not going to mess with it as best as I am able.

I still have a high opinion of Dell. Sure, my desktop crapped out, but that was a power surge issue, and had nothing to do with the system itself. I had a friend do a low-level hard drive after thankfully saving most of the material, and I've slowly been reloading software on there. Runs like a champ. And my laptop gets a blue-screen every now and then, even though it's a little more than a month old. It still runs great!

And while Dell may boast the #1 position in customer service, and I've had the problems with them that I've had, I'm only going to assume that the rest of the industry's CS is completely horrible. If you've got a Sony Viao and it breaks, do they come to your house and bust your knee caps after pouring sugar in your gastank? Would Apple run up to your door and ring the doorbell after leaving a flaming bag of dog poo should you crack the screen of your Mac? Do the customers of Toshiba get a punch in the face if they are having IRQ driver conflicts?