Mac vs. PC: Either Way You're Screwed When It Breaks
Despite having written for the Internet the last four years, Ive never been particularly techsavy, so you might think Im unqualified to write a column comparing Dell's computer repair customer service to Apple's. But this is no tech-head review. Instead, Im only reporting the events of my last week when a perfect storm of mishaps combined to break both my Dell laptop and Mac PowerBook. The timing was especially cruel as I'd just fired up my Twitter account and now my ability to recount my glorious life in real time was more limited (jumping into the void with opportunistic greed was my co-columnist Dan O'Brien, selfishly sucking up all the twitciples he could find while I was away. You're welcome, Dan!).
Anyway, here's my story...
Dell PC
The Breaking
I bought my Studio Dell laptop halfway through the run of Hate By Numbers and I gotta tell you, it started falling apart instantly. The screws came out, converting the the cheap plastic casing into a snap trap for my arm hair. Nevertheless, because I am a professional (and because I now no longer have any arm hair) I kept using it. Shortly thereafter though, the hinges gave way and the screen got all wobbly. Still, I remained undeterred until last week when the computer suddenly stopped charging. I decided to remedy all these problems at once. I knew that meant I might be without my laptop for a few weeks, but I still had my Mac. What could go wrong?
The Call To Customer Service
I called Dell's 800 number and was instantly directed to India. Apparently, Dell has found a way to make money off of America's racism and/or xenophobia because now --for an additional fee-- you also have the option of being connected to a customer service technician "right here in America" (I think this ploy will be more successful than the automated message they had first considered: "If you hate talking to brown people, push '1'"). Anyway, because I love people of all races and creeds and because there was no way I was paying Dell one more cent for their crap laptop, I opted to hold for an Indian technician. I was greeted by a "Raj" who filled my head with Slumdog Millionaire images. (no, Raj was not gouging out a singing boy's eyes with a spoon. I meant the tech support scene.) Raj quickly displayed his near-perfect English and startling systematic diagnostic prowess:
Raj:
Good morning, sir. What seems to be the problem?
Me:
My computer won't charge. I've tried several outlets. But the light on the plug's not lighting up. So I think it's just a plug problem.
Raj:
I see. Very good, sir. Have you tried more than one outlet, sir?
Me:
Yes.
Raj:
OK, very good, sir. Now if you look at that plug, You will see a little green light. Do you see it?
Me:
Yes.
Raj:
Is it lit?
Me:
No.
Raj:
Is it plugged in?
Me:
Yes.
Raj:
OK. Very good, sir. There are two options. Either there is a problem with the computer or with the plug. At this point, I think it's the plug, because the green light on it is not lit. Is that correct?
Me:
Yes.
Raj:
OK, then at this point sir, I am 99 percent sure the problem is with the plug. I will mail you a new plug --that is no problem, sir-- and when you receive it, plug it in and if it works then everything is fine and there is no problem sir.
I should have left it at that, but sensing the possible return of my Hate By Numbers series, I thought this was the perfect time for me to get the whole unit serviced. Apparently, that posed a dilemma for Raj. For reasons I still don't understand, I couldn't mail the whole unit back to Dell until we solved that one percent of doubt as to whether the plug or the computer was the problem. Accordingly, Raj suggested he ship the plug, I try out my computer and make sure all works well, and then ship the whole unit off to Dell. He also stressed that I not ship back the good plug ("I fear the techs will lose it, sir"). And lastly, Raj suggested that I remove the hard drive before sending. Accordingly, he walked me through the removal of eight screws (four external and four internal) and the disconnecting and removal of the hard drive from the memory board. That took about 10 minutes. After the procedure, this exchange occurred...
Raj:
So you've now removed the hard drive, sir?
Me:
Yes. Now what?
Raj:
Very good, sir. OK. Now put the hard drive back and close up the computer.
Me:
What?! Why?
Raj:
Well, you'll need the hard drive to test out the computer when the plug comes.
Me:
Then why did you make me remove it right now?
Raj:
Well, I wanted to make sure you know how to remove it for when you have to.
Raj then took another 10 minutes to give me an ID number for the plug repair, an ID number for the hinge repair, an ID number for our call and his personal extension should I need further care. In total, the call lasted 58 minutes.
Two days later I received the plug (yes, Raj, turns out the plug was the culprit. Rest easy). Oddly enough, the Dell mailing box also included mailing instructions which specified that I should include both my plug and hard drive -- completely contrary to Raj's suggestions. I decided to split the difference: kept the hard drive and mailed the plug with the computer. What could happen to a plug?
That was five days ago. I have not seen my Dell since.
Mac PowerBook
The Breaking
I never had much of a problem with the Mac. I always thought it was a sturdy little guy. And with my Dell in the shop I started using it for all my needs whether they be updating my Twitter account, Facebook account or latest Cracked offering. And then I dropped it. Mind you it was closed and only fell about two feet to the carpeted floor, but that's all it took. Complete hard drive failure. Also, like my Dell, I'd noticed some plug problems with intermittent charging in the days leading up to the fall.
The Call To Customer Service
I called Apple's customer service and was pleased to see that their support had not been outsourced to a foreign country. Ever resourceful, however, Apple found a way to make extra money even without Dell's "racists pay more" angle...
Chip:
Hi this is Chip. I see you are not registered for our warranty plan that would allow you to have repairs made free. Would you like to join?
Me:
But this Mac is six months old. Isn't it still under warranty?
Chip:
Yes.
Me:
So the repair is already free?
Chip:
Yes. So would you like to purchase and additional warranty?
Me:
No.
After failing to accomplish that attempted financial rape, Chip advised that it sounded like my Mac was suffering complete hard drive failure. He recommended I take it to the Apple store, and so, last Sunday at 10:30 a.m., I hit my local mall. I was pleased to see almost no line for the Genius Bar. Three modern day wisemen ready to help me.
But before I reached salvation I was intercepted by an Apple concierge who informed me that the store was only open for service calls.
Me:
Oh, that's OK. That's what I'm here for. I called the help line and they told me to come in.
Concierge:
Did they make an appointment for you?
Me:
I don't think so.
Concierge:
I'm sorry. Appointment only. You'll have to leave your computer and someone will call you in 24 hours. Is that OK?
I consented and filed out some paperwork, including a provision where I agreed to a $100 diagnostic fee.
Me:
Why do I have to pay a diagnostic fee if it's under warranty?
Concierge:
You don't. We never charge that, but we have to put it.
Me:
Why?
Concierge:
So that your order gets processed, but I promise you won't be charged.
Me:
But I'm signing a piece of paper giving you permission to?
Concierge:
Yes. You have to give us permission to charge you so we can service it without charge.
I knew that didn't sound right, but I was tired and the concierge had really bad breath so I didn't feel like arguing. Accordingly, I took my revenge by converting my last name to Scottish before signing the paperwork.
The Follow Up
Despite the promised 24-hour contact time, I did not receive my call from Apple for another 36 hours. Sure, they claimed there was some mix up with differing names on the account (Gladstone vs. MacSucks) but that's hardly an excuse. The phone rep predicted full hard-drive and plug repair in three to five days. Yesterday at 2 P.M., I received a call that the Mac was fixed. I drove to the mall and picked my bad boy up, but realized (just before leaving) that they had neglected to return my plug. Apparently the tech guys had lost that. And after just 10 more minutes of waiting they found a new one for me.
Final Analysis
I'm not going to pick a winner. I mean, yeah, Apple has more repair outlets so I avoided the mail and their turnaround time was pretty impressive--a total of three business days. But both Dell and Apple tried to screw me out of money. Both were bogged down in bureaucratic procedure. And most importantly, both manufactured a laptop that fell to pieces in under a year. Like I said at the start, I'm no expert. Just a man who lived through the cataclysmic events of dual laptop failure. I've waded through the morass of customer service and lived to tell the tale. Does that make me a hero? In a way. Yes.
Learn more about Gladstone at Kafka Lives in Maine
well.. first things first. regardless of what type of laptop you own, if the laptop is on when you drop it, there is a VERY high chance of messing up your hard drive. I have had friends who have dropped their macbooks(off) a few flights of stairs (in bag of cos) and another who dropped it on the bus (which then slid from where we were sitting up the back to a little past half way) and the most they got was bumps and scratches.
ReplyThe busted hard drive issue, you actually can't blame on Apple. Platter-based HDDs, unlike newer and much more expensive solid-state drives (essentially a huge USB stick), go apeshit if dropped in a way that the read/write head scratches the disk. I'm thankful that my (HP) laptop hasn't had issues, since it's been yanked off the table by someone tripping over the charger cable twice.
ReplyI used to be an Apple technician. And all PC/Mac biases aside, I'd probably blame your local electricity. The likelihood of both chargers going in such a short span is very low.
ReplyIn my store, we'd go weeks without seeing any power issues, then bam, one week we'd see 15+ phones or Macs that wouldn't charge. We determined these to be caused by a widespread undervoltage situation.
In an under voltage situation a Surge protector doesn't help. A voltage regulating UPS is required.
Before you throw Apple/Dell under the bus, keep in mind it could be your power company.
B
Learned a long time ago that Apple's quality is very consistent at the general level, but the quality of specific parts can be flaky.
I, too, would pick a Dell over a Mac any day, but mostly because I know how to set it up right. I also follow the advice my father gave me with regards to using new stuff: make sure all the screws are tightened before you use it.
ReplyI just have to say i would pic a dell any day over an apple just for the price factor
ReplyBig fan of whitespace, are we?
ReplyIt's not always about racism, you know. Those guys are really f*****g hard to understand. I once got transferred 4 times because I couldn't understand the first 3 people. Got tired of it and said, "Can you please transfer me to someone who speaks English as their native language?" and to my surprise, they did it. No charge. Granted, this was Straight Talk's customer service line, but sometimes I would gladly pay an extra flat fee to speak with a native English speaker. Sometimes, it's not about racism. It's about the frustration of not being able to understand foreign accents due to growing up in a predominantly white community. Of course, sometimes it is racism. People hear a guy from India and think "Raghead terrorist! Me SMASH!" Those people are idiots, but still, I can see where there'd be a market for it for that purpose. All in all, it just causes frustration for everyone. The caller, the poor underpaid bastard on the other end of the line, everyone. Outsourcing call centers should be heavily taxed or outright banned.
Replyuhm... okay, you really should pick Apple as the winner here...
ReplyYou let your laptop fall to the ground. It was "only" 2-feet you say, but that does not matter. The reason is most likely a head-crash on your hard-drive, which can just happen when you let your laptop fall to the ground. That is a error which comes from the usage of mechanical drives - nothing wrong with the laptop here. 2 feet is 2 feet to high for a laptop. A laptop should fall about 0 feet at any given moment in order to keep it operational.
Plus: A turnaround of 3days? That is impressive and really fast - that is not even a full week.
And as you could see on your form: The 100$ are subject of the ToS you have to accept beforehand. Now go and read the ToS - they will tell you that you do not have to pay the 100$ if you use your warranty. I totally can understand why they are doing this and it is toally okay - just check the ToS before you sign, if you do not? Your loss. You want something from a company which sells millions of hardware every year - they have to be at least a little bit "bureacratic".
(Disclaimer: I do not buy into Apple, but their Cusomter Service is pretty impressive)
He doesn't have to pick a winner. The judge is allowed to disqualify them both if they are both awful.
I had a Dell Studio laptop for a little over a year, and I had the same wobbly-screen, breaking-hinges problem. Switched to an HP and will never go back.
ReplyMy HP has both those problems!
I have an HP computer that is 8-10 years old and runs fine. The only problems I have with it is that it restarts sometimes.
ReplyI started having problems with my Macbook about a year ago (the screen wouldn't stay asleep even with the lid closed, and the letter V wouldn't work for a while, then eventually anytime I could type anywhere it would do like a thousand V's until I pressed another key. Then when I had to press another key sometimes a V would be inserted along with the key that I pressed.)
ReplyAnyway I took it to the Apple store and they offered to fix it (though they too asked for a diagnostic fee) for free even though my warranty was a month or two expired. But first I had to back up all my data since them tinkering with it could "potentially erase important files" and by the time I actually did get all my files backed up the laptop magically fixed itself. I'm using it to type this comment right now and I haven't had another problem since.
Kinda weird that it would happen in the first place but even more bizarre that the problem just reversed itself just as rapidly as it came.
As much as I hate Apple (although I hate Dell too, I just f**king build all my computers - and yes, you can build laptops), this was a bit of an uneven comparison. The Dell just fell apart because it's s**tty, like many Dells tend to be. And you even had the more expensive Studio, which is actually a step above the total f**kup of the Inspiron series. The Mac on the other hand only broke when you dropped it, and Apple did you a favor by fixing it for free even though you technically voided the warranty.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesApple uses good hardware and their warranty for the first year is better than most, my main issue with them is that Apple as a company and the majority of their users are a bunch of conceited p***ks, their products are overpriced for outdated hardware plus a knockoff of Linux for an OS, and they promote stupidity when it comes to computing. OSX is easy. Like, really easy. Like, so f**king easy that if you put a Mac user in front of a PC, they'll sit there cross-eyed and slackjawed while pining for their Mac so they can retreat to safety. PCs aren't that f**king hard, they simply require common sense. You don't need to know how to replace your motherboard to be a good PC user, you just need to not be the dumbass that says "Hey look! It says if I download jellybeans-cookies-and-happy-sunshine-totally-not-a-virus.exe then I can watch every movie ever made for free and never have to pay my electric bill!"
TL;DR generally those that lack common sense use Macs.
Knockoff of Linux for an OS? Now that's comedy!
Oh for f***ks sake. MacOS is BSD for dummies. It's related to linux only in that the kernel is unix-based. Everyone copied unix.
Frankly, the people who take contention with Apple elitism/elitists are just as bad.
I have to say, I spilled an entire cup of coffee on the macbook pro I'm using right now (which I acquired through an australian government initiative for young people who don't live with their parents i.e: which I didn't have to pay for, which nullifies the extra cost of Mac vs. PC) about a wek after I got it, and it still works fine, not a thing wrong with it!
ReplyPlus, it has those awesome trackpad features.
That said, my windows 95, which I keep for sentimental value, has lasted ten years and still works perfectly, even if it is a little slow... my point - none, I don't know which is better.
Mac, for creative purposes, Windows, businesswise.
PS: I have read quite a few of your articles, and thoroughly enjoyed them, well done sir. It's not often I 'laugh out loud.'
Older windows got bad raps because it brought too many n00bs in who ARE responsible for 95% of the bureaucratic mess of call centers. Remember mr article writer, the idiots are out there, and they are legion.
At any rate, it's the newer WindowsOSes especially post-XP that suffer truly terrible mishaps. They're bloated piles of crap attempting to cram too much into too small a space. In the old days failures were all about conflicting hardware and ports. These days it's more on the software/OS implementation itself. Got Win7 because the boss enjoys his stupid little cloud, and 2k still for home&gaming. Unless it's something light and casual or specifically demands 7, I never put a game on that computer.
^ You loaded a Linux distro once and thought that made you l337, right?
you forgot to mention mac raped you when you bought their product. no I kid macs are great for people who don't want to learn how to properly use windows(I don't mean that as an insult windows is 3/4s of the way retarded and not particularly intuitive) but being the broke son of a b***h that I am I will always choose the PC that costs 25% less for the same hardware even though it involves 25% more punching myself in the dick when the OS gets all screwy.
ReplyYou should get an hp...i've had mine for 3 years, i pretty much throw it around and it still works great
ReplySame here. Except my screen has gotten a bit loose, but it's only a problem if I'm vigorously shaking my laptop, and I don't do that. Often.
Same here. Got a new cheap (300$) HP last year, and I've spilled stuff on it, dropped it (and more than just two feet) and it works perfectly fine. The laptop I had before it was a Gateway, and I only replaced it because it was old, and this one was cheap (and the nest broke on that one, but what can you expect from a dinosaur). That one fell off a bunk bed (and landed on the other bed before hitting the floor, but still) and then the clip on the lid wouldn't work, but that was it.
It seems to me that the most well-known companies make the s**ttiest computers.
Hmm. I needed a new tire, but instead took my car in for a full over haul. It took 5 WHOLE DAYS! Whoops, now I drove my other car head first into a tree. The engine doesn't work. I can't believe it took 3 full business days to get fixed. That must be corporate bureaucracy holding it up.
ReplySlight difference between dropping your laptop 2 feet onto carpet and driving head first into a tree.
I once slipped and fell on black ice while holding my 2-month old MacBook Pro. It was totally fine. It is just luck as to whether or not the hardrive is on when you drop it.
ReplyI sat on my Dell Latitude's screen. It said "CRACK!", and I realized, because nothing else was damaged, that was the sound of thousands of tiny bubble wrap bubbles popping at once. It looked like one of those lava lampy acid sequences that passed for special effects in the 60s & early 70s. I had a 3rd party shop repair it. They attached a screen they had lying around from a different Dell model. The screen intensity control isn't compatible. As you increment up, the brightness jumps around. You'd think Dell could at least pick an internal standard. But I picked a level and leave it there, so no problem. Kind of irrelevant, I know. Just thought you might like to know what sitting on a laptop screen sounds like. Good article, VERY familiar situations, and good for a giggle.
ReplyMy advent is four years old and yet to get a single problem. which is good, cause im officially f**ked when it does
ReplyI'm typing this on a Dell XPS. I got the 4-year extended warranty on it, thank goodness. In the 20 months I've owned it, every major component & most of the plastic pieces have been replaced at least once, some of them twice. Seriously I think the motherboard in this thing is set to expire every 6 months.
ReplyThe one good thing was living in a major city for most of these repairs & having a tech come to the house who wasn't above lying to her company to help me out with a faster repair, to get around Dell's heinous repair rules. Yeah!
So what you're saying is don't buy a Dell?