9300/XPS satisfaction poll.

Very satisfied and couldn't ask for more. Major props goes to Dell for designing such a great machine and also their top notch customer service and technical support.

wheres the poll??

Satisfied hmmmm with what - a screen (Samsung) that Dell Australia Service says about the speckling "That's normal".
Personally the speckling/sparking is the least of my worries and in OZ we only get a 15 day from date of invoice "Total Satisfaction" Policy.

My 9300 screen even has a noticeably darker left hand side than right hand side. So to prove it too myself, I did the following:

1 x 9300, 1 X Tripod, 1 x Video camera (set for photo mode), 1 x Matt Black plastic sheet. 1 x Dark Room

1. 9300 booted up and ensure ALL settings on default AND and move all the icons to the centre of the screen so they don't muck up the photos.
2. Use properties to remove any backgrounds (at least one member of this forum sent a perfectly good screen back just because they and the technician thought what was actually the LCD screen was in fact a custom background) and set 1 colour eg White.
3. With Video set up on Tripod and all 4 sides of 9300 screen equal distances from the camera lense and set /adjust manual focus
4. Take one photo with lights on to prove its a Dell 9300 5. Lights Out totally dark adjust Brightness via function keys to say 4 our of 7 take picture of screen.
6. Set Brightness to 7 out of 7 + put the A4 Black Sheet over the monitor evenly so you can now see strip of LCD about 30mm or 1.25" wide on boths side edges of screen. Take photo.
7. Set Brightness to 1 out of 7 and repeat rest of proceedure of step 6.
8. Using properties again change colour to Yellow repeat steps 5, 6 & 7.
9. Continue with same proceedure with Grey, then light & dark Green, Aqua, Light & Dark Blue, then Pink and finally Red.
10. using a photo editor crop the black plastic sheet area out of each photo, merge and compare left with right sides.

Using my preffered brightness settings (to help battery life) - as I'm the owner
and it's only fair I should set it up how I like it, then there is a marked difference from left to right even with my basic tests.

Now the photos, granted, aren't the best as I was limited by my equipment (MPEG4 setting of 352 x 288), but you see my point in what I'm doing as I don't own a light meter or any fancy test equipment. If it is done in a blacked out room then they can't says "oh it's just the light playing tircks on you".

Well, Aussie Dell service says "Your talking about a very high quality WUXGA screen... blah blah blah........".

However I paid my own hard earnt cash (lets say over $4000 with giving the exact price) for this with the bloody expensive 3 year NBD/Iinternational warranty and I expect a product of equal rating.

'The screens are meant to be that way', he said "What, are you really telling me that the screens are made to be darker on the left hand side" I asked, "yes that's right" the tech said.

Well I'll be (*&#$%@##&#^#&%*(#%, I thought, obviously all this screen hopping because of mere speckles or sparkles, that goes on in this forum must be only allowable in the USA as they don't allow that sort of thing in OZ.

Can you imagine buying spending thousands on a New 28 or 40 inch LCD TV with the same difference as my 9300 between right and left, it would be going back quick smart.

The tech said I could take the matter up the customer advocacy - too bloddy right I will, before my 15 day "Total Satisfaction Policy" runs out.

As pointed out in this forum, Sony has the same system as these 1920 x 1200 WUXGA screens and theirs are fine they've managed to get their filters right. Why can't Dell get their screens right seeing that it goes back to the 9200 model?

I actually like the product a lot - and the XPS Gen 2 isn't available here in OZ, except why couldn't it have the gigabit networking (10/100/1000) which I have other network gear to match.

In OZ, to my knowledge, we only have 1 Dell retail shop and given the hassles many of us have had it'll probably be the only one EVER as they'd prefer you don't know the truth until it arrives in the privacy of your own home were you can't compare apples with apples.

If I keep it I'll be really surprised as the left/right difference is just to hard to avoid seeing. If it was $1,500 dollars cheaper that would be a different matter. I may have a look at the XPS Gen2 if it comes to Australia but as they have the same screens I'd be extremely dubious.

Cheers


Oh and don't forget: Happy customers stay happy, angry customers tell others and they all take their business elsewhere.

Omg the more I read these reviews the more I need to wear brown undies.
Proud - that's just f*cked up man - I hope the Dell people do the right thing so we both can relax some. Please tell us what happens. I'm in Australia as well......

Maybe the Dell-Monkey you got has some posterior central nervous system problem so that the left side of space always looks different to the right. Maybe he was one of those experimental monkeys that we deliberately head-injure but escaped from the lab and then got a job at Dell

- waiting for i9300 with WXUGA and now freaking out a little about it all considering the 3k down on the plastic-money-card-of-Satan

Proud9300, Don't they have the same no questions asked return policy in Oz as they do in the US? I can't believe Dell management is telling its reps to tell their customers that light leakage and screen sparkles is now considered normal. When Dell sent me my 9300, the screen was horrid, completely unacceptable. Now it's been replaced and is fine now. I bet there are tons of people who are just tolerating their poor screens because they don't want to deal with the hassles or even worse, don't know any better.

Well I'm properly p*ssed . .not at the 9300, because I haven't got it yet! My notebook has been sitting in the warehouse for a week! (long story) And whenever I call Dell they tell me "It'll be there tomorrow" . . one rep even assured me that "It'll be there in 10 minutes". . riiiiight... Turns out that they didn't schedule a re-delivery with the courier, so nobody knew where it was. . Can't even cancel the order because they want me to pay $100, even though I haven't even seen the thing.. Dell has got serious problems with their logistics, not just their QC. In oz btw..

Couldn't be happier with my XPS2 -- LG screen and all. If you don't like the computer, return it and move on.

I am happy with my XPS2 purchase and I am continually impressed by the capability of the lil bugger. I had a nice 3 hour online session of coop Splinter Cell last night that was simply awesome!

Jury is still out for me.
Been using it for a week now for work and its great.
Here is my mini review.

LG screen is ok. There is not really any other options that I see for a 17" WUXGA screen. I love the keyboard. (cant say that enough because i have used many notebook keyboards and this is the bomb.) I am having some techinical problems. All calls to tech support have been very smooth, less than 5 minutes wait time. But if I cant get some solved to my satisfaction in another week, I may return it and try the Sony A600 series. I do love that screen but not the keyboard. If I do I am pretty sure Ill end up comming back to Dell after using it for a week or so, and maybe then Ill get an XPS2 that does not have the issues.

Technical issues asside, I give it an 8 of 10. Awe factor from co-workers arount the office is really cool, but its starting to wear off after a week. Playing Wow at 1920x1600 with all settings on high is a sight to see, I could probably charge admission.

If it had the Sony screen it would be an 11.

My i9300 is now in "boxing", as in at my front door waiting for a UPS pickup.



I will probably order an XPS2 at some point in the near future. At this point I am waiting on coupons and also to hear from other XPS2 users to see how happy they are with their system.

I LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LG and all!!!!!!

so far, very pleased!

I'll give it a 9...cause nothing's perfect.
It's my first lappy and I love it. I've had no problems with it, either. *knock on wood*

Not satisfied with my 9300...sent it back.

The screen was terrible...grainy grays where I should see whites, etc.

Now I like the machine a lot! Wireless worked well, I like the size and feel of the machine...all that was very nice, *except* for the most important part...the screen.

Why Dell actually shipped this machine, I am unsure. And for them to post a tech note talking about the "blurry effect"? Come on! That's absurd.

Can you imagine this sort of response in other industries?
Ford Automotive: "Yes, we designed the new mustang to pull hard to the right! It is not a flaw, but a feature."

Toasmaster: "the 'blackness' on your toast, that you are referring to as 'burnt', is actually something we designed into the toaster. We are using the latest toaster burners in the industry, and the 'blackness' that you are experiencing is normal for this technology."

Other vendors (Sony, Tosh, etc.) are using first class, clean and clear displays on their machines...there is no reason that Dell cannot do the same.

I sent mine back, and am going to wait a few months to see what comes of all this. My hopes are for a 9400 or a 9300 v2. Fortunately, my desktop is my primary machine, and the laptop is something that make the job a bit more convinient at times.

that's not good. It seems to be hit or miss as to who gets acceptable screens with both the 9300 and the XPS2. It's a bit of a shame considering that both models have nice configs that would be quite popular were it not for the inconsistancy of the damn screens. I'm just counting my blessings. Usually if something can go wrong, it always happens to me. So this is a refreshing change

So far I am satisfied. I have only had the computer for 3 days. I have the LG screen. There is light leakage at the bottom. No sparkles. White screens look fine as well as other colored bacgrounds. I have the 9300.

Completely satisfied. I received the thing several weeks ago, and thought when I first opened it that the hardest thing to get used to would be the REFLECTIONS, which are really weird for somebody used to a non-glossy screen (had the XPS1)...but, what do you know? I was not only 'used' to the glossy screen after the first day, I couldn't look at my XPS1 matte screen without wanting to puke! I keep thinking even now, 'How did I stare at that thing for so long and think it was so great?'

Games look better than I ever thought they could, just from changing the screen type! My cousin's first words on seeing Doom3 on this screen were 'It's like you're watching a movie...like you're IN the movie!' Nevermind the stellar performance (2-3x as fast as my XPS1 MR9800 in most new games)...this is truly a terrific investment. I work editing Word documents all day, writing reports with high time-pressure, and I don't notice any sparkles or other screen defects (except that there are sometimes subtle 'shadows' on either side of a white background that go away when you stare directly at them, almost like an optical illusion...but this doesn't bother me). If we could find a way to unlock the core/memory clocks on the GPU, I'd be in enthusiast heaven.

THe only other small bitch I have is that they definitely should have left the DVD in a drive bay iinstead of implanting it permanently in the machine....why decrease functionality?

%120 satified with my XPS2 purchase!!! This system rocks.