A week in the life of a new Dell

Last Sunday I ordered a Dell Inspiron 8500 to replace the lemonade laptop. I had waited a long time to buy it because I had read reports of problems with both the screen and keyboard. However my impression from the Dell support forums was that both issues had been resolved.

I received the laptop on Thursday. When I first opened the box I was a little dissappointed at the overall low quality of the fit and finish of the machine. The various plastic pieces of the case didn't all line up properly, the various rubber pads on the screen and base were all misaligned with the holes they were supposed to cover, and the whole machine in general had more flex to it than my old Inspiron 8100. But I figured that I could get used to these things, that perhaps I was simply feeling particularly picky after dropping almost $2k on this thing.

So I booted it up and immeadiately repartioned the hard drive, installed Red Hat 9, and tweaked Linux to more fully support the Inspiron’s hardware. Throughout this whole process I started to grow more and more concerned about the build quality of the laptop.

The worst part of the 8500 is without a doubt the keyboard. When I first started using the new laptop I wanted to like it so much that I was feeling generous towards it and described the keyboard as mushy. Maybe not as good as the 8100 keyboard, but I can live with it. After using the keyboard for a few days to try to actually, you know, use the computer to get some typing done, I can only describe the keyboard as a poorly designed, poorly built, poorly mounted, useless piece of crap. The keys have no tactile feedback and the whole thing flexes as you type, making it feel spring loaded and changing the position of the keys relative to your hands. Overall rating for the keyboard: practically useless.

While I hated the keyboard the most, that may simply be because I avoid using mice and am completely keyboard dependent while computing. Other 8500 owners might decide that worst part of trying to use this machine is using the mouse. I've long loved the fact that my 8100 comes with both a touchpoint and trackpad and I use both of them. However, on the 8500 the touchpoint sucks. The buttons on the touchpoint at mushy feeling to the point of uselessness, as they have to be jammed down hard in order to activate (this is really inconvenient for mousing while leaving your hands on the keyboard, as you'd like to hit the mouse button with your thumb, but the angle and force required make that impossible). I found that the trackpad also sucks, as while using the trackpad the mouse cursor would occasionally and randomly jump halfway across the screen. Overall rating for the mouse: an exercise in frustration.

So last Sunday I decided to buy the 8500. This Sunday I’ve decided to return it, and have contacted Dell for a return authorization. I’ll have to bite the cost of shipping (both ways) plus a 15% restocking fee, but it will be worth it to get this piece of crap out of my house.

So… anyone know of a well made laptop with a WUXGA screen that has decent support under Linux?