Dell X50 Now Available in Europe

[Jonathon Watkins]

Now this is a good reason to get back from Holiday. In my inbox were a few emails which said that the Dell X50 and X50v were at last available in Europe. You can now order them in <a href="http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/compare.aspx/axim_x50?c=it&l=it&s=dhs">Italy</a>, <a href="http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/compare.aspx/axim_x50?c=fr&cs=frdhs1&l=fr&s=dhs">France</a> and of course, <a href="http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/compare.aspx/axim_x50?c=fr&cs=frdhs1&l=fr&s=dhs">the UK.</a> The X50v UK prices start at £349, including VAT & shipping which seems a fair price to me. Well, I would think that. I placed an order for one just before posting this. :mrgreen: <br /><br />To ice the cake, Drop spotted that the sliding message box on the <a href="http://www1.vajacases.com/home_en.html">Vaja Homepage</a> said that a X50 case was an 'Upcoming Product'. Whoot! Just love those Vaja cases. Happy shopping. ;-)

[jonathanchoo]

Not much cheaper than most of its competitor.

Clove has the hx4700 for only £49 more. Same with the Loox 720. For that extra £49 I wouldn't mind getting either the hx4700 and Loox 720.

Both are not Dell and that is what matters. If the price is £80-£100 difference than that is a different issue alltogether.

[Jonathon Watkins]

Not much cheaper than most of its competitor.

Clove has the hx4700 for only £49 more. Same with the Loox 720. For that extra £49 I wouldn't mind getting either the hx4700 and Loox 720.

But, it is still nearly £50 cheaper and the price will drop. The others have been out for a few weeks now and their price have bedded down.

Besides, I don't want a 720 or a 4700. After weighing it up, the X50v has the best mix of features for me. Or, the least number of compromises. :? I not terribly inspired by any of the new devices, but the X50v is the one I chose. Your mileage may vary, I believe the saying goes. :wink:

Both are not Dell and that is what matters. If the price is £80-£100 difference than that is a different issue alltogether.

What's wrong with Dell? I and many others have been quite happy with their machines. I trust them more than some other OEMs.

I expect to get at least one OS upgrade out of Dell for the X50v, similar to the PPC2002 to PPC2003 upgrade that I bought for my X5. That, bluetooth, wifi and VGA should keep me happy for a while. :wink:

[jonathanchoo]

Long rant...

My first Dell laptop was a Dell Inspiron 7000 which I got in 1998. Keyboard broke three times in its warranty period. Battery had to be changed twice. Cracks appear everywhere. Keyboard never worked the same again (this despite the kudos of Dell Malaysia who traveled 2 hours on a bike to replace the keyboard twice on the spot) and the mouse touchpad has since stopped working. Finally in 2001 somebody nicked it in Victoria Station. Good luck to him.

My younger brother has another Dell which is university got two years ago. First month, Dell had to recall the battery because of known defect. Even though using moderatly, the three Dell battery that was replaced stopped working after 2 months on average. Modem and LAN finally stopped working too. Oh and touchpad never worked after a few months.

My friend who used to live above me has a Dell which he bought in China. He has an international warranty. Laptop begins to develop problem eight months in. He calls Dell Ireland wanting a warranty fix (he has 2 year warranty I believe). Dell Ireland insists he transfer his service tag from China to UK. Six months later and hundreds of pounds and hours of wasted phone calls and still no results. He plans to just bring it to China to have it fixed.

My girlfriend's Dell whole case is breaking down despite she using it with extreme care. Built-in modem stopped working finally.

Her father's Latitude is also suffering from the same problem. This despite him treating it like his baby. ;)

Frankly from five people (including me) whom I know to use Dell laptops all had problems. And I haven't even included issues that comes with Dell desktops.

Dell stuff are cheap, but if you include support costs and extended warranties and the cost to your dead brain cell (and your downward lifespan) whenever you call Dell support, then £49 is nothing.

[ADBrown]

Short rant:

I've had one of every high end Axim ever built dating back to an X5 in November 2002, plus a Dell desktop for over a year, and a secondhand Dell laptop for a little less than a year. Aside from human error and normal wear and tear, I've had a very low level of problems. A WD hard drive that decided to die after 10 months, and an X5 digitizer that went screwy have been my only defectivity problems. Overall, I've never felt that the hardware is inferior, or that I've had more than normal problems. For what it's worth.

[Jonathon Watkins]

Overall, I've never felt that the hardware is inferior, or that I've had more than normal problems. For what it's worth.

Same here, which is why I am happy going with Dell again. I personally find their quality is usually better than average. :)

[ChunkyMonkey]

Long rant...

My first Dell laptop was a Dell Inspiron 7000 which I got in 1998. Keyboard broke three times in its warranty period. Battery had to be changed twice. Cracks appear everywhere. Keyboard never worked the same again (this despite the kudos of Dell Malaysia who traveled 2 hours on a bike to replace the keyboard twice on the spot) and the mouse touchpad has since stopped working. Finally in 2001 somebody nicked it in Victoria Station. Good luck to him.

My younger brother has another Dell which is university got two years ago. First month, Dell had to recall the battery because of known defect. Even though using moderatly, the three Dell battery that was replaced stopped working after 2 months on average. Modem and LAN finally stopped working too. Oh and touchpad never worked after a few months.

My friend who used to live above me has a Dell which he bought in China. He has an international warranty. Laptop begins to develop problem eight months in. He calls Dell Ireland wanting a warranty fix (he has 2 year warranty I believe). Dell Ireland insists he transfer his service tag from China to UK. Six months later and hundreds of pounds and hours of wasted phone calls and still no results. He plans to just bring it to China to have it fixed.

My girlfriend's Dell whole case is breaking down despite she using it with extreme care. Built-in modem stopped working finally.

Her father's Latitude is also suffering from the same problem. This despite him treating it like his baby. ;)

Frankly from five people (including me) whom I know to use Dell laptops all had problems. And I haven't even included issues that comes with Dell desktops.

Dell stuff are cheap, but if you include support costs and extended warranties and the cost to your dead brain cell (and your downward lifespan) whenever you call Dell support, then £49 is nothing.

Wow, sorry to hear about your Dell woes. :(

I worked for a company that had an upwards of 20,000 Dell desktops, laptops, and PDAs. I was the one of many that worked on the hardware. I would say that other than the usual wear and tear, all of their produscts were very reliable.

Here was the usual problems that we ran into:

Laptops:

Touchpad would start flaking out causing us the have to replace the top bezel.
Trackpoint on the keyboard would fail, casuing us to have to replace the keyboard.
Hard drive failures (can't really blame that on Dell, since they were usally IBM drives)

Desktops:

The power supply fan becomes loud and later fails. If customer waits to long things over heat and cause other problems. This problem seemed to be resolved later on.

PDAs:

....that darn backup battery going dead...causing hardsets when switching the battery and such.

Switching to Dell (from HP) was one of the smartest choices my IT Management made.