Dell Latitude CPi 266XT Notebook (266-MHz Pentium II, 128 MB RAM, 4.1 GB hard drive)

by Dell

Product Details

• Item Weight: 6.2 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 18 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B00005QZ6D
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #15,746 in Computers & Accessories (See Top 100 in Computers & Accessories)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: December 19, 2001

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Honestly - the worst customer service ever!! DO NOT BUY A DELL, January 4, 2007

By 

A Mother's Logic (Sunshine and Happiness, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dell Latitude CPi 266XT Notebook (266-MHz Pentium II, 128 MB RAM, 4.1 GB hard drive) (Personal Computers)

I would give this product negative stars if I could. My advice, buy an Apple, their customer service is unmatched by any other I have experienced.

I have 3 Dells, nearly all the same system. My problems started with the last one purchased. From the moment of setting it up, it NEVER worked properly. We called the tech support - and the nightmare began!!

Now I have issue with any company who makes a majority of their money in an American market, whose entire sales staff is all American, or at least speaks without accents, and then suddenly when you call tech support with your valid issues you are only speaking to foreigners with such heavy accents and very little regard for American customs and ways of life.

Dell out-sources all of their tech support to India and now the Philippines, which are two countries that are far more economically depressed than ours. This becomes an apparent issue when you are trying to solve a serious tech problem and you are met with the attitude of being a spoiled and ungrateful American, and treated as if your valid problem is trivial. I chalk this up to the fact that what you spend on your computer as one purchase takes them a huge amount of time to earn. I could be wrong, but after dealing with the tech support for over two years, I feel as if I am experienced enough to make that call.

Another issue that is painfully apparent when dealing with the out-sourced tech support is that the accents are so heavy that it is very hard to understand what they want you to do, and when you repeatedly ask them to repeat themselves, they take offense. I often find myself telling them my phone has an awful connection and to please spell what they are saying. I never want to offend anyone, and usually on the phone with tech support I often feel as if my valid requests of speaking slowly and loudly and spelling do indeed offend them, and thus the quality of service dramatically decreases. I become frustrated, as do they. I don't blame the innocent support staff, they are just doing their job to the best of their ability and are human. I blame Dell for not providing the proper training for these people, if they are to troubleshoot the American market, perhaps not only computer classes are relevant, but to ease the stress of their staff, accent reducing classes would be appropriate. I have heard they may have begun that, but for this product loyal consumer it is a bit too late.

Honestly, that is just the tip of the iceberg, more a point of frustration. And if you purchase a Dell and it has any sort of issue, you will end up feeling as if you are on the Titanic and are slowly sinking to the demise of your pocketbook and sanity.

To make an extremely long story short, we bought a Dell that never worked properly, and were told that if trouble-shooting did not work that we could return it. While talking to tech support we were treated as if we didn't know how to turn it on, and were talked down to on well over 100 phone calls with tech support. Out drama began on the first day of setup and has not ended, and our warranty expired 3 months ago with the same case number as the first day of setup. Ridiculous. We were lied to, made false promises, told a million different things, insulted, and we spent about $1500 for the privilege.

We were told that there was nothing wrong with it, that it was us, 4 months and 30 phone calls later it was diagnosed with a bad motherboard. Still didn't work, again we were told firmly that it was not the computer but rather the user, 2 more months and at least 30 more phone calls it was diagnosed as a bad hard drive. Still never worked properly and ever since they replaced the hard drive they will not do anything else, claiming that the motherboard and hard drive are the computer and that there couldn't be anything else wrong - except for the user. I reminded them that they repeatedly told us that if the troubleshooting was not successful we could return the unit - and they had the audacity to tell us we were over our time and that returns need to be within the first 14 days, when we made the original complaint we were well within it!! Talk about pissed off!! We gave them the benefit of the doubt and did as they asked, we were treated as if our heads were firmly planted up our rear ends, we were told that someone would get back to us - and they never did (we heard this at least 75 times). We escalated the case - twice and were met with worse service.

Having the same case number since before my warranty expired allows the warranty to continue coverage - but no one will call back, as our issue is so great that they send us to several different departments. As soon as the warranty expired on all other issues, they stopped responding to the same one we have had since the very first day. The last week of October I left no less than 20 messages via email and voice mail with 3 different people and to date have still not received a phone call back, and most were with the people that the case had been escalated to, who are supposed to be professional and extremely qualified. My warranty expired on October 26th while actively dealing with the original issue. I have written letters, I have made phone calls, I have done as much as I have he time to do - and they have never replied. AWFUL!!

If you purchase a Dell and it has any kind of issue, you are in for a world of frustration. Like I said, we have 3, and the last one was a horrible experience, the first two never had a problem. I would never purchase another product by Dell. If I could afford to take out a full page ad in the New York Times for a year, I would do it to warn others of this horrible company.

If I had been paid a modest wage for the time I wasted dealing with tech support over this computer, I could have easily afforded to purchase a brand new, fully loaded, all the bells and whistles, wonderful customer service with an Apple computer, and still had money left over for a spa day and shopping spree. Plus I wouldn't have pissed away the original $1500 on the doorstop that Dell provided me.

RUN! RUN! RUN!

Honestly, the worst experience with any company ever.

5.0 out of 5 stars This Laptop has been a reliable Iron Horse!, February 18, 2010

By 

H. R. McLaughlin "self taught learned hand" (Fontana, CA, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dell Latitude CPi 266XT Notebook (266-MHz Pentium II, 128 MB RAM, 4.1 GB hard drive) (Personal Computers)

Relying on Dell customer service is a non issue with me. I fix all of my own
computers. I have nine of them dating back to 1995 and they all work perfectly.
You may ask, "are you a computer tech"? The answer is no. I am self taught and
love to tinker with things. Same thing on automobiles. I do most of my own work.
I bought this laptop used in 2002 and never had any problems with it until 2008.
During that time I upgraded the Bios to AO8 and upgraded to 256 mb of RAM. I
installed and configured a WiFi card and a DSL card and installed enough drivers
to recognize all sorts of USB devices such as flash drives, a huge external
HD (250 Gig) and and an external DVD ROM. This machine does everything and I am
typing this review on it. Two years ago it would not power up and then the screen
failed so I went to eBay and bought the same machine that was just a shell with
a working screen for 25 dollars. Prior to this, I had taken this machine apart
several times in 2008 to locate a short on the motherboard. I transferred all of
the vital components to this new shell and it works perfectly. This machine is
easy to take apart and reassemble. It just takes a lot of patience. I admit, it is a bit slow but it can run some videos at tolerable speed under low resolution. I have brought this machine into the 21st century and it still works great. I, also, have a G4, Apple IBook ,1.2 Ghz, and a Dell Latitute Centrino, 1.6
Ghz. I like this machine for its durable hard case and it has sentimental value
as well. It was my first laptop. I don't know why so many people are dependent on
others to help them repair things in this day and age. What would happen
if there was a Third World War and you had to be self sufficient? I am still
using the original HD, CD Rom and FD drive on this machine. The AC adaptor still
works on this Pentium 2 laptop, running Windows 98 SE.