On 12/04/2010 1:48 p.m., Me wrote:
> On 10/03/2010 5:00 p.m., Me wrote:
>>
>> Final report (I hope). The second replacement arrived, and seems
>> perfect. Dell phoned me twice since Monday, including on my correct
>> cellphone number, to confirm delivery time etc. So in the end their
>> level of service was excellent, even if their process seems a bit
>> baffling.
>
> Update for the record...
> Second replacement developed a fault - an intermittent "dead screen"
> when first connected/powered on, or on resume from sleep...
> I had to moan and bitch a bit - they got me to connect it to different
> PCs, eventually it worked, as tends to be the case with intermittent
> faults, but it would have crapped out again - when I asked if they'd
> heard of the Consumer Guarantees Act they confirmed they had, and
> promptly said that a replacement would be despatched same day.
> So replacement #3 arrived.
> I check it out, surprised to see the RGB levels etc set as per my
> original monitor... Hmmm - check serial # and it /is/ my original
> monitor. Now that had an intermittent fault with a dead line of pixels.
> Probably fixable - a loose/dirty connector perhaps - I hope they did fix
> it. So far it's working fine. If the dead line of pixels reappears, then
> I'm giving up and asking for my money back.
Final update on this - I hope.
My original monitor sent back to me as a "refurb" had not been fixed at
all. Switched it on the next day, and there was the dead line of pixels.
So, sent an email to registered office of Dell Computer NZ Ltd, reply
and phone message from Dell "customer escalation manager" within the hour.
I posted a summary of this on DPReview, which according to them has
around 7 million visits per month. Dell had read my post and AFAIK do
not dispute my version of events in any way.
I got a promise from them to replace with a new monitor (not "refurb")
which arrived the following morning, and appears to be perfect.
Dell commented that my experience was totally unacceptable, indicative
of a serious procedural problem that they would work to fix.
When I started this thread, I had received only one faulty replacement.
In the end I'd had three.
Yes - the consumer has rights, but sometimes it's damned hard to
exercise them.
FWIW, here's a chart of the 2209WA colorimetric accuracy, essentially
"out of the box", only adjusted for brightness (to level 10/100 - about
125 cd/m2 white level). The monitor had not even been properly
calibrated for this measure.
http://i42.tinypic.com/wks09f.jpg
Delta E is about 1.2 average for most of the range > 30% luminance
(accuracy of most colorimeters is poor below those levels). Delta E 1.0
is in simple terms the smallest colour discrepancy visible to the human
eye. Gamma chart was also very good, and colour temperature relatively
flat at 6500 K. For almost any practical use, the monitor did not need
calibration at all - a truly remarkable result for a $500 display. It
is much better than the original screen I had WRT out of box colour
performance. I think they changed something in later production
(hardware rev #AO2). My original screen needed adjustment to get this
good (or better after careful full calibration).
That's why I'm happy to have the problems resolved - if I got my money
back, then I'd still have a problem finding anything else as good.
