4 ms·

After a decade of hardware buttons that aren't, e.g. TV power buttons, I think for most people trust has sailed. It works if the company builds it's brand on it

After a decade of hardware buttons that aren't, e.g. TV power buttons, I think for most people trust has sailed. It works if the company builds it's brand on it (Purism) but I would not trust a hardware switch from Lenovo or Dell.

m463 6y ago
Is dell as untrustworthy as lenovo? I do remember the lenovo driver that installed itself from the bios - even on a clean windows install - and would snoop for months and then silently uninstall itself. EDIT: here it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenovo#Lenovo_Service_Engine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenovo#Lenovo_Service_Engine However I have not heard much about dell.
- KingOfCoders 6y ago
  I've owned a Dell XPS13 which was the crappiest product I've bought in a while. So I'd say the problem with Dell is more inablity vs. malicious intent.
  - moneywoes 6y ago
    What was so bad about it?
    - Hallucinaut 6y ago
      We've bought/had replaced half a dozen XPS13s in the last 18 months and all but one have had to be returned, some are on their second replacement. QA seems to be non-existent
      - MaxikCZ 6y ago
        What was so bad about them?
        FractalParadigm 6y ago
        Not the person you were replying to, but anecdotally my XPS 15 9550 has been nothing but a nightmare. It's on battery #3 from the battery swelling issue, a lot of backlight bleed on the 4K Display, coil whine in the power supply (went through three of those), three DC jacks (might need to be a 4th soon), the infamous VRM/throttling issue, and to top it all off I had the main board replaced within the first two years because of a firmware problem preventing Windows from activating. Less of problem with the system itself, but during that mobo job Dell replaced the 512GB Samsung SSD with a Toshiba 1TB and R/W speeds dropped to ~1/3 of what they were before. Also anecdotal but a buddy of mine with a 9560 has gone through more or less the same issues, sans the firmware problem. They look so appealing on paper (which is why I chose it over a MBP), but there's just something about them that feels proof-of-concept, like it's an unfinished product that was pushed out too quick. I wanted to give Dell another chance, having gone private three years before and having seemingly improved their build quality. When you spend $3800 on what is supposed to be the best-of-the-best and it turns out to be the headache of a lifetime, it leaves a really sour aftertaste.
        foobarian 6y ago
        I ordered a XPS 15 (9570) last year to replace my wife's slow Walmart special. We debated between Mac and Wintel and decided to stick with Wintel due to familiarity and various programs we run. We get the delivery, take it out of the box, plug it in, turn it on... and this horrible screeching noise greets us like someone is cutting a piece of metal with an angle grinder. It was not a shipping bug either, the package arrived in perfect shape. That pretty much summed up the difference between Apple and everyone else for me.
        Kosirich 6y ago
        Wow, so it's not just the Precision models that are lottery. In my area of the company we mostly use DELL precision and I kid you not, every second one (Precision 7550) has some sort of a problem. They vary from the ones that give you blue screen of death, throttling issue in CAD/CAE software ect.
        tech2 6y ago
    - dsign 6y ago
      I had one and it was a lemon. It was so bad that I gave it away and got a second-hand laptop to work for almost a year, it made me so much more productive.
    - KingOfCoders 6y ago
      (XPS13 was max specced) Battery died, Fan died, booted during the night on it's own, due to the failed fan made a loud alarm noise, louder than our fire alarm (wondered what the developer thought there), paid for premium business support with next day replacement, Dell didn't want to repair the thing but wanted me to jump through dozens of update loops, mouse pad went bad.
- JDW1023 6y ago
  Alot of vendors (Lenovo[0], ASUS, Dell, ) are using Windows Platform Binary Table, WPBT (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18095848 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18095848) to get the OS to execute binary. Dell seem to use it to load the Absolute's Lojack anti theft rootkit[1]. Also on Absolute's website there's a list[2] of manufacturers that are using Absolute Persistance[3]. [0]: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/08/lenovo-used-windows-anti-theft-feature-to-install-persistent-crapware/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/08/lenov... [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19800807 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19800807 [2]: https://www.absolute.com/partners/device-compatibility/ https://www.absolute.com/partners/device-compatibility/ [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_Home_%26_Office#Absolute_Persistence_Technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_Home_%26_Office#Absol...
  - mindfulhack 6y ago
    Wow. Almost every Linux distribution would never enable such a thing. As for Apple's Macs, it's all a black box in and of itself.
- tinus_hn 6y ago
  Dell has an anti theft ‘solution’ that works the same as this, as do all the major vendors. The fault is with Microsoft for allowing that crap in the first place.

m463 6y ago

Is dell as untrustworthy as lenovo? I do remember the lenovo driver that installed itself from the bios - even on a clean windows install - and would snoop for months and then silently uninstall itself. EDIT: here it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenovo#Lenovo_Service_Engine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenovo#Lenovo_Service_Engine However I have not heard much about dell.

KingOfCoders 6y ago
I've owned a Dell XPS13 which was the crappiest product I've bought in a while. So I'd say the problem with Dell is more inablity vs. malicious intent.
- moneywoes 6y ago
  What was so bad about it?
  - Hallucinaut 6y ago
    We've bought/had replaced half a dozen XPS13s in the last 18 months and all but one have had to be returned, some are on their second replacement. QA seems to be non-existent
    - MaxikCZ 6y ago
      What was so bad about them?
      - FractalParadigm 6y ago
        Not the person you were replying to, but anecdotally my XPS 15 9550 has been nothing but a nightmare. It's on battery #3 from the battery swelling issue, a lot of backlight bleed on the 4K Display, coil whine in the power supply (went through three of those), three DC jacks (might need to be a 4th soon), the infamous VRM/throttling issue, and to top it all off I had the main board replaced within the first two years because of a firmware problem preventing Windows from activating. Less of problem with the system itself, but during that mobo job Dell replaced the 512GB Samsung SSD with a Toshiba 1TB and R/W speeds dropped to ~1/3 of what they were before. Also anecdotal but a buddy of mine with a 9560 has gone through more or less the same issues, sans the firmware problem. They look so appealing on paper (which is why I chose it over a MBP), but there's just something about them that feels proof-of-concept, like it's an unfinished product that was pushed out too quick. I wanted to give Dell another chance, having gone private three years before and having seemingly improved their build quality. When you spend $3800 on what is supposed to be the best-of-the-best and it turns out to be the headache of a lifetime, it leaves a really sour aftertaste.
        foobarian 6y ago
        I ordered a XPS 15 (9570) last year to replace my wife's slow Walmart special. We debated between Mac and Wintel and decided to stick with Wintel due to familiarity and various programs we run. We get the delivery, take it out of the box, plug it in, turn it on... and this horrible screeching noise greets us like someone is cutting a piece of metal with an angle grinder. It was not a shipping bug either, the package arrived in perfect shape. That pretty much summed up the difference between Apple and everyone else for me.
        Kosirich 6y ago
        Wow, so it's not just the Precision models that are lottery. In my area of the company we mostly use DELL precision and I kid you not, every second one (Precision 7550) has some sort of a problem. They vary from the ones that give you blue screen of death, throttling issue in CAD/CAE software ect.
      - tech2 6y ago
  - dsign 6y ago
    I had one and it was a lemon. It was so bad that I gave it away and got a second-hand laptop to work for almost a year, it made me so much more productive.
  - KingOfCoders 6y ago
    (XPS13 was max specced) Battery died, Fan died, booted during the night on it's own, due to the failed fan made a loud alarm noise, louder than our fire alarm (wondered what the developer thought there), paid for premium business support with next day replacement, Dell didn't want to repair the thing but wanted me to jump through dozens of update loops, mouse pad went bad.
JDW1023 6y ago
Alot of vendors (Lenovo[0], ASUS, Dell, ) are using Windows Platform Binary Table, WPBT (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18095848 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18095848) to get the OS to execute binary. Dell seem to use it to load the Absolute's Lojack anti theft rootkit[1]. Also on Absolute's website there's a list[2] of manufacturers that are using Absolute Persistance[3]. [0]: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/08/lenovo-used-windows-anti-theft-feature-to-install-persistent-crapware/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/08/lenov... [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19800807 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19800807 [2]: https://www.absolute.com/partners/device-compatibility/ https://www.absolute.com/partners/device-compatibility/ [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_Home_%26_Office#Absolute_Persistence_Technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_Home_%26_Office#Absol...
- mindfulhack 6y ago
  Wow. Almost every Linux distribution would never enable such a thing. As for Apple's Macs, it's all a black box in and of itself.
tinus_hn 6y ago
Dell has an anti theft ‘solution’ that works the same as this, as do all the major vendors. The fault is with Microsoft for allowing that crap in the first place.