So, Significant Other tried out Dell’s live chat function. This function on Dell.com allows you to talk with a rep from the company to get your questions answered. Her primary question was, how can I get a laptop that has a non-glossy 15-inch screen? She likes the idea of working outside, especially during the summer, and most glossy screens, which seem to predominate on notebooks these days, become almost invisible. She has the same problem when she’s working in her too-bright office.

With that bit of information in her hands, the Dell rep led her on a journey of her options, helping her to make choices at each phase of the buying experience. For example, she explained that none of the 15-inch-plus displays came in anti-glare. She’d have to go with a 14-inch display to get that — a tidbit of information she couldn’t discover strictly through Dell’s shopping function.

My sweetheart was quite adamant about staying under $1,500 and told the rep that. Not a problem, was the reply.

She recommended the Inspiron 1420. Seemed like a solid option. That has the Intel Core 2 Duo T5550 processor. She specced it with 2 gigabytes of RAM and an NVIDIA GeForce TM Go8400M GS video card with 128MB of graphic memory. (SO isn’t a game player, but she does work with DreamWeaver, so this seemed sufficient.)

Best, it included a 14.1-inch anti-glare widescreen display.

The rep mentioned the free printer offers that Dell pushes everywhere these days. No interest, said my SO.

But she did want to find out what it would cost to add an external flatscreen monitor too. Would doing so keep the price under the limit? Pretty close! The rep added on a 19-inch Dell UltraSharp 1908FP,Wide Flat Panel. But suddenly, the barrier was breached.

Then came the software. Yes, Vista Home Premium Edition was fine, and she wanted Office 2007 Small Business Edition to go with that.

From there, the shopping covered the hard drive, a 250 gigabyte 5400 RPM no name hard drive, which could have been faster for sure, but helped SO keep the price down. And she needed a DVD with read-write.

Plus, she wanted blue tooth to start taking advantage of all of the great wireless gear out there — though the gear itself would have to wait until a later date. So she settled on a simple wireless mouse. Then the question came up: Would she like that in pink?

If you knew my SO, you’d know that it was just the right thing to ask in the buying cycle. Suddenly, she was emotionally hooked to that computer. A pink mouse? Wow! She did some quick surfing to check out customer testimonials, and the recommendations were almost uniformly positive — except for one reviewer who said the pink was redder than preferred. Best, the price was the same, no matter whether the mouse — from Logitech — was black or pink. Problem was, shortly that pinkiness would help push the price tag well above $1,500.

Next: Negotiations in Earnest!

Posted on April 14th, 2008 by dian