The ‘Bloody Hell Dell’ Run-around

I had a simple question for a local Dell staffer - “when will the Zino HD be released in Australia?”.  You’d think that calling a local 1800 or local exchange number might actually get you a local , wouldn’t you?

However, after several calls during which [I swear] I was transferred between 20 operators, whom all answered “Dell Reception, what is your order number? “, I did some crafty googling to come up some truly local contacts.

:-[  Gees, really Dell?! This is how your treat your customers? - by putting them in a treadmill of operators all of whom pretend to be on a “Reception”.  So is your call centre staffed by just one girl filing her nails? ;-/

But I digress …

Dell Zino HD in Australia

A National Account Manager, with whom I eventually spoke, told me that the Zino HD would be available in Australia “in a month” - he was pretty clear about that availability, even though mid-December doesn’t make a lot of sense with respect to Christmas shopping - Early December might work a little better.

Dell, a message to you - don’t bother if it doesn’t:

• support 5.1 audio over HDMI
• come with a tuner-card option
• arrive at international price parity

Update: 26/11/09 ..

It’s here!

Thankfully it comes in two starting configurations $599 and $699, sans a monitor.  The later version is obviously better however the blu-ray addon for $200 is a bit rich. Upping it the processor takes the price to $790:

• 4GB RAM
• 320GB HDD
• AMD Athlon(TM) X2 6850e Dual-Core Processor

The only question is whether HDMI supports 5.1 audio repeating?  The discussion groups are alight with that very issue at the moment.  On the US Dell website I notice you can configure the machine with a “Soundblaster X-Fi Hi Def Audio - Software Enabled”, however, that device doesn’t seem to improve One’s chances of getting 5.1.

Kudos to Dell Australia however for offering the device without that insulting base operating system configuration of Windows Vista (Dell US are trying this on), forcing you to upgrade to Windows 7. How transparent and disingenous of your Dell (US)!

Photo credit: Dell.com