I think Dell went downhill after the acquisition, their hardware quality is junk all across their line: servers, workstations, laptops, monitors, etc. Every device from them that I had my hands on recently have, at best, terrible build quality, and at worst, multiple failures. And their support is a bad joke.
That's the complete opposite of my experience. I bought an XPS 15 (it supported Linux well) and broke the screen (my own fault) about 8mos into owning it. Spoke to support and they sent a technician over two days later. They replaced the screen, tested it and were on there way 40mins later, all for free.
I've had to replace the BIOS twice in the 3 years I've owned my Dell XPS 15 (2018 model). Both cases were spontaneous failures that completely disrupted my workloads and customer support told me it's something that "just happens". Service technicians came quickly but I'd rather not need them to come in the first place.
First year warranty is usually included in the product, so of course the replacement was free. I'd suggest renewing the warranties until EoL of your laptop as these service trips will likely become a bi-annual fixture.
My experience was limited to laptops and monitors, but hardware's been good and service has been excellent.
Honestly, it reminded me more of early-Amazon customer support, than anything more recent. E.g. support agent following up with a personalized email to me to make sure everything worked out okay with a warranty claim. Talking to humans was novel and pleasant.
It’s all about the tier of support. At work we bought 20k laptops and screwed up the support spec. So we ended up with some garbage tier support that wouldn’t fix issues caused by Dell docks. You have to have “ProSupport”
We also have a region where they have a 2 hour support SLA with part in hand. They will literally put your computer down to fix ours to avoid whatever punishment that gets meted out.
ProSupport is amazing, especially on Dell hardware on eBay which still has extended coverage remaining that can be transferred. Immediate phone connection to knowledgeable and helpful technicians.
Since I disabled auto-update most of such issues have gone away and what works stays working. I suspect the second was due to an auto-update if you had that enabled and don't get me started on python versioning and the way that can impact a system.
