I bought a dell laptop when my son graduated High school as a gift and a tool for college. He didn't use it much and when he got to school 5.5 hours from home if I remember correctly, the usb ports did not work. I spoke with someone from India I believe and had deep communication issues. ERRRR. I stated he was 18 years old, away from home but had the comp w/him. Then they wouldn't speak with me because I was not the owner. Eventually after having him pull memory, reinstall everything, put in new hard drive etc, He got a new computer and yes even that had power cord issues. However, when my agency of many years decided to come out of the dark ages they got us all Dell Lattitud c 16? Those power cords were death, the keyboards were loose after 6 months, mouse on touchpad would not work etc. I learned tricks about pressure points to keep mine working but I was a happy girl when I left that job for many reasons, including DELL. Now, if you are looking strictly at PCS, look at IBM or Lenovo and get extended warranty. I have been happy with mine. Wish I could tell the model # but it doesn't matter, T something. And they still do stand by their product. Now, this may get me banned for life but.... Here goes. P.cs are duds, macs have always been best except lately I have seen some products with issues but I have a blue bonde imac sitting on the desk downstairs with hard drive and memory maxed, cd/dvd burner, works w/excellence, would be better if I actually cleaned or covered the keyboard as cats love to lay on the key board. So that machine is what, 10 years old? And then I had a 3400c laptop and a clamshell laptop..... They never had "issues" Great machines but now Apple is cranking out new stuff so quickly that it's hard to keep up. Reminds me of microsoft. However, after all of that I go Mac. If you insist on a PC, get a lenovo/IBM, extended warranty, use linux or something else if possible, use firefox to protect more from pop ups and viruses and use the free virus and addware programs so often mentioned on here. I am currently using an i Book G3 w/600 MHZ powerPC, 384 mb ram and it works as fast or faster then the IBM with 2x as much speed and memory.

Wow, you never asked for that did you? Sorry your Dell blows chunks, I bought several adaptors/power cords from after market sources at half the price. Good luck.