Digital Home Thoughts - News & Reviews for the Digital Home

I found this video when fired up the YouTube player on my Samsung BD-P1600 - which magically appeared after a firmware update - and was fumbling around the clumsy software client Samsung made for browsing YouTube videos. What didn't magically appear with the last firmware update was better DVD playback; when I put in a regular DVD, even one brand new out of the package, there's a 90% chance at some point during the movie I'll see the playback sputter, pause, or distort in some way. Blu-ray playback is flawless. The BD-1600 is the player that Samsung sent me to replace the disastrous BD-P1500 that I bought last year. They only offered to replace it after I had sent it back in for repairs twice, and called back again about playback problems for the third time. But I digress...let's get back to Dell.

Generally, I'm a fan of Dell - I think my XPS M1330 is a great laptop, and my office has four Dell monitors in it. I believe that Dell makes good products at reasonable prices. But their customer service is, in a word, atrocious. Read more...

I just had a great customer service experience with Sling Media regarding my Slingbox and I thought I'd share it with you all as it is a great example of going above and beyond for your customer. I own what is now referred to as a Slingbox Classic (it was just called a Slingbox when I bought it since it was the only product they made).

A few days ago, the power supply started emitting a loud buzz and was a bit warmer than normal to the touch. My Slingbox worked fine, but I preferred to be on the safe side and unplugged it and went online looking for a replacement part. As I've had this device for over three years, I wasn't overly hopeful that I'd be able to easily get a replacement and certainly did not expect the warranty to cover it. But to my surprise, their tech support pages said that they sell replacement power supplies, remotes, etc for all of there models for $19.99, not cheap, but not overly expensive either. Read more...

Sometimes I'm amazed at how much money big companies can waste. Case in point: a couple of weeks ago, I returned my Dell Studio Hybrid because it was defective. It kept beeping three times when I booted it up, which is apparently a sign of a chipset failure of some sort. It also crashed Windows Vista with a blue screen of death whenever I tried to boot directly off the HDMI port. These two things together made me return the unit to Dell for a refund under their 30 day customer service policy. Sure, I could have gotten it repaired/replaced, but I took the opportunity to upgrade: I re-ordered a Studio Hybrid, same colour, hard drive space, and RAM, but I upgraded the CPU from 1.86 Ghz to 2.5 Ghz. I also added on the 802.11n mini-card, just in case I plan to use it in the future in a location where I don't have wired Ethernet. Read more...