I bought a Dell Inspiron 24 7000 series i5 All-In-One from Costco online to replace my wife's old Dell XPS (MS Vista!) notebook. It was roughly the same price as Dell direct but with a year's extra warranty and Costco's useful concierge (they speak english!) service. Installation went smoothly but it wouldn't find my 5GHz WiFi router for nothin'.
Long phone sessions with the aforementioned concierge and Dell tech support - determined that despite the fact that ALL 'Dell' 7000s have 802.11 b/g/n and 801.11ac (5GHz) WiFi, the 'Costco Dell 7000' has only 2.4GHz 802.11 b/g/n WiFi. Seriously. To skin a few bucks, someone at Costco had Dell build them a bunch of reduced-spec systems.
I know that lots of big-box outfits (including Costco) have special version items built for them. Sometimes to be able to offer low prices, they dispense with some bells and whistles - mostly, you never miss them.
This time, I actually had the two systems up side by side on the screen and they were (I thought) the same. I confess that I didn't know what Dell Wireless 1801 was so went to Dell.com to see what wireless they put in the 7000. The full boat. Nice.
I should have googled 'Dell wireless 1801'. I eventually did. It took drilling down into several forums... with my friendly (and equally astonished) Costco concierge as we arrived at the reality of 2.4GHz. The Dell tech (equally confused, through sort-of english and a canned menu-response each time, thanking me for my patience) finally verified the same. Its grandpa's WiFi.
I tell people on this forum that they have to do their research, RTFM etc. This time I got snookered.
The really sad part is that when I fired up the old (did I say Vista? yes I did) notebook, it jumped on the 5GHz network like a dog on a bone. It's 7 years old... and knows about 5GHz.
This one is going back. I'll re-order the 'same' system from Dell. It really is a nice box.
Just a heads up.
Long phone sessions with the aforementioned concierge and Dell tech support - determined that despite the fact that ALL 'Dell' 7000s have 802.11 b/g/n and 801.11ac (5GHz) WiFi, the 'Costco Dell 7000' has only 2.4GHz 802.11 b/g/n WiFi. Seriously. To skin a few bucks, someone at Costco had Dell build them a bunch of reduced-spec systems.
I know that lots of big-box outfits (including Costco) have special version items built for them. Sometimes to be able to offer low prices, they dispense with some bells and whistles - mostly, you never miss them.
This time, I actually had the two systems up side by side on the screen and they were (I thought) the same. I confess that I didn't know what Dell Wireless 1801 was so went to Dell.com to see what wireless they put in the 7000. The full boat. Nice.
I should have googled 'Dell wireless 1801'. I eventually did. It took drilling down into several forums... with my friendly (and equally astonished) Costco concierge as we arrived at the reality of 2.4GHz. The Dell tech (equally confused, through sort-of english and a canned menu-response each time, thanking me for my patience) finally verified the same. Its grandpa's WiFi.
I tell people on this forum that they have to do their research, RTFM etc. This time I got snookered.
The really sad part is that when I fired up the old (did I say Vista? yes I did) notebook, it jumped on the 5GHz network like a dog on a bone. It's 7 years old... and knows about 5GHz.
This one is going back. I'll re-order the 'same' system from Dell. It really is a nice box.
Just a heads up.