Pissy galore for Dell laptop customers

Dell offers to replace palm rests of Latitude 6430u laptops following complaints they smell of cat urine

One of Dell's first acts as a newly private company was to acknowledge customer concerns that one of the laptops in its range reeks of cat urine.

Dell made an official statement yesterday following months of complaints about the repugnant odour emanating from its shiny new Latitude 6430u laptops.

According to one disgruntled customer, the machine - which Dell bills as the world's most durable ultrabook - smells "as if it were assembled near a tomcat's litter box".

Another visitor to the relevant Dell support discussion, entitled "New 6430u smells awful", concluded that their incontinent kitten must be to blame for the device's disagreeable aroma.

Dell's initial advice back in June was to clean the keyboard with a soft cloth, but following an investigation into affected units, it yesterday provided a fuller explanation, blaming the pong on the device's palm rest.

The column inches generated from cat odour-gate may not be welcomed by Michael Dell, who should be basking in the after-glow of finally winning his battle to take his firm private.

Intriguingly, the vendor said the probe revealed that the odour was occurring as a result of a "specific manufacturing process", without revealing further details.

"We would like to reassure customers that the odour was not related to biological contamination nor did it present a health hazard," Dell said. "The manufacturing process has subsequently been amended and newly purchased Latitude 6430us are not affected by the issue."

Dell has also offered to replace the palm rest of any customer who feels their machine smells anything less than minty fresh.