If you own cats, you probably don’t even notice. If you don’t, you may wonder why every time you turn on your laptop there’s a distinct smell of cat urine. Consumers are upset and Dell isn’t saying a whole lot.
You know that new-computer smell, the scent of Styrofoam packing materials, ink on instruction books, and fresh plastic. Buyers of Dell’s Latitude 6430u ultrabook have been complaining for months about a more odoriferous issue with their new machines, along the lines of eau de cat piss. The hub for complaints is a Dell tech support discussion titled “New 6430u smells awful.” It contains a veritable bouquet of descriptive missives, including, “The machine is great, but it smells as if it was assembled near a tomcat’s litter box.”
