THE Laptop Thread: Configs, deals and questions.

[deepakvrao]

Originally Posted by HappyWheels

Have been reading a lot now that one can negotiate with Dell and get better discounts than ones being offered. has anyone do it over here?

If so, lets share them. Let the next person at least get some good discount!

I was advised to bargain [on a notebook forum] when ordering a Dell. I did and got 2.5K off.

[aZa]

Guys, any personal reviews on ASUS EEE PC ?

[benkey2]

Regarding Dell and Acer, ELCOT, a Tamilnadu governments organization sells Dell and Acer notebooks to students, schools, and govt offices at an attractive discounted price. Only students studying in Tamil nadu (even if they hails from other state but studying in any college in tamil nadu) are eligible and they have to produce a letter from head of the institution along with DD for prescribed amount and laptop will be delivered within a month through courier.

More info, visit Elcot - don’t forget to see their firewall test on youtube. Though the test is a standard one the way they picturised is funny.last date is 15th july but they will extend as they are going to procure around one lakh notebooks.surely better priced when compared to the market price but one month ago when they announced the price they sad it would be Rs 21,000 but now it is priced at 31k.

[motorheadinc]

@ bhp1.

Came across this on another forum.
Hope it helps.
Lynx-Chandigarh Largest Electronic & Computer Superstore
Its located in chandigarh.

[bhp1]

@ motorhead,Many thanks, there are many discrepancies with dell. I received a call from dell exec. , he quoted some prices, but soon on my little insistence , starting offering discounts. I asked about dealers in JAL. , he replied there are none. Later i called up customer care , they gave me 3 addresses. This shows exec. was a lier.
Also c2d with T5850 PROCESSOR is available with dealers, but on site only t5750 is mentioned. T5850 is a superior processor. Why is it so, shouldnt the same config. computers be available online & with dealers?

[motorheadinc]

Originally Posted by bhp1

@ motorhead,Many thanks, there are many discrepancies with dell. I received a call from dell exec. , he quoted some prices, but soon on my little insistence , starting offering discounts. I asked about dealers in JAL. , he replied there are none. Later i called up customer care , they gave me 3 addresses. This shows exec. was a lier.
Also c2d with T5850 PROCESSOR is available with dealers, but on site only t5750 is mentioned. T5850 is a superior processor. Why is it so, shouldnt the same config. computers be available online & with dealers?

the answer to your question is here.
Regarding the part about the executive being a liar well what can I say Which executive would like his customer to go away to a dealer.
They have targets to achieve and on top of that commision on each piece sold.
Thirdly regarding the processor: Please qoute the particular model in dell you were configuring. The base model will always have the slowest of the lot processor but you can surely configure it to a higher model

Originally Posted by kb100

Yes you can bargain. The sales guy on the phone has a revenue target. Which means his targets are 'profits', which means he has the leverage to offer you rates which are cheap - so long as he is confident of making it up elsewhere. Its entirely his call.

And before anyone asks me - My brother worked for 4 years in the UK Sales divn of Dell. So this info is first hand!

Cheers.
And before you ask I wanna clear that I don't work for dell neither does my brother. In fact I dont even have a brother

[HappyWheels]

Originally Posted by deepakvrao

I was advised to bargain [on a notebook forum] when ordering a Dell. I did and got 2.5K off.

I also read in a notebook forum. But by then, it was too late!

Am spreading the word now. Seems like most (well, all) of the people to whom I said this were ignorant of this fact!

[dilipkumar7278]

Guys
From where can I get usb FM tv tuner card? I am setting up my car pc and there is no space for reciever in dash.Can anyone give the address or phone number of dealers dealing it?
Cheers
Dilip

[bhp1]

[quote=motorheadinc;898983]
Please qoute the particular model in dell you were configuring. The base model will always have the slowest of the lot processor but you can surely configure it to a higher model[quote]

Its simple, on the website they have inspiron 1525 c2d -processor T5750 (2.0 Ghz.). While local dealer is offering- inspiron 1525 c2d- processor T5850 (2.1 Ghz).
I asked the executive at dell as to why they are not offering T5850 on website, he replied that it may have been discontinued. When I asked the same ques. from the dealer, he said that it is the latest one & DELL gives diff. models to dealers from the online ones. Im confused! , as T 5850 is at the same price & is better. But why is DELL not offering this on website?

[HappyWheels]

Got my laptop delivered today at my home afternoon at 3.30PM! :-)

Had a tough time telling the courier (Blue Dart) delivery guy thanks, when he called to confirm delivery, since he did not understand English, Hindi or any other south indian language! But finally he got the point.

Looks good. Only gripe is that every time the laptop starts, the DVD drive makes a loud noise - seems like it is checking if a bootable media is present. Need to modify the BIOS.

Will go with the Vista Home premium for some days. Let me see if it is going to be a bottle neck if I try to run any of my work applications. If not, all is good, else, its Vista Ultimate!

Got a neat carry case (which I believe is a default freebie, since it was not mentioned anywhere in the quotation or invoice).

[trrk]

Hi,

> Had a tough time telling the courier (Blue Dart) delivery guy thanks, when > he called to confirm delivery,

Did you not get any call from their Service section? The routine is they will call you and fix an appointment. Their service engineer will come and do some preliminary installation and stuff and check whether you have received what you ordered and that you are satisfied with the product.

They are supposed to open the packet.

> Got a neat carry case (which I believe is a default freebie, since it was not > mentioned anywhere in the quotation or invoice).

I do agree. Their carrying case is neat and functional.

I have an Inspiron 1525.

All the best for your new laptop.

[HappyWheels]

Trrk,

When I had called, few days back, to check about the status of my order, I was told by a rep that he would call me with the tracking number as soon as the laptop has been shipped. That never happened.

Yesterday when I called to check on the status, I was told that it has already been shipped and I should be recieving it by end of day! Since it was a good turn of event, I was glad!

The only call that I got was from the courier guy just wanting to confirm to me that he has delivered the pack. The next call was from Dell confirming if I have got the pack. The dell guy did say that he will call again to check if I am happy with the product on Monday. There was no mention on any service agent giving me a visit.

Anyway, so far, touch wood, have not got any bad surprises.

Updated and patched in the morning (435MB worth!).

[trrk]

Hi,

> The next call was from Dell confirming if I have got the pack. The dell guy did > say that he will call again to check if I am happy with the product on
> Monday. There was no mention on any service agent giving me a visit.

Have they changed the routine already? Here a service guy came from Kottayam (a nearby town 50kms away, a Wipro guy) who unpacked and did the initial setting up and took the satisfaction report.

Same had happened in an installation at Chennai.

> Updated and patched in the morning (435MB worth!).

That is an endless process as it does some update most of the days for the past three months.

The machine is good. I am just getting to grips with Vista.

[gopz]

The Dell service engineer will turn up for setting up things, at no extra charge. But however, it is not mandatory. When I got my laptop, they asked me if a technician is required, I said that I dont need a technician for setup and no one turned up. I guess it will be more useful for novice users especially for desktops.

[HappyWheels]

There was never a mention about the service engineer in any of my conversation with the support team of Dell. I guess they might have gone into some cost cutting and made is a 'on demand' service.

Had my first glitch today afternoon, just after my previous post here - updated the intel wireless driver. Went for a restart. It just did not restart! After 20 minutes of powering down and up and then got into the start up option (thru F2) and selected the option to discard the saved state and re-start. That did the trick.

Now trying to setup a BlueTooth network, to share the internet connection, at home.

And those with Nokia, should try out the Nokia Suite 7. A big leap from 6.x!