[AltoHoncho]

Originally Posted by silversteed

I'll share my experience with buying an XPS. Placed the order on 4th Nov. I was promised delivery in 10 working days. Got a call on day 5 saying there's a delay of 5 days. Then another one on day 14 asking me to wait for 7 more days. One more call on day 22 (day it was supposed to be delivered) that it's yet to reach their local office. Finally I got it on Dec 2nd.

I was pestering the sales rep all the way since the first call. Each day I would get the same answer, put in a different way. Finally, after the last call informing me about the delay, I called the sales rep and she escalated the matter to her manager who called me up and apologized profusely and said that he'll make sure it gets delivered by Dec 5th.

Believe only what the sales rep says. Do not believe anything told by the "Customer Support" regarding delivery. Some lady in the customer support called me up on day 22 and said it'll be delivered on Dec 20th (imagine, 15 days getting stretched to 47 days!). And funnily, the day after I got my laptop, I got a call from the same Customer support informing that it'll be delivered in 3 working days

I would add that the model that I chose was very very new, and mine was among the first batch of orders, and that's why I had to go through rough weather.

Batteries hold a warranty of 6 months. Everything else is covered in your plan. It happens in real world.

Got the delivery of the laptop yesterday, officially it was supposed to be delivered on 21st but they delivered it yesterday.

[jkdas]

Originally Posted by jkdas

Thanks



i3 2.4GHz, 2GB DDR3,500GB, rest same.

Acer 4738; almost took it but dropped since it has only ONE speaker ( ALERT! )

Getting Toshiba Satellite L Series L650-I5311 for 34,500/-
Toshiba Satellite L Series L650-I5311 Laptop Price India: Buy Toshiba Satellite L Series Notebook India: Flipkart.com

[AltoHoncho]

I have a Thinkpad from IBM bought in 2005, Its R51 series and a Pentium one. I am looking for upgrading its RAM, need suggestions in terms of any reliable dealer / brand? Its working absolutely fine so far but now it has started showing its age, has got slowed a lot.

[Aroy]

Originally Posted by AltoHoncho

I have a Thinkpad from IBM bought in 2005, Its R51 series and a Pentium one. I am looking for upgrading its RAM, need suggestions in terms of any reliable dealer / brand? Its working absolutely fine so far but now it has started showing its age, has got slowed a lot.

I have no idea of Bangalore, but you can get the RAM at most computer component shops. Just take your laptop and try a few sticks, till you get it right.

A laptop does not normally slow down due to age. What happens is that a lot of software and junk accumulates over time, which slows it down. Just reinstall the OS; it is really easily if you still have the service partition; and then use windows update to come upto date! I reinstall my OS of the X61 every 8-12 months. The only downside is that every time it takes longer for the windows and other updates to be downloaded and installed. In my case the whole process including installing the applications takes a day.

[tsk1979]

Why do you need to reinstall the OS every 8-12 months.Isn't it better not to install junk?

[AltoHoncho]

@ Aroy: Will check it out on shops, thanks for the suggestion. Well slowing down is not only attributed to junk, but the kind of apps coming up now-a-days need more RAMwidth (or maybe RAM bandwidth to ease it out) and hence it is slowing down.

[chennai-indian]

Guys, need help in buying a laptop. I have a 17 inch Gateway bought in US way back in 2007 - it is a core 2 duo with 512 MB graphics card/HDMi etc - was top of the pops then. It has started showing its age - DVD drive does not read properly, has started overheating etc so on the look out for a new laptop.

I do not have a desktop and this will be my primary computer at home so the specs reflect a "desktop replacement" laptop:

1. 17 inch display or at least a 16 inch one - got used to it!!
2. Core i5 or i7 - will also be used for multimedia editing as well as graphics editing (wifey is into graphics editing now)
3. HDMI out
4. Good speakers
5. Min 1 GB graphics card

Any ideas on which brand that I need to search for?

BTW, my max budget is Rs 70,000

[Mr.Beat]

@ Chennai-Indian.

It will be difficult maybe to get a 17 inch display. However, with core i7, 4 GB RAM, assuming 500 GB HDSK you could get the deal for around 52-60 k. You may then buy a seperate graphics card which suits your requirement.

Dell allows you to customise a lot so you may want to check thier website.

HP will also offer similar features but the price may be a little high

[chennai-indian]

Originally Posted by Mr.Beat

@ Chennai-Indian.

It will be difficult maybe to get a 17 inch display. However, with core i7, 4 GB RAM, assuming 500 GB HDSK you could get the deal for around 52-60 k. You may then buy a seperate graphics card which suits your requirement.

Dell allows you to customise a lot so you may want to check thier website.

HP will also offer similar features but the price may be a little high

@Mr. Beat - thanks for that. Yes, Dell is an option - I was just checking out whether any other brand is available.

[silversteed]

Originally Posted by chennai-indian

1. 17 inch display or at least a 16 inch one - got used to it!!
2. Core i5 or i7 - will also be used for multimedia editing as well as graphics editing (wifey is into graphics editing now)
3. HDMI out
4. Good speakers
5. Min 1 GB graphics card
BTW, my max budget is Rs 70,000

Customize a Dell Studio XPS 16. It gives all that you wanted, but I think it'll go a tad over 70k.

I can vouch for Dell's quality and build.

If you can stretch your budget a bit (it's going to be quite a bit), consider the Alienware range.

[bbkp]

Hi,
Thought of sharing the dreadful experience I had with the laptop I bought recently. About 6 months back, I bought the top of the line Toshiba A660-07U laptop. It has an I7-740M processor, 4 GB RAM and 640 GB harddisk. Over the last 6 months, to call the experience a nightmare would be an understatement. After a month since purchase, the laptop would start to crash. On atleast 3 occasions in the last 6 months, I had to do a recovery to factory settings, each time I stand to lose significant amount of data. As recent as last week, it completely collapsed again, and this time, the recovery also won't work. I took it to the service station and they have clearly pointed it out that the Hard disk was faulty, which has been causing the issue all along. At this point, I refused to take the laptop back and posed a few questions to them, for which I got no answers but excuses. When I confronted them on how they can repay for the lost data, they started off giving lame excuses like "you should always take back-ups" etc. My argument is, if I have to take a back-up on a daily basis, then what for is the 640 GB of a hard disk?

Toshiba is no exception really. Of late, all the companies are indulging in cheap and inefficient manufacturing practices, which often comes from China, a place where quality control is literally non-existant and leave the customers at the mercy of warranty. As long as you are covered, you are safe. Not really so, because you still end up losing data. The business practice has changed to spending on building quality product to keeping the prices low to attract more customers. If there is a failure, we can fix it post-sales under warranty. If warranty expires, then the company stands to cover all it's expenses incurred in fixing the thing up.

My dad bought the first laptop in family, an IBM R31 in 2001. 10 years since, it is still working, not a single thing, including the battery has changed. It had to be junked because it ran on a Pentium 2. When we sold it, we got 2000 bucks for that. 5 years back, I bought a compaq, which keeps running till date with no issues at all.

Cut to current day, it is only the business series of the laptops that are build to last, when quality control and premium material is used by the companies - they also cost more than the home entertainment series laptops. supplying poor quality and failure of a business laptop often means that there is a million dollar contract at stake for the company, so, they serve the best to the business.

The lesson learnt is to stick to the business series laptops if we need to eek out decent life and ensure no failure of the machine. While it may mean compromising on not having the big Mhz, GB numbers, but, for a slight slowness, you have better assurance of important data and information safety.

Just to highlight the damages I have had - 6 months of photography work - Gone. My daughter's first birthday photos - Gone. Videos of my other daughter right from her birth - Gone. Such a shame that I cannot reverse time back to get these fond memories back. And no nonsense of back-ups please. If someone is selling me a 640 GB of a hard disk, I would tend to believe it is 640 GB of usable hard disk - Not a flimsy peice of thrash that needs to be backed up every other day. It is not that I don't, I take back-ups on a monthly basis - That is not an excuse for pushing cheap stuff to a paying customer.

Bad on you Toshiba, really bad.

Cheers
Prasad

[carboy]

Originally Posted by bbkp

Hi,
Thought of sharing the dreadful experience I had with the laptop I bought recently. About 6 months back, I bought the top of the line Toshiba A660-07U laptop. It has an I7-740M processor, 4 GB RAM and 640 GB harddisk. Over the last 6 months, to call the experience a nightmare would be an understatement. After a month since purchase, the laptop would start to crash. On atleast 3 occasions in the last 6 months, I had to do a recovery to factory settings, each time I stand to lose significant amount of data. As recent as last week, it completely collapsed again, and this time, the recovery also won't work. I took it to the service station and they have clearly pointed it out that the Hard disk was faulty, which has been causing the issue all along. At this point, I refused to take the laptop back and posed a few questions to them, for which I got no answers but excuses. When I confronted them on how they can repay for the lost data, they started off giving lame excuses like "you should always take back-ups" etc. My argument is, if I have to take a back-up on a daily basis, then what for is the 640 GB of a hard disk?

My sympathies for your bad experience. But you have data you cannot afford to lose, you really need to back up. Even if you own a business series machine. Even if you are running a mainframe. Irrespective of what machine you are using, backups are a must if you have data you cannot afford to lose.

Even top of the line components must be having some failure rate. So if you are the unlucky person, you stand to lose your data irrespective of whether it's 640GB or double of that.

[bbkp]

Originally Posted by carboy

My sympathies for your bad experience. But you have data you cannot afford to lose, you really need to back up. Even if you own a business series machine. Even if you are running a mainframe. Irrespective of what machine you are using, backups are a must if you have data you cannot afford to lose.

Even top of the line components must be having some failure rate. So if you are the unlucky person, you stand to lose your data irrespective of whether it's 640GB or double of that.

Well, I do agree that taking back-ups is essential and as I have stated, it is not clearly the case that I have not done it. Once in every month, I ensure proper back-up of the laptop. Having said that, with this laptop life has been totally different. I had to recover to factory settings thrice and with each recovery I lot some, then some more and then some more.

The point I want to raise is that while we are basking in the sun of glory that technology has advanced so much in this field in the last 10 years, wherein, we have moved from sub-GB hard disk to 1 TB hard disks, the failure rates have increased astronomically. If we have to pin point at the failure rates, the reason to be attributed is simple - Short-cuts taken by companies in their manufacturing process. Cut the costs, pass some savings to the customer and pocket the rest.

If taking monthly back-ups, as in my case, is not practical enough, then are you suggesting that it has to be a daily affair? And if it is daily affair, I cannot imagine any process on a humble home entertainment laptop that can fill up 640 GB of memory. So, the lesson hence is to conviniently ignore these numbers because anything more than 100 GB of a hard disk in a laptop is not practical. And that is precisely the territory I want to go to in the future, a 100 GB of SSD Harddisk - being SSD and with so spinning parts, trust it to have lesser failure rates, and being 100 GB, people will be storing their files at other locations and there by keeping their data safe.

All this throws some light onto the marketing strategies and operational aspects that companies have started to adopt of late. Sell big numbers, delivery it at less cost, be it be by the way of compromising on basic checks. It is the customer who pays the price.

After 6 months, all I am left with in hand is a laptop that has nothing in it and is as good as it was when I bought it new. The only difference is that my confidence level and comfort level on the laptop has taken a beating after having gone through hell over the last 6 months. Numerous crashes and hang-ups, 3 recoveries, loss of data - I beleive it is enough pain to buy.
Cheers
Prasad

[barathvajan]

Originally Posted by chennai-indian

Guys, need help in buying a laptop. I have a 17 inch Gateway bought in US way back in 2007 - it is a core 2 duo with 512 MB graphics card/HDMi etc - was top of the pops then. It has started showing its age - DVD drive does not read properly, has started overheating etc so on the look out for a new laptop.

I do not have a desktop and this will be my primary computer at home so the specs reflect a "desktop replacement" laptop:

1. 17 inch display or at least a 16 inch one - got used to it!!
2. Core i5 or i7 - will also be used for multimedia editing as well as graphics editing (wifey is into graphics editing now)
3. HDMI out
4. Good speakers
5. Min 1 GB graphics card

Any ideas on which brand that I need to search for?

BTW, my max budget is Rs 70,000

Hi

I suggest you to look into sony vaio old f series if you are buying from US. Costs you $870 for the following
1. core i7 740 qm
2. 4gb ddr3 graphicls
3. 16.4" screen (not HD)
4. 320 gb hard disk
5. Speakers are bad
6. HDMi out
7. 512 MB graphics card.

If you want to upgrade your graphics card to 1 gb add $50. Add another $50 if you want to increase your hard disc to 500 gb and anothet $100 for HD screen

[barathvajan]

Hello guys,

I have booked my laptop. Its a sony vaio f series

The configuration is

Core i7 740 QM (F series with 2nd gen i7 is totally out of my budget)
6 GB DDR3 ram @ 1333 Mhz
16.4" display (not HD)
HDMI out
1 GB nvidia GT 440 M
320 GB HDD @ 7200 rpm
Backlit keyboard with separate numeric keypad

The price is $1064.99 all inclusive ( Yes its going to be from US)

Will post review once i get it

Barath