Buy a laptop here or in the states?

Thorbar

My sister is looking into buying a laptop and seeing as she's going to New York for a holiday in two weeks time she asked me if should get one here or wait till she was in the states. I'm not really sure of the laptop market so I thought I'd look for some advice. Will you get better value over in the states then here or is it not worth the hassel of finding a reliable vendor over there. Also can she expect to get tech support over here if something goes wrong with it?

Roughly the sort of specs she's looking for is:
1.6 ghz processor
256 mbs ram
40 gig harddrive
Dvd/cd combo drive

What make/model would you suggest with those specs in mind and what price would you expect to pay?

sceptre

Originally posted by Thorbar
Will you get better value over in the states then here

Yes. Definitely.

Also can she expect to get tech support over here if something goes wrong with it?

Ah, there's the rub. In the same way that many manufacturers over here will give the purchaser a Europe-wide warranty, quite a few over there will give a North American (or just US) warranty.

bkehoe

I got my Dell laptop in the US almost a year ago and got a friend to send it over.
Got fined by customs for €400, and shipping was €100, and still ended up with the laptop €300 cheaper than dell.ie.
And dell let you transfer the ownership to anywhere in the world so the warranty stays valid.
Brendan

Thorbar

Is a dell the best type of laptop out there?

elexes

toshiba ... if ive spelt it right .. get one of em . there is some nice ones released over there they may b a bit more expensive then others but worth it . stay well away from all sony ones

longword

Originally posted by bkehoe
I got my Dell laptop in the US almost a year ago and got a friend to send it over.
Got fined by customs for €400

Fined? Or charged the standard VAT/import duty?

bkehoe

I'd like to think of it as fined seeing as its fairly rare, though yes it was vat/etc.

The_Bullman

can you claim back the vat on the laptop, if bought in the states. Does the "tax free for tourists" thing apply there too?

longword

Originally posted by Thorbar
Is a dell the best type of laptop out there?

No, Apple.

rymus

Originally posted by elexes
toshiba ... if ive spelt it right .. get one of em . there is some nice ones released over there they may b a bit more expensive then others but worth it . stay well away from all sony ones

I'd have to agree with elexes.. Got a top of the range Toshiba laptop a couple of months ago and its excellent. Paid dearly for the performance tho...

No, Apple.

roflmao, move that to the humour board

Balfa

Apples rock, rymus.

I'd trust anything from apple, ibm, dell, toshiba and, to a lesser extent, compaq, who seem to get their laptops a lot righter than their desktops.

If you just buy it there and bring it with you in your bag home, i doubt customs will nab you? i could be wrong.

And that warranty advantage Brendan mentioned about Dells seems like a safe option.

Can you ask her to buy me one while she's there, too? ;D

pickarooney

Tell her to wait for the next laptop offer from Aldi.

maxheadroom

If you're going for the Dell option it'd be worth calling the customer care or warranty sales team here first just to make sure that you can transfer the warranty...

bkehoe

http://support.dell.com/us/en/kb/document.asp?DN=CC1011182#2ndstep

When ownership of a Dell system changes, a transfer of ownership to the new owner should be registered for the system. This will allow the new owner to take advantage of any remaining warranty, if applicable.

.

They also support machines bought on ebay and other auction sites, assuming there is some warranty remaining.
Brendan

Thorbar

Thanks for all the information lads.

maxheadroom

Originally posted by bkehoe
http://support.dell.com/us/en/kb/document.asp?DN=CC1011182#2ndstep

When ownership of a Dell system changes, a transfer of ownership to the new owner should be registered for the system. This will allow the new owner to take advantage of any remaining warranty, if applicable.

I know that you can transfer the warranty to a different person. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the valid area of the warranty.

For instance, in Ireland / the UK, the inspiron range ship with either a European collect and return ("anywhere in Europe where Dell has a presence") or an International next business day warranty ("anywhere in the world where Dell has a presence"). The Lattitude range ships with "3 years International Next Business Day On-Site service". One of their cross selling points from the inspiron range to the lattitude range is that the international warranty comes as standard. Make sure the Dell notebook from the states has an international warranty - but you may have to buy on of the more expensive, "business" notebooks to get this type of warranty. If you go to the States and something goes wrong with an inspiron with a European warranty, you're out of luck.

Dell's US website doesn't seem to have any info on this, so you'll need to talk to someone in Dell to sort it out. If I was still working there, I could find out for you, but customer care or warranty sales should be able to help.

pickarooney

Haha, my powers of prediction have been borne out at lightning speed! Aldi has a new lapotp baby on sale this week (in Holland at least, it might be another week before it's on sale in Ireland). It's a 2.6Gig behemoth, with 256MB ram, 40 Gb HD, 64MB video card with snazzy TV in/out, for the not unreasonable sum of 1600 of your earth euros.

Saruman

Its not on here yet but keep an eye out
http://www.aldi-stores.co.uk/ie/specials_01_11/specials_set.html