Very disappointed

Merlin5

Merlin5

Merlin5

Soldato
Joined
17 Aug 2009
Posts
18,368
Location
Finchley, London
Emailed a seller last night on the bay about a brand new unopened bells and whistles Asus K53TA-BBR6 gaming laptop

AMD quad-core Llano A6-3400M
4GB ram
AMD Crossfire HD 6720G2
with 1GB video memory and HDMI output for connection to an HDTV
500GB hard drive (5400 rpm)
15.6" screen
1 year manufacturers warranty.

Was in the US and worked out at £408 including shipping. Never heard back and now it's sold, the last of 4 units. :( That was a lot more than my original budget, but as you know, you're lucky to get even half that spec for a lot more in the UK. And you'd still get some crappy low powered integrated graphics card. I was all excited to be on the verge of an absolute bargain.
 
remy87 said:
But then was it a reputable seller? Seems to good to be true.
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634 feedbacks in 12 months, 100% positive rating. Has his own shop within the bay.

Actually, I posted about this in GD, originally about a different thing. As it happens, I was advised it's risky to try and get around import charges.

I think it would have been marked as a low value item, but I'd still be responsible for custom duties. Like, I looked at a listing from another US seller and he says "We may help to claim item as low value gift, but buyers are responsible for the customs duty if any". So for future possible bargains in the US, how can I work out all the possible charges I may incur, so that if I did get caught out, I'd know if I could afford the extra or not? VAT at 20% would be added. What are the rates for import duty though and what other likely charges might there be, would you know?
 
Well anyway, moving on, would either of these from a well know high street retailer be better than a laptop with a 4250 gfx, and would either be good enough for basic gaming?

LENOVO G575 15.6" Laptop - Black £299 new

Processor AMD Dual-Core E-350 1.6Ghz 1Mb Cache memory
Operating System Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit
RAM 4gb, DDR3
Graphics card: AMD Radeon HD 6310M

crysis looks ok on E-350/6310M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQLxP-gIlL0



............................................................

HP Pavilion G6-1189SA 15.6" Laptop - Sonoma Red £399.00 new

Processor Intel Core™ i3-370M 2.4 GHz 3 MB L3 cache
Operating System Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium 64
RAM 4 GB, DDR3
Graphics card Intel HD, up to 1.66 GB
 
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don't feel too bad, it is going to be £70-£90 to get it shipped by express mail to make sure it is insured and only a handfull of agents insure laptops.

the seller would be mad not to decalre full value for insurance and customs or pick a cheaper shipping agent/method that doesn't insure it, since if it gets lost and you have paid by paypal he will get hit.

and you are pretty much going to get hit with 20-30% additional cost in duty and handling import fees

not to mention lack of warranty
 
Very true mrk1@1.


Well, currently I'm the highest bidder on an acer aspire 5553G with AMD Phenom II N950 Quad-Core 2.10GHz/650GB HDD/6GB RAM/HD5650. Bidding ends this evening and we haven't reached £300 yet. I wonder if I'll get pushed beyond my budget or not. Hope not, seems like a really good spec machine.

At the same time, since I saw you mention dell vostro 3550 in another thread, it got me looking for those too. There's a couple of dell vostro 3550's I found at very reasonable prices, barely used, with HD6310 which is slightly better than the 5650. Problem is, they're both going to end before the one I've bid on ends and there's nothing I can do unless someone outbids me before they end. I'm keeping my eye on it all. One of those vostro's for sale has had only 6 hours usage according to the seller and warranty till june 2012 as he bought it less than 3 months ago. It's i5 too. Buy it now at £425 or best offer. What would be a sensible offer to make? Postage is £25. There's also another vostro, also hardly used, also bought june, for buy it now only, at £459.99, but free postage. These are very good prices aren't they? I presume they'd go for well over £700 or £800 new?
 
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Merlin5 said:
Very true mrk1@1.


Well, currently I'm the highest bidder on an acer aspire 5553G with AMD Phenom II N950 Quad-Core 2.10GHz/650GB HDD/6GB RAM/HD5650. Bidding ends this evening and we haven't reached £300 yet. I wonder if I'll get pushed beyond my budget or not. Hope not, seems like a really good spec machine.

At the same time, since I saw you mention dell vostro 3550 in another thread, it got me looking for those too. There's a couple of dell vostro 3550's I found at very reasonable prices, barely used, with HD6310 which is slightly better than the 5650. Problem is, they're both going to end before the one I've bid on ends and there's nothing I can do unless someone outbids me before they end. I'm keeping my eye on it all. One of those vostro's for sale has had only 6 hours usage according to the seller and warranty till june 2012 as he bought it less than 3 months ago. It's i5 too. Buy it now at £425 or best offer. What would be a sensible offer to make? Postage is £25. There's also another vostro, also hardly used, also bought june, for buy it now only, at £459.99, but free postage. These are very good prices aren't they? I presume they'd go for well over £700 or £800 new?
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hi m8,

the dell vostro 3550 is a bargain new again and they have just finished one offer for the ships fast i5, 4GB, ati 6330 @ £478 inc vat and 1 year next day warranty. it goes in cycles so they will either have an i3 or i5 variant again within a couple of weeks once they have built the stock up for the ships fast system.

i hope you mean the 6330 not 6310 graphics, the 6310 is like the old 4330 and the 6330 is the 5650 beater.

are you wanting to game on this or treat as a desktop replacement? do you deffo want a 15"

i would avoid the acer as reliability is a problem and as it is s/h you probably can't extend the warranty

for your money, the HP ProBooks are comming in as rather tasty and there are two offers running, HP CashBack or HP TradeIn against 2010/11 models.
 
For gaming mostly mate, and wifi. And the gaming is only for adventures, nothing too graphics intensive, but the 5650 or 6630 will be great to have. Desktop will never be replaced as my main hub :D

Hmm, someone else also told me acer have poor reliability. What if I manage to win the acer at below £300? Considering that spec is pretty high, wouldn't it be a bargain or is it really likely to break down on me faster than a TVR sports car? There's a 3 month RTB on it. "90 day return to base warranty covers manufacturer defects only. Warranty claims will not be accepted on items that the warranty seal has been tampered with, or removed. Accidental damage is not covered under the warranty offered."

Btw, yes, I made a mistake. Both those vostros are AMD HD6630M 1GB DDR3. So I presume even better than the 6330?
 
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in my experience, the minute the acer is taken out of its wrapping and introduced to oxygen, it will start to disintegrate. As mrk1@1 says, the probooks are the way forward at this pricepoint before the offer ends.
 
Merlin5 said:
Hmm, someone else also told me acer have poor reliability. What if I manage to win the acer at below £300? Considering that spec is pretty high, wouldn't it be a bargain or is it really likely to break down on me faster than a TVR sports car? There's a 3 month RTB on it. "90 day return to base warranty covers manufacturer defects only. Warranty claims will not be accepted on items that the warranty seal has been tampered with, or removed. Accidental damage is not covered under the warranty offered."
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£300 is not a great saving if it breaks, could be fine, but as it is both an acer and a refurb already, considering it looks so new in the add, i would be a tad concerned.

could be fine, if it works it will do you for a year or so.

powerful machine, was £519 new with 2 year store warranty from the high street iirc
 
Thanks for the advice. I've just been outbid for the acer. I could easily outbid it, but I think I'll pass for now. I just missed one of the vostro's, the one at £425 buy it now or best offer. Listing ended and it didn't get sold. Might have been able to get it for £390-400. I emailed the seller before it ended asking if he would be relisting if it didn't get sold, haven't heard back. The other vostro has 44 minutes left, and is buy it now at £459.99, free shipping. While that's cheap, I really wanted to try and stay just below £400. You're probably saying " buy it!" ? Where are these HP offers you mentioned? Is there an HP outlet like the dell outlet?
 
HP Cashback offers listed here, then just google the specific product part numbers for any that are currently in date of offer http://www.hpcashback.com/uk/laptops/?all

or trade up here http://www.tradeuptohp.com/business/tradeup-150/

pretty much any old working PC base unit or laptop will get you £150 towards a selected system.

best of the bunch is the HP ProBook 4530s LH282EA#ABU which is £579-£150 trade in so £429

or HP ProBook 4320s XX826EA#ABU which is £299 after cashback

both have the ati 5470/6470 in which unfortunately, isn't the best for gaming but ok and I game on mine. build quality is much much better than the dell.

can't beat them for the price or quality though,

hold out for dell to get the vostro 3550 back in on offer
 
Thanks mrk. Not keen on the graphics cards in any of those HP's. I think I'll hold out for a vostro 3550 now. You helped me discover them and I really do like what they offer. Great GFX, backlit keyboard is really nice to have, and i5. I'm hoping I don't kick myself for not buying either of those vostro's, and hope I get another chance to buy the one that ended.

I've got 18 minutes to decide on the one at £459.99


"For sale is a High Spec Office/Gaming Dell Vostro 3550 Laptop.
Bought this directly off Dell in June and I've not really used it at all so decided I'll sell it out as it is a very capable laptop and I think it's a waste for it to sit in the sleeve off all the time.

It's in As New factory condition with all the drivers installed. Comes with the Dell 1 Year Collect and Return and 1Yr ProSupport and Next Business Day On-Site Service. Warranty will be transferred into YOUR name.

Very nice laptop with an aluminium design and a 15.6" LED screen with the following specs:

CPU: i5 2410M 2.3Ghz (2.9Ghz Turbo) 2nd Gen Sandybridge Processor

Memory: 8GB 1333Mhz DDR3 Dual Channel RAM

Storage: 320GB Western Digital Scorpio Blue HDD

Graphics: Intel HD + Discrete AMD HD6630M 1GB DDR3 Graphics Card

Other extras include backlit keyboard, 2.0 megapixel camera, Intel® Centrino® Wireless-N 1030 (1x2 b/g/n+ Bluetooth Combo Card), Fingerprint Reader Biometric, SATA3 6.0Gb/s, 2x USB 3.0, HDMI, VGA port and 2x USB 3.0 ports along with a card reader.

Comes with the Dell box, UK mains charger and a free Intel 15.6" Laptop Sleeve along with all the documentation and Windows 7 Professional, driver and application CDs.
Free insured delivery! (Discount for collection - PM for details!)"
 
hasn't sold for a reason - probably price, you could hold out and i suspect if you ask him to put it up for £400 ish he may. as these can be had for that new with the discount codes every so often.

warranty should be transferable, and should have the next business day on site one as this was standard on them iirc

shame you haven't got more time, doubt anyone else will buy it so you could hold out and then message him, or send him a message before the auction ends re a best offer price.

not a bad buy if you must,

yea buy it imo @ 2 mins to go lol
 
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Heh, well I always says, what is meant to be is meant to be, etc. I've messaged both the vostro sellers, so, all in the lap of the gods now. I appreciate your help so far and will keep you updated. Do let me know if you come across anything good with an HD5650 or better. :)
 
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