International Support for Laptops

[banana]

anyone has any experience with the above? I'm looking at acquiring a new notebook and apart from the usual e-peen bragging rights, international after sales service is a huge factor. mostly because the last one I had, a Toshiba, had absolutely shocking performance.

am looking at Dell at the mo, their new Latitude and Precision lines seem the biz.

[durain]

lenovo 3-years international warranty is excellent.

i had a swiss purchased lenovo and was in malaysia. the backlight went on the LCD. the changed the whole LCD. another incident was i had a japan purchased lenovo and the HDD went in UK. fone up ibm support telling them the hdd is fubar and they courier a new hdd to me next day for a swap out. it was the same with the battery (battery is one year warranty), they would courier it next day. if it is under warranty, everything is free.

i have used them loads, even when it was i who blow up the motherboard, then changed it.

[sierra2469alpha]

Had no problems with both our Dell Inspiron 9100's being serviced here on their international warranties (I bought ours in Oz) and even extending the international warranty here was a breeze.

HTH, P

[banana]

ohhh the X series thinkpads are teh secks! was looking at the X300 then decided to be a little realistic and set my sights a little lower at the X61. they're well built machines but it's hard to justify the price premium. I mean, you can get almost get a macbook pro for the same...

Dell, on the other hand, are like the maccas of notebooks - almost everybody has something nasty to say about them. why though? I used to diss them as well but that was when they looked plasticky and cheap. they appear to have gotten their act together mostly and on paper, their international support is second only to lenovo.

still, warranty is like insurance - you'd rather not have to call it. which is precisely my problem with Toshiba. having to bring it to their service center in Kallang Bahru is one thing. doing it 6 times in 18 months is ridiculous.

[durain]

with lenovo, they do the leg work.

had the X300. what a laptop! was too expensive, so will probably be replacing the X61s with the new X200 instead unless the new X301 come down in price!

[sundaymorningstaple]

At the beginning of this years my Dell Inspiron 9300 blew it's motherboard. Just about a month into the third year of their comprehensive 3 years warrenty. They were out the next evening, changed out the motherboard, cranked it up and tested it. Thank you very much. I'm still typing on it at this moment. I've had nothing but good service from Dell for the past 8 years and 25 pc's both from a personal and business standpoint. I've also switched to Dell servers at the office as well. No problems. They maybe had a problem 8~10 years ago, but I don't think they suffer from that any more. I've got another on to arrive at lunchtime tomorrow as well.

[Plavt]

Personally I don't like Dell's customer service although it does seem to vary depending where in the world you live. Dell are popular with business customers and although the hardware is expensive it is at least reliable. Avoid HP like the plague.

Note: In Europe Toshiba and Fujitsu Siemens enjoy a good reputation and the repair shop across the road tell me he never sees any brought in. The reason for this is most likely because both companies in this part of the world have their machines assembled in Germany.

[sundaymorningstaple]

Plavt, I think that's probably on anectodal as I doubt seriously they have 100% of the parts manufactured in German manufacturing plants. I don't think all their hardware inside is proprietary so maybe they are just lucky. Granted they are assembled there, but that doesn't guarantee the individual components won't fail. What they probably do is pay a premium like IBM used to do (before Lenovo) and their LCD screens. If you pay a premium to the contract manufacturer, you get a manufacturing run with tighter (more stringent) QC on the screens (e.g., no more than 1 bad / stuck pixel in 1000 screens). This costs higher but does make for better (longer lasting) hardware. That's why the specs are often not as high as other PC's but the costs are equivalent or to get the same specs, much higher as their base material costs are higher due to higher QC.

[Plavt]

Plavt, I think that's probably on anectodal as I doubt seriously they have 100% of the parts manufactured in German manufacturing plants. I don't think all their hardware inside is proprietary so maybe they are just lucky..

There's little doubt about that, Dell for example assembles its Laptops in Ireland (or used too) but the parts are made elsewhere (Malaysia I believe is one country). For whatever reason where a Japanese company has set up in Germany, invariably one gets good service and better quality goods very likely for the other reasons you mention.

[banana]

Care to share what made you less than satisfied with Dell's customer service, Plavt? Presumably this is Dell UK you are talking about.

[sampas]

Asus is another good laptop with international warranty.