Buying a laptop to bring to China

[Cerital]

Hello all

I am relocating from the UK to Beijing in one month. I have done a bit of research and general advice seems to be to buy a laptop here and bring it with me. Would you agree? My Chinese is still very basic and my negotiating skills may be weak.

I am considering two models. Firstly the Sony Vaio. Has anyone had any experience of dealing with Sony in Beijing? Is there a service centre?

Secondly a Fujitsu Siemens. I read a 2004 post where someone spoke positively about FSC in Beijing. Anybody had any experience?

Are there any other models anybody would consider? I'm on a budget of about £800 sterling.

Anybody got any other advice?

[Senzhi]

I brought my Dell laptop from Ireland to China. Unfortuntaly, one day I needed service repair, only to find out that Dell China didn't have the qualified technicians for my model, as it was not a model that was sold in China at that time.

So I had no choice than to buy a new one here. And what did I see: same quality (probably as most hardware in the world is manufactured here anyway) and often cheaper prices.

My advice: if you don't need your laptop in York now, wait and buy it in Beijing. It'll save you the transportation hassle, and you will be covered under Chinese warranty.

Don't worry too much about the language issue: many people will be more than happy to help you.

The only thing you should do before buying is doing some research on the brand/configuration you want, as most sales people are just good at that: selling. Sometimes they really don't have a clue what they are selling. But I guess you have that in the UK and the rest of Europe too.

[Shadowdh]

I agree with the above... buy in China, if you were in the US I would buy in the US as they seem to be cheaper there... but in the UK they are more expensive, I got an ASUS at much higher spec than I could afford in the UK saved about £200 about... perhaps a bit more...

I knew what I wanted in a Laptop and went to a few different shops till I got the price I was willing to pay. I also got a 24 month international warranty with it... (plus I think I really lucked out as they gave me the next model up by mistake... had more grapics memory and a few other goodies which was a bonus)...

[Luobot]

Right after I bought my current Dell laptop in the US, I decided to call them and upgrade the standard, included 1 year U.S. warranty to a 4 year international warranty. Dell assured me that they provide next business day service to the major cities in China. As I’ve never needed to use the warranty, I can’t say how responsive they are, but after reading Senzhi’s post, above, I would ask them for specific locations of concern in writing. As far as price goes, I didn’t see any advantage to buying it in China over the US. HK, however, had competitive prices, so if I hadn’t been in the US, I would have bought it in HK, since I was also headed there.

Regarding Sony, their notebooks look stylish but possibly a bit fragile. Since I’ve had bad experiences with playing DVDs on their players, I tend to steer clear of them. If I were in China, now, I would take a look at Lenovo.

[bamboo]

If I were in China, now, I would take a look at Lenovo.

Good idea, Lenovo is definitely a good bet. If you can afford a high end Thinkpad X or T even better.... R can last for 3 years.well worth the budget conscious.. Virtually unbreakable... even from 4 feet drop. Best-Buy in Shanghai can even give you a dual-language interface model in some cases ala like Hong Kong(English/Chinese). ￡800 pounds or ￥10,900RMB is more than enough to buy an R or low end X (no DVD drive).

Sony is fragile or delicate, like a woman, but so beautiful...

Edited August 2, 2008 at 08:32 AM by bamboo

[bamboo]

I am considering two models. Firstly the Sony Vaio. Has anyone had any experience of dealing with Sony in Beijing? Is there a service centre?

I have two Sony Vaio laptops. Both bought 'outside' of China for the dual language interface feature(English/Chinese). One of them broke down after 8 months, therefore still under guarantee, but certain problems arose with trying to repair the laptop with Sony Vaio (China) Service Centre. They first claim that my model was not sold in China so they were not going to repair it. (No engineer was familiar with the machine etc...) I said it was on guarantee, and I didn't want to fly back to Hong Kong. Then they said the guarantee was not "WorldWide". Later they said the guarantee was valid since it was from Hong Kong. Then they said they need replacement parts sent from Japan or Hong Kong, since they did not stock replacements for my model. Then they tried to convince me that sending replacement parts all the way from Japan will take 3 weeks and I would be better off sending the machine to Hong Kong if I could find someone to take it back down there! Every effort will be made to make sure they do not have to be responsible for your machine. And to top it off, my model was actually made in a factory in China (Made in China) except that it was not sold in China.

If you buy a Vaio, make sure you have the WorldWide guarantee which is more expensive than the normal one year guarantee. Secondly, speaking Chinese is absolutely necessary if you want service from Sony Vaio China Service center. Otherwise a lot of things are "not possible".

Edited August 2, 2008 at 08:35 AM by bamboo

[adrianlondon]

I've got an IBM Thinkpad X41 (bought just before it was rebranded/sold as Lenovo) and it's a fantastic machine. Slow harddisk (due to using the crazily thin iPod style ones) but a rock solid laptop, 1Kg in weight, that I take with me everywhere. Never had any problems with it and have owned it for around 3 years.

Before that I had a Sony Vaio. Well designed machine, but not solidly built either eternally or internally. When it failed during warantee the worldwide guarantee kicked in and a courier picked it up from my office and ... nothing. After two months Sony admitted they'd lost it (i.e. the couriers stole it) and sent a replacement. I managed for two years with that one, fixing faults myself as best as I could, then gave up and got the X41.

Mine was bought in the UK (as I wanted it before my planned trip to China, and also because I run a business so don't pay UK VAT on this type of purchase), but I wouldn't be scared of buying one in China. They're well made so you're unlikely to need to call on the warantee.

[kanadian]

Does anyone know what it would cost to buy a Thinkpad X61 in China right now? I'm thinking about getting a laptop while I'm there and Lenovo seems to be the way to go but I just want to compare the prices to the prices here. Also is it more difficult/expensive to get a dual-language interface?

[Cerital]

Thanks for all the ideas.

The language problem is another issue. Will I be able to buy a laptop with an English interface in China?

[onebir]

The language problem is another issue. Will I be able to buy a laptop with an English interface in China?

(This is all assuming you don't want to install Linux for yourself... I'd be quite daunted by the prospect myself...)

I had a lot of trouble finding a laptop with English Windows in Beijing a few years ago. Most came bundled with Chinese Windows & no option to swap this for English Windows. If you wanted the English version of the OS you needed to either use a language pack (not sure how reliable this is) or buy one separately (ie pay for it twice to get a genuine version able to download updates).

Dell offered the English OS option, so I ended up buying a Dell. Unless you dislike Dells, this option's worth bearing in mind - Dell China has an English language website, so it's easy to research.

But judging by the comment about Best Buy in Shanghai offering a dual language interface, the situation may have improved. & I think some manufacturers now offer machines preloaded with Linux at lower prices than machines pre-installed with Windows. So worst case you could install Windows over this...

[Luobot]

I’ve long bought Dell’s, have never had a serious problem, and except for their general lack of robustness, can’t find much to complain about. One of the reasons I’ve gone with Dell is because I like their promise of “next business day service.” I think having a reliable service contract is possibly the most important feature in deciding which laptop to go with. Obviously, if your laptop has a problem, and you can’t get it fixed quickly and easily, then you’re out of business. Of course, the impact this has on you depends on how reliant you are on your laptop and data. Most of us, I think, rely heavily on it, and some of us feel our life depends upon it. So, I’ve had second thoughts about recommending Dell’s 4 year international service contract (in my post #4) after reading the article: Dell repair adventure. It reminded me of Senzhi’s post #2. The guy writing the article is Dan Kusnetzky, the President and Principal Analyst of Kusnetzky Group LLC. If “next business day service” means whenever Dell gets around to it for someone like him, and he’s in the U.S., then I’ll have to think twice before I again buy an expensive long-term international service contract from Dell. I might switch to buying the cheapest Dell and the default one year service contract that comes with it, and rely on local talent for repairs, or I might just consider another brand altogether.

Which leads me to this question: Which companies offer a reliable laptop with a service warranty that they actually honor in principle? Every company includes fine print in their consumer contracts, but if they’re regularly using it to worm out of their commitment to actually fix your laptop the next business day, or the day after that, and on and on, then it would be good to know to stay away from them in the future. The important thing is whether or not they do deliver according to expectations, how good their reasons are when they claim they can’t deliver (legalese loophole reasons being unacceptable), and how well or poorly they treat you in the process.

If any forum members have experiences to share about any brand, now or in the future, please write about your experience with fixing your laptop or computing device to add to Senzhi’s post #2.

Which companies play nice and which don’t?

[feisnik]

I am exclusively a Mac user and use Linux on my Mac in addition to Mac OS X, but I have to agree that Lenovo is your best choice for a laptop whether you are going to China or not.