Laptops from USA
 

I am thinking of buying a laptop on a trip to the States. Can anyone who's done this advise me whether it was worth it and any problems they had. Thanks in advance.

You will have problems with the warranty, and beware when you bring it home. A friend of mine who travels a lot got done by HM Customs when he brought his back. Ironically, he had back and forth to the states 6 times in 8 months with it, and the seventh time he got done. I have in the past bought a machine over there, I ordered it mail order, delivered to my hotel. If you order from one state and deliver to another you avoid State Tax, depending on the state you are in (the mail order places all appear to be in Michigan, something to do with tax?) Since then I have bought 2 laptops, both in the UK. The warranty thing was the reason why. My first Dell went back twice to have things done to it and I have heard that Dell in the UK wil not touch imported machines unless there are extenuating circumstances.

Thanks Tallbloke,
I thought there must be a catch. I think the warranty is fairly important for something like this so I'll take your advice and buy one locally.
cheers.

Laptops offer a great deal of flexibility and freedom. Beware though they are fragile regardless of brand name, for best no hassles warranty for a 'notebook' that's on the move as to one that sits in an airconditioned office all day and is never moved, WARRANTY = REPAIRS = BEST bouught at home.

FWIW, I contacted Gateway Ireland before leaving for Oz last year re overseas warranty for a 9300XL.
Ansa was; No overseas warranty, SORRY!

Well, I got in the kak with it in CNS.
In desperation I phoned G/way in Nth Ryde (SYD)
They couldn't have been more helpful.
They also suggested to always carry a copy of your invoice for the product in question.
Since then, G/way UK, have replaced it twice, virtually without question and added more periferrals(sp) without charge, who else does that in the PC/Laptop biz? :)
BTW, the probs were all to do with Windows REGISTRY screwing up, hardly a hardware fault.
Good hunting....

Havn't taken my Gateway 9150 out of the UK yet, but I have to say that Gateway tech support have been very good to me for the last year.

The only drawback is that they will not discuss blatent software problems, or OEM adjusted software, and most of their's is!.

Having said that I recently had two bad clusters on my hard disk, and within a week an upgraded hard disk was delivered under gaurantee.

I won't say that Gateway are the best, I don't know, but I'm glad that I bought locally and know where to turn in times of trouble.


[This message has been edited by BoeingBoy (edited 05 July 2000).]