Quickly narrowed it down to notebook/netbook type, 10" screen.
Suggestion from tiffy was the Acer Aspire One Happy series:
They are preeetty, so I was set on this for a while, despite having trouble bloody locating it in stock in Wellington. However, Han and Kay noted frustration of being limited by 1GB RAM, and the specifications on various websites (including the Acer website itself) did not note anywhere that the RAM could be upgraded to 2GB.
(And on a minor note, I still haven't been fully convinced about the reliability of Acer considering that Tristan had had a lot of trouble with his like last year or something; it was a fairly new laptop and there were a couple trips to the manufacture-y people, which seemed to take a while to partially-fix.)
For a bit I thought of just getting another Dell, particularly since they're all by online order so it's easy enough to personalise (and they actually tell you the price of the upgrades).
- Dell Inspiron M102z:
Bigger 11" screen while still (presumably) light enough, plus the purpley pattern is pretty! But that was more expensive than the Acer, and anyway then came recommendation from Han's computery-guy family friend (who as far as I'm aware isn't employed by HP?), who recommended the HP Mini series, which is (explicitly) upgradable to 1GB - and also cheaper than Acer and easier to find.
I'm just sad that the pretty design ones are not bloody available in this silly place:
- HP Mini 210 in Raspberry plaid:
- HP Mini 110 with some fancy icy design: 
But on the other hand I would have had to pay extra (1) for the design, and (2) to import them, so... Plus, I don't tend to buy my electronics for aesthetic purposes anyway. Sure, it's still a consideration (e.g. my Dell is a pretty red) but it usually comes later in the list and is given less weight - whereas I'd much rather have a pretty-even-if-impractical laptop bag (e.g. my laptop bag that is red with white polka dots, with its foldy-over flap in red-fake-snake-skin-type - but has no strap and therefore is damn hard to travel with). Same with stationery (e.g. chunky 2011 diary with CUPCAKES ON THE COVER, which I only used the first few months).
Anyway, so I settled on the plain black HP Mini 110, which I bought earlier today:
The lovely young (Indian) guy at Noel Leeming gave me DISCOUNTS.
The fact that he is Indian may or may not be significant, but Mum and I have shopped there before and never got discounts despite Mum's annoying (and I swear Asian) habit of always asking for one. And last time it was a white guy, because I remember thinking that he'd be pretty cute if he tidied himself up a bit haha. But Asians, at least in my experience, are more willing to barter.
(I'll never forget that (white) store person turning down Julie's offer to buy one of the t-shirts on the mannequins in the window that said 'SALE'. I mean DUDE, it's not like they would be hard to replace and you probably could have overcharged her.)
Anyway. DISCOUNTS.
Breakdown:
- $499.00 - HP Mini 110
- $149.00 - Upgrade to 2GB RAM
- $ 49.99 - Laptop bag (Grey and red with strap and lots of pockets [I love pockets!], as well as a small red mouse and one of those USB multi-port things)
- $129.99 - 1-year anti-virus programme CD (installable in 3 different computers; wasn't really after this originally but was concerned since I had the whole trojan horse virus attack my Dell before - plus he offered to give me a discount)
- $ 39.99 - 'Euro-cloth' (which he offered to just throw in for free when I asked if there was a student discount - it's just some wipey cloth good for computer/TV screens without needing spray etc; not a really big deal but it was FREE. And also WOAH who the hell pays $40 for that?)
So the official, technical retail price total is: $867.97.
I paid: $668.98 - which is $198.99 diiiiscount~
So like, even though he was selling it to me by discounting everything a bit here and there, it's pretty much amounted to: free anti-virus programme, free cleany cloth, and discounted laptop bag!
I know this just means they have a massive profit margin and probably can afford to always mark down stuff this much but I DON'T CARE I GOT DISCOUNTS.
Moral of the story: always ask for discounts. And maybe ask Asians, since he was already offering me a cheaper package deal from the beginning. And maybe also wear a tiny dress.
And now someone has to explain to me how I install an anti-virus disc into a laptop with no CD-ROM. If I need to buy something else and the guy screwed me over I'm not going to be very happy.
Hahar I was helpful :D
ReplyDeleteHuh, no CD drive... yeah, notebooks don't usually have one, do they? That's... inconvenient. Hm.
Also I think in terms of discounts it also depends on where they are on the chain of command, or what they've been told is allowed. Cos I get (Asian) customers in all the time who want, like, a dollar off the price but I can't give it to them because I don't have the authority and my manager says we don't give discounts (unless there's a sale, but that's different). Same with the shirt Julie wanted, it's all very well saying he could have given it to her but he would have had to make up a price for it, which would mean knowing how much it cost in the first place. It would also meaning having to create a new price category in their system, which - especially if they're a chain store - would be quite difficult without administrative permissions. It probably wouldn't have been worth the sale.
Eww I say 'fair enough' a lot, I need to stop that.
ReplyDeleteyay so success?? with the anti virus that is :P
ReplyDeleteheheheheh fair enough lol