Beware if buying a new laptop in Hua Hin

[buksida]

On two occasions in two different stores within the last month I have experienced problems when purchasing laptops for friends in Hua Hin. Be very careful with those "spec cards" they put out, on both occasions they were not what was in the machine.

The first instance was in Power Buy, a budget Lenovo machine advertised as a Dual Core AMD CPU actually ended up being a Celeron when we got it home and set it up.

The second instance was in JIB Computer, third floor of the old shopping mall. Another Lenovo laptop advertised as Intel i3, 4GB RAM, 750GB hard drive. When we got the machine home and I started the software installation I discovered it only had 2GB RAM and a 500GB hard disk, the store said they would upgrade the memory but not the hard drive - it was their mistake.

So, if buying a laptop here: do not believe what is written on the little card next to the machine and make sure you open it up and start up the computer in the store. You don't need Windows installed to check the hardware specification, as it boots go into the BIOS by pressing F2, F10 or F12 (depending on laptop brand) and it will tell you the CPU, RAM installed and Hard Drive capacity.

As a side note I noticed that 90% of laptops on display only had 2GB of memory, I found this very bizarre as doubling it would only cost an additional 600 baht and the performance increase would be substantial.

[usual suspect]

One of our girls asked me to find them a 'good' reasonably-priced laptop..sure enuf, just as Buksi said here..nearly every model I saw had 2GB of memory & 500GB Hard-drive time after time.. ??

[hhfarang]

Just another example of why I hate this place... this would never happen in a western computer store... at least I've never heard of it. LOS stands for Land Of Scams!

[dom77]

hhferang why dont you leave here if you hate it that much. People are scammed all over the world not just here. I have had no problems with my purchases.

[Name Taken]

Just another example of why I hate this place... this would never happen in a western computer store... at least I've never heard of it. LOS stands for Land Of Scams!

[Name Taken]

hhferang why dont you leave here if you hate it that much. People are scammed all over the world not just here. I have had no problems with my purchases.

Never heard that one before.

[Homer]

How did Power Buy respond?

make sure you open it up and start up the computer in the store

Start the computer before or after the purchase? I've yet to find a store that allowed boxed electronics to be opened. All the local stores told me my choice was to give them money and then they'd give me the box, or to shop elsewhere.

[buksida]

It wasn't returned since the CPU specs were very similar and we didn't need the hassle.

With computer hardware they usually take it out of the packaging to apply a warranty sticker, I'm sure it would be easy just to have them fire it up at the same time.

[STEVE G]

I've found that even here in Europe there can be confusion with buying electronic goods, mainly down to teenage shop assistants either not knowing or not caring about what they're doing and the best bet is to get them to bring whatever you want in an unopened box so you can read what you're getting from the label on the side.

[buksida]

Yes, it was difficult to tell whether these dodgy spec cards were intentional or a mistake by incompetent staff that don't know what they're selling!