Been a while since Ive written a product review. Here goes the review for my aunts Lenovo 3000 Y410 laptop.
Looks and comfort: Silver coloured surface, aesthetic looks and relatively easy operating comfort. Battery: Typically gives me about 90 minutes (using Internet through WiFi)Multimedia: It comes with in-built Altec speakers (with a subwoofer on the bottom), but my nokia phones speaker produces more sound than these speakers do.
It has a decent webcam (1.3MPx I guess)Warrenty: Standard 1 year. We did not opt for extended warrenty. This is where we misjudged the great Lenovo. In the past, Ive used Dell, HP and Sony but all were (fortunately) doing good over extended periods (though I had a tryst with my HP that Ill talk about separately). But this Lenovo thing broke down exactly 7 days after the warrenty expired.
The Problem: Our warrenty expired on 19-Aug-09. Right on 26-Aug, when my aunt tried to power-on the system, it just refused to obey. She tried pluggin in the power cord (though it was fully charged) and when all her attempts failed, I was summoned to inspect it. My preliminary inspections did not reveal much (I found both the battery and the adapter to be working fine (tested with my MM), but I wanted to be doubly sure. So, I asked my aunt to take it to the showroom where she purchased it.
Accordingly, she went to Compuage in Himayat Nagar (an exclusive Lenovo showroom). Funnily, the guy there said the "actual man is on leave today, please come tomorrow". I called him up and asked him what the matter was and he repeated the same. I asked him to give me the address of the authorized customer service centre and after grumbling that he does not know, he finally talked to someone else and asked my aunt to go to the service centre in Panjagutta (in the lane of Kirtilal jewellers).Desperate to get the issue resolved, my aunt went to the said service centre.
Even stragely, the guy there refused to even inspect it and said it would cost about Rs.1650 just to inspect and identify the problem, since the notebook is out of warranty. WTF, 1650 to find out what the problem is? I couldnt believe it. Then he went on to say that the cost of replacing the parts would be at actuals and hinted that a Motherboard replacement, which he thought is most likely, would cost about 30K. I almost fainted. I wanted to ask him, when the whole laptop costed about 38K, and I found out in the net that the battery costs about 6K+, if the mobo costed 30K, then is there no value to the other parts (are they free?) but refrained from asking. It is evident from his conversation that he is in no mood to discuss and solve a customers problems and is bothered about his own issues on hand. So much for the proclaimed award-winning customer service.
Next choice: As the original seller asked us to come tomorrow when the actual guy comes, we are hoping to go there and ask him to inspect it. If he does and finds out that it is indeed the mobo, that is gone, we dont have an option but to silently dump the laptop in the trash can and shed a silent tear or two and hunt for a new one (not even thinking about a Lenovo in our most remote dreams).