Ordering a laptop from manufacturers website in Ireland - trials and tribulations

Having finally examined all the specifications and determined the optimal performance machine for the best price, now comes the time to find an appropriate supplier/retailer.

Machine will be a Lenovo Legion 5, with an RTX 3060 GPU, and some incarnation of CPU either a Ryzen 5000 series but more likely the i5-11400H (delivers highest TDP).

There does not seem to be any recommended outlet to actually buy the machine from.

No conventional electronic store like Harvey-Norman stocks it.

Curry's gets absolutely spagettified on their trust pilot customer service reviews.

I mean you'd think being local and a retail store they'd be held to some kind of standard but woah, I'm afraid to go near the place after reading some feedback (though apparently they're useful for getting the feel of a machine in store, before buying it elsewhere).

LaptopsDirect don't fair a whole lot better and being an overseas company there's apparently little recourse when things go sideways.

There is Amazon but in my case import duty makes it more expensive than almost anywhere else.

Many claim those investing in high end, high spec machines buy direct from the manufacturer, which seems to be the optimal option in my case.

Mainly cause the price is by FAR superior to anywhere else.

"Lenovo Ireland" - managed by a company called "Digital River".

Worst of luck, trustpilot wasn't good to either of these also.

That being said I've read a few anecdotal reports around, where some laptop enthusiasts have had success.

So with all that being said, any tips/advice?

Again, main reason I'd go for the Lenovo retailer direct is the cost is about 25% less than anywhere else, even 25% less than comparable models with inferior specification on the same site....... which makes absolutely no sense but (going for the machine on the far left);

https://www.lenovo.com/ie/en/laptops/legion-laptops/legion-5-series/Legion-5i-Gen-6-15''-Intel/p/LEN101G0001

Who am I to question their methods?

ondafly

I did buy a Legion i7 tower from them last Christmas. I ordered it and then noted two days later they reduced the price by 200 euro. I was raging but contacted them and was reimbursed the 200 a day later. The tower itself arrived about 8 days after ordering and it's been 100% since.

I was skeptical about them though as they don't get great reviews. Also the specs do vary depending on region but the photos illustrated dont. So defo something to be aware of. For me the picture showed water cooling however that was for the US market. Nowhere in the spec did it mention water cooling.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119325588#Comment_119325588

What payment method?

I see many complaints on trustpilot used their visa card.

Paypal might offer some better protection?

But so many cases of "I order laptop X, they sent a machine with completely different hardware....".

One explanation for the ludicrous price difference in the model I'm going for and models with inferior GPU setups,

https://www.lenovo.com/ie/en/laptops/legion-laptops/legion-5-series/Legion-5i-Gen-6-15''-Intel/p/LEN101G0001?orgRef=https%253A%252F%252Fwww.reddit.com%252F

may be the lower priced model being shipped with 8 GB RAM compared to the others.

But this is a 30 euro upgrade?

Plus they have a discount code on site that take the price down again by another 100 euro, and their black-friday deal in the next day or two?

.........

Seems to good to be true?

In tandem with the number of times they've been flagged for scamming on trustpilot, it's definitely a case of "proceed with extreme caution".

According to their website they do have contact phone numbers in Irish locations.

But apparently all contact is routed through a call center in south africa? (digital river).

.......

Hoping to get some more anecdotal feedback here based on order experience?

Alrighty, took the precaution of giving Lenovo a call before.

Took a while to get through but their warehouses are in Dublin and Amsterdam, arranging a call back quite easily.

So I got a call from a Dutch dude, deep heavy voice, "what's up!!", and he sent me a bunch of e-mails with discount codes and also his personal contact details should anything go wrong or any abomination happens as is documented on trust pilot.

In this case they post out an envelop after I contact them by e-mail, that allows free return of the equipment.

Also premium care included which means they dispatch a local technician to address any issue within one day, within the first year.

........

Main issue they described was they outsource most of their customer care to digital-river who mostly don't speak English good and they fuck everything up.

But now I have this dudes contact details, they'll manage all issues directly from a European outlet.

.......

So, taking the plunge.

First time with an online purchase but I feel I have the necessary bases covered, will complete the order with Paypal just to be sure.

I got this rig and had to return it.

Being optimistic after some back and forth customer care ensured they'd arrange a refund.

Being patched from Limerick to Denmark to Germany to....... get this...... Mumbai, apparently I'll received postal tags and a courier will be around to my place next week.

Testament1

Are the discount codes you got generic or personalised to you? Interested in picking up a legion and it would be great to stack some discount codes to bring it down a bit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119349359#Comment_119349359

Missed this.

They're generic.

If you're still looking I can find them.

......

Good news is a full refund was processed.

It was a little hairy but the return process was smooth all things considered (though burned through a lot of phone credit).

Lenovo's are not my style personally. Quite heavy and awkward setup.