Comment by goldfeld | Hacker News Reader

Comment by goldfeld | Hacker News Reader

It had been north of 5 years since I had last bought a laptop. It was a VAIO. I loved that computer as a man can love his bread-winner. Nowadays I work on an old trusty Acer (which feels close to a VAIO in finish, build quality and even style) and an old MacBook Pro (also top notch.)

Well, I just got a Samsung Ativ Book 9. What crap. I'm deep in buyer's remorse. For a computer supposedly with high finish, the keyboard is completely cheap and crappy and scratchy, the screen is meh, it's oversized (despite being super thin) and just overall feels cheap, cheap, crap. Don't buy it. I could only get Fedora 19 working (not latest Ubuntu, not latest Mint, all graphic driver issues) and it was laggy as hell, my keystrokes took a half-second to materialize. Presumably the graphics driver. Gonna try Fedora 20 right now, or I'll go after driver updates or something. Don't buy this sucker. I know I won't buy Samsung again over this. Wish I would have bought a VAIO. But then they sell out.

I also loved my vaio. It was white, solid, and computed, and the keyboard was lovely. I lost it in the divorce. I exchanged it for a Samsung netbook I gave her as a present, because she was having problems with her eyesight.

That said, the netbook is rock solid and very reliable. It saw me through a squalid period of sleeping on couches on top of it after drinking heavily. The keyboard is tacky crap, sure, but it types well. I also have a samsung smartphone and tv (complete coincidence that they had my favourite product in each range), and I would have a hard time knocking their engineering and reliability.

I've had similar experiences with everything Samsung I've used apart from their SSDs. They just don't seem to put much engineering effort into their products.

Acer knock out some good machines. I miss their Timeline series. I got 12 hours out of one of them once and it was super-cheap.

If it sucks so much, why not return it?

Unfortunately, not every place in the world allows no-questions-asked returns like in the US. Even at an intl' chain store like Walmart (where I bought it.)

We're kind of blessed here in the UK, consumer rights is one area where we haven't yet been thrown under the bus. Distance selling regulations for stuff bought online mean companies are obliged to take products back within 7 days of customer receipt no questions asked. This law exists solely to alleviate the "buyers remorse" problem. This doesn't apply to brick and mortar though.

Did you not play with it in shop?

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