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Can someone suggest an inexpensive laptop for writing and doing job applications? A Chromebook and a proper laptop suggestion would be nice. I'm not totally sold that a Chromebook will do everything I need.
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Feb 11, 2014 18:18
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BrainParasite posted:Can someone suggest an inexpensive laptop for writing and doing job applications? Lets start with do you need it for? If you already have a laptop, just install Chrome, hit up the app store and see what's there. You can do a 100% simulation very easily.
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Feb 11, 2014 18:40
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Jerk McJerkface posted:Lets start with do you need it for? If you already have a laptop, just install Chrome, hit up the app store and see what's there. You can do a 100% simulation very easily. My girlfriend is the one who really wants Office. I think the major point for her is not being forced to download everything to another computer to make sure it looks right in Office before sending it out.
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Feb 11, 2014 19:06
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BrainParasite posted:My girlfriend is the one who really wants Office. I think the major point for her is not being forced to download everything to another computer to make sure it looks right in Office before sending it out. Office Web apps are a thing, and they work pretty well. As long as you aren't doing lots of complex Excel macros and what not, a regular document in word isn't a big deal.
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Feb 11, 2014 19:07
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BrainParasite posted:My girlfriend is the one who really wants Office. I think the major point for her is not being forced to download everything to another computer to make sure it looks right in Office before sending it out. If she's not feeling comfortable with Chrome then just buy the cheapest laptop that you can find with Wifi. You really don't need much for Office applications
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Feb 11, 2014 19:36
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AARP LARPer fucked around with this message at 23:16 on Jan 22, 2016 |
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Feb 11, 2014 20:20
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Jerk McJerkface posted:Office Web apps are a thing, and they work pretty well. As long as you aren't doing lots of complex Excel macros and what not, a regular document in word isn't a big deal. Alright. Can I get a suggestion for a Chrome book and a regular laptop so I can try them out in a store or something?
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Feb 11, 2014 20:27
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Macbook Airs are called Ultrabooks by the uninitiated, but don't be fooled! They are not in fact capable of being emotionally touched.
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Feb 11, 2014 20:28
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BrainParasite posted:Alright. Can I get a suggestion for a Chrome book and a regular laptop so I can try them out in a store or something? I had the Samsung Series 3 (from the Play Store) and I really liked it. However now they have some new ones. The HP looks interesting, there was a recall due to it's charger catching on fire or something, but it's fixed now. I haven't used the HP, but it's my favorite looking one. Do you have any sort of laptop/pc now?
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Feb 11, 2014 21:18
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Jerk McJerkface posted:I had the Samsung Series 3 (from the Play Store) and I really liked it. However now they have some new ones. The HP looks interesting, there was a recall due to it's charger catching on fire or something, but it's fixed now. I haven't used the HP, but it's my favorite looking one. I have an OK desktop I built myself. It's tucked away in a back room because it takes up too much space anywhere else. That's why I'm not too worried about games and what not. We're basically looking for something more convenient for her to write on and for me to use to apply to jobs, write cover letters, maybe mess with my resume. She's writing for her own amusement at the moment, but may end up doing web content or who knows what. Being able to write without WiFi is preferred, but not critical I suppose. Hangouts, Netflix, music playing/storage, emulation, watching DVDs, and casual gaming are all desirable, but not necessary.
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Feb 11, 2014 21:55
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BrainParasite posted:I have an OK desktop I built myself. It's tucked away in a back room because it takes up too much space anywhere else. That's why I'm not too worried about games and what not. We're basically looking for something more convenient for her to write on and for me to use to apply to jobs, write cover letters, maybe mess with my resume. Google Docs works offline on Chrome OS
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Feb 11, 2014 21:57
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If you want a windows machine and not a chrome book (I'm not sure I'd recommend it if you need it for getting a lot of work done on things like resumes and cover letters; I always thought of them as low-cost consumption devices), and cost needs to be kept low, you can try something like the asus x202e. I haven't used it myself, but it gets decent reviews for the price and be found on sale fairly often. That said, if you'll only use it on a desk 90% of the time and have an external keyboard and mouse, the surface pro costs 600 and can be found on sale for 500. Otherwise, try to find an open box deal at a local Best Buy or Microcenter for a laptop. Or maybe one of those win 8 tablets that can still run Office and are usually at tablet prices. There's a thread about them in IYG.
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Feb 11, 2014 22:12
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Jerk McJerkface posted:I had the Samsung Series 3 (from the Play Store) and I really liked it. However now they have some new ones. The HP looks interesting, there was a recall due to it's charger catching on fire or something, but it's fixed now. I haven't used the HP, but it's my favorite looking one. Everything I read when I looked into Chromebooks indicated that the ones using Celeron chips were much better performers than the ones using ARM chips. The internals seem pretty similar, only the form factor and screen size are different. 11 inch (There's a model that sells for $200 that seems to have similar specs) 13 inch 14 inch I would avoid anything like the Samsung Chromebook or HP 11inch which use an ARM chip, although the HP 11 apparently has a very nice IPS screen.
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Feb 11, 2014 22:15
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I had both the Samsung Series 3 (ARM) and the most recent Series 5. I like them both pretty well.
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Feb 11, 2014 22:20
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BeastOfExmoor posted:Everything I read when I looked into Chromebooks indicated that the ones using Celeron chips were much better performers than the ones using ARM chips. I've played with the ARM ones at Best Buy, they are slow as gently caress.
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Feb 11, 2014 22:22
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The Acer C7 series is really well performing. Definitely not an anemic laptop, especially when they're on sale all the time.
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Feb 11, 2014 22:29
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Hadlock posted:1080p over usb3.0 is a mature technology, if you're in a desktop situation take a look at a USB 3.0 docking station, they do 30fps no problem these days. O wouldn't game on one, but they're suitable for excel and general web surfing If I could afford the space/weight for a dock and monitor I'd just build a desktop in a mini-ITX case  edit: oh poo poo 
Straker fucked around with this message at 22:35 on Feb 11, 2014 |
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Feb 11, 2014 22:30
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Straker posted:Thanks, but I don't really need a dock, and I'm confused by "1080p over USB 3"... are you saying USB 3 to a dock to HDMI or whatever? I don't have the room for a real monitor, and I'm not seeing any portable monitors that can do better than 768p which is pretty weak. You want a monitor that connects directly via USB 3.0 to your laptop, and is presumably powered by the laptop as well?
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Feb 11, 2014 22:32
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Jerk McJerkface posted:You want a monitor that connects directly via USB 3.0 to your laptop, and is presumably powered by the laptop as well? edit: there's also http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA0V10SZ4949 which is loving amazing, IPS, and has HDMI, but gently caress for that price I may as well just get a lovely second laptop to watch movies or whatever on. That Asus I edited into my last post is really tempting but anyone have any idea what kind of CPU overhead displaylink has for (say) watching fullscreen video? Almost seems like maybe I should just go with one of those lovely cheap 720p monitors, save money and less overhead if I'm using it to watch movies or whatever. Straker fucked around with this message at 22:57 on Feb 11, 2014 |
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Feb 11, 2014 22:37
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I'm considering diving into the modern world and getting myself a Samsung Ativ Book 9. Can someone clarify for me the following: - I understand that the battery isn't removable- but what about the SSD and RAM? The Book 9 comes with 128 GB of internal SSD, which is just not suitable. For an additional $600 the 9 Plus comes with 256 mb. I'd rather just upgrade that myself. The same goes for the RAM, which is configurable in 4 GB or 8 GB, depending on the model. Is 4 GB suitable these days? My 5 year old Asus UL80vt is equipped with what looks to be a nearly identical RAM configration. - Will the difference between i5 and i7 be worthwhile? My aspirations generally don't extend beyond basic tasks and piping high-def video to an external monitor, and being able to play things as demanding as say... SimCity or Civ 5. Am I really getting $600 worth of performance upgrades by upping to i7 (as well as the 8 GB RAM)?
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Feb 12, 2014 01:26
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Yeah, that The first gen Asus 1366x768 is ~$110 shipped on Amazon right now, I'm tempted to get one of those for the days I don't feel like getting out of bed on my work from home days. Also it would make working I think Lenovo used to sell one too Right now I am using a phantom monitor driver and tightvnc server to create a second display the same resolution as my netbook's screen, and then open VNC full screen on the netbook and connect to that portion of the vnc server. It actually works pretty well but it doesn't play well when I try and hook my laptop up to my TV so I end up disabling it when not working. *apparently this was unclear Hadlock fucked around with this message at 03:09 on Feb 12, 2014 |
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Feb 12, 2014 02:53
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Lenovo used to have a crappy 768p one and I guess is rolling out a 1080p IPS touchscreen for $400, looks similar to the other one I posted. I just ordered that $200 1080p Asus, figure if it's useful I'll be using it long enough to make 1080p worthwhile, and it's allegedly designed well, pretty, very slim etc. There's also a kickstarter for a really nice looking 1080p screen, they got like 2000% overfunded but their web site has some engrish/dumb mistakes on it and their product won't be out til summer anyway so.
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Feb 12, 2014 03:04
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Nevermind
Rythe fucked around with this message at 03:39 on Feb 12, 2014 |
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Feb 12, 2014 03:27
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Rythe posted:Kind of a silly questions but I am buying a new laptop and upgrading the HDD at the same time and I need to install the OS on the new HDD. Can I just create a back up on a external hard drive, install the new HDD and use the back up to transfer my OS to the new HDD? Also this would be with Windows 8. Just buy a USB drive caddy for the new drive and use Macrium Reflect to clone the drive. Or pop your current external drive open (if you can) and use that.
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Feb 12, 2014 03:40
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Jewmanji posted:I'm considering diving into the modern world and getting myself a Samsung Ativ Book 9. Can someone clarify for me the following: SSD yes, RAM no i5 will do what you need, some people may need the i7.
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Feb 12, 2014 03:58
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Unless you are doing engineering postgrad work the i7 is mostly a waste. For a power user you might stretch 50% of it's capabilities a few times a week, the average user probably won't crack 30% cpu usage (across 4 logical cores) on a modern i5 ultrabook. 8GB ram is highly dependent. If you only open one-to-two tabs at a time you might never hit the 4GB limit, if you're a web browser tab whore like me (I have at least 20 chrome windows with an average of four tabs each for 88 chrome.exe processes) you're probably chewing through 6-7GB of RAM at idle. Photoshop etc run a lot faster with more breathing room, and you never have to worry about closing programs with 8GB.
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Feb 12, 2014 04:11
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Cmdrmonkey posted:Ultrabooks are highly portable and get great battery life like netbooks, but unlike netbooks they have good build quality, have keyboards and trackpads that are actually usable, and don't use anemic CPUs like Atoms or Celerons. The CPUs in ultrabooks are just ultra low voltage versions of the same Core i5 and i7 CPUs you see in everything else, and are in fact quite powerful and only marginally slower than what you have in regular laptops. They're nothing like netbooks in this sense and are not underpowered at all. And with Intel improving their onboard graphics so much in recent years, an ultrabook will work fine for light gaming. Also, ultrabooks achieve their portability by being razor thin but the same size around as a lot of regular notebooks. This is in contrast to Netbooks that were small around but thick, which was much less desirable. The big downside of ultrabooks is that they aren't really end user repairable or upgradable. Everything tends to be soldered onto the motherboard or glued into place. What you see is what you get. You can't even upgrade the RAM or change out the batteries in most cases. As far as specific recommendations, the Macbook Air and Thinkpad X1 Carbon are both safe bets, but also expensive, and I'm not sure how much you're looking to spend. Cool, I'll remember that when I start looking seriously. Semi-related, but it seems like ultrabooks don't have built-in CD/DVD drives, so how are external/USB CD-DVD drives these days? I'm awfully attached to my original Morrowind CDs and I'd like to be able to play those on whatever laptop I get next, even if I need to buy an extra add-on for it (that will be useful for DVDs and the like, mind you)
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Feb 12, 2014 06:05
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C-Euro posted:Cool, I'll remember that when I start looking seriously. Buy it on Steam and forget about those shiny spinny thingies.
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Feb 12, 2014 08:06
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Whats a good brand for replacement chargers? I may have stupidly left mine in a coffee shop if it didn't fall out of my bag at home. I've got a Lenovo T430 but want a good general idea of what I should look for, I've already been told to skip out on Targus.
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Feb 12, 2014 17:09
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Asema posted:Whats a good brand for replacement chargers? I may have stupidly left mine in a coffee shop if it didn't fall out of my bag at home. I just go on Amazon and look for something no-name with high/many reviews. There's still going to be some duds but you have 2-day shipping, returns, etc just in case. Edit: This brand is solid, I have a dozen chargers from them for tablets at work and no issues: http://www.amazon.com/Adapter-Thinkpad-Ultrabook-Battery-Notebook/dp/B00ARP0RCY/
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Feb 12, 2014 17:17
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Blew my tax refund on a top of the line XPS 15 (i7 quad, 750m, 512gb ssd, 91 wHr) and here's my impressions: Build and poo poo Doesn't feel quite as "dense" as the equivalent MBPr but that is a slightly smaller machine. The lid DOES NOT close flush along the depth of the laptop. There is a tiny gap toward the back by the hinge side. This is so that the screen doesn't contact the keyboard and this is as designed and not a defect. Top of the lid is solid enough. The carbon fiber bottom really does add stiffness and you can pick it up by a corner without any worries at all but in practice just feels like high quality plastic, once again not a bad thing. The soft touch silicon whatever coating makes for a comfortable palmrest but attrracts and retains dust and oil like crazy. Worse yet, I'm scared of using solvents to clean it for fear of staining or discoloring it. Some folks are reporting coil whine issues and fortunately I don't have any. I do have a single dead pixel and give no fucks. Usage A few things to disable before the machine really gets to where it needs to be. Splendid color off (ludicrous oversaturation). NFC and Bluetooth off for the battery life. Turn off auto brightness adjust. Speaking of battery life, I haven't done a full cycle yet but am confident with the aforementioned changes that 8 hours normal use is possible with the 91 wHr battery. Strangely my battery came with 3% wear on it... Touchscreen works fine if you're into that sort of thing. Touchpad less so; the directional settings I had for the two finger scroll seemed to do gently caress all until I got the latest drivers from Dell. Rumor has it that the Synaptics drivers direct from their site are even better but I haven't tried them yet. I'm using this 3800x1800 screen without scaling (1:1 as GOD intended  ) and will probably go blind soon from doing so but man is it a hoot. Windows really needs a new snap option to put 2x2 panes up rather than just side by side for these newfangled hiDPI panels. Temperatures tend to run on the warm side and I did get throttling in Furmark. The fans are high pitched but not loud.THE SPEEEEEEEDD Why bother explaining perfection? Other than some software faults like Flash or a browser making GBS threads on itself not a single hiccup otherwise. As for  I suppose all GT 750m are created equal but some are more equal than the rest (see: memory bandwidth). Runs (notoriously CPU bound) Source engine games to the tune of 80-100 fps at the full 3800x1800. BF4 @ 1600x900 runs 35-45 fps on medium.
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Feb 12, 2014 17:25
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Seamonster posted:Windows really needs a new snap option to put 2x2 panes up rather than just side by side for these newfangled hiDPI panels. Winsplit Revolution
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Feb 12, 2014 17:51
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Thank you goon sire. The need never came up since I've never had enough megapickles to warrant it. Not even my 2560x1600 30 incher.
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Feb 12, 2014 18:24
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There are so many thinkpad nerds in this thread that prhaps one of you knows the answer... Is there any way to get chiral scrolling on a mac, or something similar?
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Feb 12, 2014 19:58
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I hope this is the right place to ask this. If not, just let me know. I own an MSI GT683-R Gaming Laptop that I bought many years back. The GTX560m GPU died on me a little while ago and I'm like twelve notches below the poverty line these days so affording to replace it just isn't possible. Which is moot anyways since I can't find a retailer who sells the exact model used in the GT683-R, all the ones I found were a slightly different model for use in Alienware's So I've decided to just toss the thing up on craiglist or eBay and try to at least get some minor cash out of it to put toward bills. It's not doing me any good just sitting around gathering dust. What would you guys think is a fair price to put it up for? Everything except the GPU works perfectly. And I understand that I won't be getting much for it since a new GPU would be expensive and a pain in the rear end to track down. And should I maybe consider disassembling it and parting it out rather then selling it as a whole piece?
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Feb 13, 2014 01:48
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shodanjr_gr posted:Buy it on Steam and forget about those shiny spinny thingies. M-m-my Construction Set  You're probably right though, or I'll just commandeer my girlfriend's desktop for CD Morrowind until I finish my own.
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Feb 13, 2014 04:29
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C-Euro posted:M-m-my Construction Set If you love optical disks that much you can get an external drive for under $30. They read discs. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135256 Alternatively, you can try to make ISOs of your Morrowind discs and use something like Daemon Tools or Virtual Clonedrive. It depends on what sort of DRM the software uses though.
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Feb 13, 2014 04:44
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Man my Thinkpad 6-cell battery lost almost 25% of its capacity its first year. It's somehow got 390 cycles on it, and I did run it down to zero % plenty of times. But poo poo, what a bummer.Hadlock posted:They're rated for about 400 cycles so that sounds about right. The good news is that a replacement is under $50, although it sounds like you ought to upgrade to the 9 cell... Yeah, definitely. agarjogger fucked around with this message at 07:47 on Feb 13, 2014 |
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Feb 13, 2014 06:57
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They're rated for about 400 cycles so that sounds about right. The good news is that a replacement is under $50, although it sounds like you ought to upgrade to the 9 cell...
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Feb 13, 2014 07:23
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Is there a reason the Lenovo sales call center has been closed for the past 2 days and no one seems to be manning online customer support? I ordered a Thinkpad a month ago and I have no idea where it is. The tracking number they provided doesn't exist. I've already been charged and when I call the Lenovo automated system it lists the status of my order as "delivered". I'm so nervous right now. e: I think the center is located in Raleigh, which received a city-breaking 3 inches of snow. So perhaps that's the answer to my question. I'm from Toronto which has been frigid and snowy for awhile now, so I'm not amused by these weaklings. 
computer angel fucked around with this message at 17:41 on Feb 13, 2014 |
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Feb 13, 2014 16:56
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