Review of Euclid Computers With Purchase of T61p and Thinkpad Screen Comparison

Review of Euclid Computers With Purchase of Lenovo Thinkpad T61p
And Thinkpad Screen Comparison​

Preface
This is not a review of the T61p itself. Kevin wrote a very brilliant review which was a large deciding factor in my purchase. It has pretty much the same specifications as the one I bought. (My specs listed below.) Kevin's review can be found here: Lenovo ThinkPad T61p Review





Prologue
Upon entering university and an engineering degree, I thought it was proper time for me to replace my Inspiron for something more suited for the role. The Thinkpad T61p appealed to me because I used a T42 before my Inspiron, and all I could recall about it was it's amazing design and sturdiness. Even now, it's still going strong after passing it on to my brother. Since the newer models are coming out soon, they'll be rather expensive. So this is a great time to get a pimped out T61p for cheap.

Now, here rose a problem. Since I now reside in Australia, the prices of laptops bought locally were very expensive. A similarly configured T61p would cost more than AU$3000, and only has 1 year warranty. And that's after discounts. Thus, I decided to seek an alternative method, which was online sellers that ship internationally. Even though I would have to pay customs tax, the overall price would still be a lot cheaper.

This review is leaned towards helping the members on the forums that live outside of USA or Canada, as we don't seem to get as good deals as those in North America. Online shopping is a good way to get cheap items if you aren't eligible for the discounts, or, like in my case, the items in your local dealer are more expensive for no reason whatsoever. But always be wary of the import tax that your country charges AND the way they calculate it to judge if it's worth buying from overseas.

On the forums, palmag pointed to me to a store called Euclid Computers, and that's where my journey begins.

Website
The website, at first glance doesn't seem too professional. It lacks a certain 'complexity' that tends to make visitors believe it's a scam. But, trust me, it's competely legit.

Searching for notebooks is a rather easy task in the search applet at the bottom. It gives good results if you know exactly what you're searching for, but a more general search query at the top left corner will lead you to an unsorted jumble of products.

Ordering is rather straightforward. You can pay by Credit Card, cheques, money order, wire transfer or PayPal. If you pay by wire transfer, the name of the bank account holder is “Euclid Computers”. All international shipping goes through FedEx.

When asked about where the laptops where from, my customer agent had this to say, “ Ship brand new factory sealed laptops from all over the world. No idea where it is assembled. All international go to Ohio, then by FedEx Air.”

If you wish to email the sales department enquiring about an item after you have selected it, it is important that you DO NOT change the subject of the email, or it will be sent to their junk folder. They offer 24 hour services. However, my off-office-hour emails were only replied on the next business day.

My Purchase
Lenovo T61p (6460DVU)
15.4” 1650x1050 WSXGA+
Intel T9300 2.5Ghz
2x1Gb RAM
160Gb @ 7200rpm HD
Nvidia Quatro FX 570M 256Mb
9 cell battery
3 years standard warranty
Windows XP Professional SP2

Notebook: US$1713
Shipping to Australia: US$145.49
Australian Customs tax: AU$252.03
Total: US$2,101/AU$2,181 (More than AU$1000 cheaper than Lenovo Australia's offer after “discounts”.)

If you live outside USA or Canada, you aren't entitled to warranty extensions and only get the standard one provided. On the search page, they didn't list down the size of the battery and I had to email them myself asking about it. My customer service agent told me it was a 6-cell battery, but what I received in the end was a 9-cell.

I ordered my laptop on the 30th April, 2008 after exchanging a few emails with my customer service representative. She replied swiftly and we exchanged about 5 emails in 3 hours. Note that the headquarters are based in Ohio, at GMT -4.

After filling the order details, I received a confirmation email instantly, providing me their bank details. I completed the wire transfer on the 1st of May, and they received it the next day.


Order comfirmation email

On the 6th May, While browsing their website, I noticed that the T61p that I ordered wasn't shown in the search results. This worried me, and after emailing her, my CSR said that the 6460DVU that I ordered was out of stock, and offered to ship me on the very next day an alternative with these specs: Intel T7700 2.4GHz, 1920x1200 WUXGA screen, and Windows Vista Ultimate at US$1777, the rest being more or less equal. And they would honour the original price that I paid them of US$1713. It was sweet of them, but the main issue was the fact that they didn't inform me about it being out of stock, and that I had to ask them about it.

The estimated arrival date was 19th May, 2008. However, due to customs delays, I only received it on the 22nd. Here is an estimated time line of the package's journey:

14/05/08
1431 (GMT -4) Package data transmitted to FedEx
1701 (GMT -4) Pickup up @ Bedford Heights, OH
2115 (GMT -4) Left Origin @ Bedford Heights, OH
2321 (GMT -5) Arrived at FedEx location @ Memphis, TN

15/05/08
0414 (GMT -5) Departed FedEx location @ Memphis, TN
1325 (GMT -10) At local FedEx facility @ Honolulu, HI {Do note that if you live in Europe, this probably isn't sorting center your package will pass by. This is is the sorting facility for Asia.}

16/05/08
1027 (GMT -10) In Transit @ Honolulu, HI

17/05/08
1643 (GMT +10) At dest. sort facility @ Mascot, AU
1845 (GMT +10) In transit @ Alexandria, AU [DETAILS: Paperwork available for non-FedEx broker]
1845 (GMT +10) In transit @ Alexandria, AU [DETAILS: Package available for clearance]
2349 (GMT +10) In transit @ Alexandria, AU

18/05/08
0021 (GMT +10) In transit @ Alexandria, AU

19/05/08
0911 (GMT +9.5) In Transit @ Adelaide Airport, AU [DETAILS: Paperwork available for non-FedEx broker]

22/05/08
0805 (GMT +9.5) On FedEx vehicle for delivery @ Adelaide Airport, AU
0925 (GMT +9.5) Delivered to a non-FedEx clearance broker @ Adelaide, AU

Note that Mascot, AU is just next to the Sydney Airport, and Alexandria, AU is slightly to the North. My laptop arrived in about 3 weeks. Note that about one week was spent waiting for it to be built, and 3 days was spent in Adelaide customs. Assuming that one orders a laptop in stock and customs clear in a day, total shipping time would only be a bit longer than one week depending where you reside.

The main cause of the delay at the customs was that FedEx was somehow instructed that I was going to provide my own broker for the tax calculations. The stranger thing is that this isn't normal FedEx procedure. Which means they were somehow instructed to do so.

Naturally, this led to many a few phone calls back and forth. In the future, if you see "Paperwork available for non-FedEx broker" appearing in your FedEx Tracking page and you did not intend to enlist your own broker, you should tell them promptly.

On the 21st of May, I received a call from FedEx asking me to pay the customs tax of AU$250.06 to them by credit card or direct deposit. A direct deposit would have taken at least one day to process, so I used credit card.

The package
The package arrived on Thursday morning May 22nd at 0925 (GMT +9.5).

Here are a few pictures of the package. Please forgive my lousy camera skills and my paranoia in blanking out things:


The package arrived in a rather simple box


Package without the customs documents


Opened box


The only cushioning they used between the boxes was 4 sheets of thick recycled paper. And frankly, that just seems lazy. And with the way the airports handles packages, dangerous as well.

For those who's ordered from Lenovo before, this will look familiar, but for others wanting to order from them, here's the Lenovo box with a Xbox360 controller as a size guide. (It was the only thing I could find that was 'standard'.)


Top


Side


Label found on the side


Lenovo box open

This packaging, on the otherhand, reassured me greatly. Notice how the Thinkpad is fit nice and snug as beckons me to approach her.


Notebook taken out


Accessories

Clockwise from top left corner spiraling inwards: Information sheets, AC connection, power brick, manuals, 9-cell battery, extra screws x2, extra UltraNav red tips x2. Please note that the AC cable is in US style. If you reside elsewhere, you'll need a plug adaptor.

Conclusion
On hindsight, my purchase from Euclid Computers was a rushed one, as I didn't do much research into other online stores. Visits to Provantage showed that the same notebook was about US$20 cheaper, but I cannot confirm if it also had a 3 year warranty. The website looked more comprehensive, however, I have never purchased from them, so I wouldn't know for sure. Then again, to be honest, if it's the exact same laptop also with a 3 year standard warranty, there's no reason no to go for the cheaper Provantage.

Overall, though, the purchasing process was on the whole, a very smooth sail. My customer agent was friendly and quick to reply and clarify things.

+My laptop arrived
+Brilliant customer service
-Website looks dodgy and needs interface improvement
-Packaging is lazy






Epilogue
I have noticed on the forums, discussions about the lack of quality of the Thinkpad screens. Thus, I'd like to take this opportunity to present the screen on my T61p and give some of my views. All screenshots are with stock screen settings and at maximum brightness.

After looking up the Parts Lookup, I found that I had a Samsung screen. The comparison on the left is a Dell Inspiron 1501 with a 1280x800 WXGA.


Booting the T61p for the first time

It is already apparent that there is considerable light leakage


Audi R8 wallpaper (Such a beauty!)

There seems to be less colour depth. But I'm not very good with photography to pinpoint the causes of the difference.

View Angles:

The front view with a scene from Daft Punk - Interstella 5555 (Great, great anime clip, by the way.)


Left


Right


Tilted forward


Tilted back

It seems that the view angles of the T61p is better than that of the 1501.

I tried to tune the camera to show as close to what I was seeing in reality. And, noticibly, the light leakage is significant. But it seems less intense as the Dell.

Blank

Another problem with the screen, that a lot of others also experience on the forums is the intensity of the screen brightness isn't even. The centre of the screen is the brightest, and it darkens as it progresses to the edges and corners. Also, there is a dark spot in the extreme lower right corner of the screen. But it is not noticible in normal use.

Conclusion, again
I personally, am not too picky about the screens and prefer matte screens. And knowing the notority of the Samsung screen I'm pretty content. The good viewing angles surprised me. And in conparison to my Dell, this is an improvement.

 

zephyrus17, thaks for the screenshots, very well done. The screen does indeed seem to have a not so good contrast ratio

Could someone move this thread over to the reviews section ?

 

You're welcome

 

Very nice review! congrats on the purchase.
Just one question, how did customs bill you, I mean did they send you out a bill or did you have to pay the fedex guy?
Other than that, a very comprehensive review!

 

Ah! Yes! Thanks for reminding me.

On the 21st of May, I received a call from FedEx asking me to pay the customs tax of AU$250.06 to them by credit card or direct deposit. A direct deposit would have taken at least one day to process, so I used credit card.

 

Very nice review. Thanks for the PM. Going to have to wait and see what the prices on the new Thinkpads will be over here in the UK. Otherwise an order from Euclid from me, looks likely. Cheers.

 

Don't forget to include VAT into your consideration

 

I moved this to the Lenovo forum as it seemed a better fit than Tech Deals. There's lots of overseas buyers interested in getting a ThinkPad from the US where's I think quite a bit cheaper.

 

very nice write up. thanks

 

Notebook: US$1713
Shipping to Australia: US$145.49
Australian Customs tax: AU$205.06
Total: US$2,055/AU$2,139 (More than AU$1000 cheaper than Lenovo Australia's offer after “discounts”.)

2139 AU$ is about 1350 €, so it's a very nice deal. I was planning to buy a T61p in USA, but we started to have the following for about 1700 € shipping and taxes included.

Lenovo T61p
15.4” 1920x1200 WUXGA+
Intel T9300 2.5 GHz
1x2GB RAM
160GB @ 7200rpm HD
Nvidia Quatro FX 570M 256MB
6 cell battery
3 years standard warranty
Windows Vista Ultimate + Windows XP Pro

 

That's not bad, considering the taxes where you are are rather steep.

And thanks, ZaZ, for the move

 

Thanks for the excellent pictures. To me, your screen looks better than the Dell in all but the car shot, where the Lenovo looks a little washed out. Know that this can easily be changed in color profiles.

Too bad techno_techie has been unable to post pictures of the screen he says is so bad, so we can compare.

 

Do you know any good tuning resources or guides for this? The Nvidia Monitor Tuning Wizard is very crappy

 

There have been a couple of custom, calibration generated color profiles posted. I've installed them and they seem to help by shifting the color from bluish more to yellow. Let me see if I can find the post and link to it here.

Here it is, there are two profiles, one from BrendaEM and one from Stallen, good luck!


http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=174408&highlight=brenda+color+profile

 

I read that was tested on an LG panel. Would it be the same for a Samsung?

 

when yo use one of those color profiles, do you just add the .icm under the device tab of color management?

 

Bumpity bump

 

Is there some reason we're bumping this?

 

Did Euclid confirm that if you buy from them and do not live in the US or Canada that you can't purchase a warranty extension at all, or just from them?

EDIT: Also, did you get any stuck pixels? Were you worried about them?

 

Yes. They did say that I cannot buy an extension from them. But I am quite not sure if I can buy one from the local Lenovo shop. I shall call them tomorrow and ask for you. I got the 3-year warranty by default from Euclid. Your warranty length may vary, of course.

I did not get any stuck pixels. Of course, Lenovo is still the maker of the laptop, Euclid is only the reseller. I was a bit on the edge because I was making a $2000 gamble as I didn't know if Euclid Computers was truly reliable, and the customs delayed it a bit more. The packaging on Euclid's part, like stated in my review, could have been better. All in all, though, it was very well done. Delivery was nice and stable. No drama.