My experience with this site and Portable One

I first came to this site looking for information on a Sony laptop I was thinking of getting and all the research I did seemed to lead to Portable One as the best place to get it. I went to Portable Ones site and while looking at the Sony I had in mind decided to look at the Portable One branded laptops. Ended up ordering a SXS37 with better specs then the Sony I was consideringand for less money. Placed the order on February 27 and called P1 on March 5th for the status of my order. Phone was picked up by Ivan on the second ring (is he really one guy he seems to be everywhere at once) he said my laptop was scheduled to ship that day but should have shipped earlier, wasn't sure why it didn't but said he would upgrade he shipping to 2 day so I would have it before the weekend. Great customer service. Received the laptop on the 7th and love it. Vista Business with service pack 1 was not expecting SP1 to be on their but it was. Everything set up and ran great only I noticed that my hard drive space was about 120 Gig and I had ordered the 7200 rpm 160 gig. Sent and email to customer support and before I even finished my coffee got a reply (not Ivan this time) said their was most likely a unformatted partition and said if I need help to format and extend the partition to call. Got another email a few min later from Ivan with detailed instructions for formating and extending the partition. Not use to this kind of service and think it's great. The laptop is great as well and I'm happy I came to this site and discovered P1. I'll be telling anyone who needs a laptop to do there research here and then buy from P1.

 

Well that does indeed sound like customer "service" instead of the often stardardized reply's many people seem to get about this and that. Thanks for spreading the word

 

What do you think of your SXS37?
Did you get the larger battery?
Did you get the 8400M video card or the onboard graphics?
What kind of battery life are you getting?

 

I love my SXS37. I did not get the bigger battery. I did get the Nvidia card and 4 gigs of ram. Battery life seem short but then I realized I set it for performance with it set to battery saver I got between 1:45 and 2:00 hours. The screen is great and I like the keyboard and touchpad. Runs Vista Business real snappy. I also got the T8300 processor. Smaller lighter and faster then my last notebook an ACER Aspire. Really happy with it so far.

 

I would have hoped it would get better than 2 hours on battery saver. Maybe the Nvidia card uses more power than I thought. It seems like a nice laptop other than that.

 

Yes they take more power than the CPU does; the Intel GPU gets almost double that, but the units with the NVIDIA turn that little guy into a great desktop replacement...

 

So far my experience with Portable One has been pretty darn amazing.. The representative that serviced me was Patrick. He answered all my questions (and I had a crap ton), dealt with my credit card company declining my card due to alternative shipping address confusions and was overall a very nice person to do business with. I'm telling everyone about P1 and encouraging them to buy their next laptop from them.

My new toy?
SXS37
T8300 2.40GHz 3MB Cache
13.3"WXGA 2GB 160GBH DVD±RW CAM FP 56K 10/1000 WiFi BT BUS
Vista Business
Intel GMA X3100
6 & 9 Cell battery
3 year onsite

I didn't get the trioview LCD upgrade because I never use my laptop outside... plus, if i decide I want it I can upgrade anytime!

Didn't get the 4 GB because the Vista Business they included is the 32 bit version and it can only utilize 3GB of RAM MAX(at least that's what I hear).

Didn't upgrade to the T9300 because I've read in reality I wouldn't be able to notice the .1Ghz & 3MB cache difference.

Opted for longer battery life cutting out the Nvidia and got the Intel graphic's card. I don't play too many games and value the extra battery life. Good times!

Can't waaaaait!!!! I'll get it in 5-7 days!

 

And the even more amazing thing is not only are they there for you before the sale and immediately afterwards, but if you run into a problem down the road they'll be just as helpful. In the fall, after 2 years of heavy use, my daughter's UX was starting to get hot. Ivan had me send it back and they reapplied the thermal compound. Since she is in law school and very laptop dependent, they even did it immediately. They couldn't have been more accommodating! Too bad other companies don't run the same way....

 

I ordered the TZ XP downgrade disks from portable one. Unfortunatly they seem to have been lost in transit. At all times Ivan and Patrick kept me informed, and offered to re-ship via fed-ex for a smalll aditional fee. Of course I paid it straight away and my disk are in the post.

Because of the issues with getting the XP disk, they are also shipping me the Vista disks as well for no charge!

I wish I had heard about portable one before I bought my TZ21. I would have bought from them first. My next notebook purchase (comming soon) will be from Portable one. I'd reccomend them to everyone, outstanding service.