I hate hobbled together computers

I got the CF-50 I ordered for my friend today, and so far I'm not impressed.

To start, I threw a Windows CD in to load up an OS, and the drive sounds like it's filled with sand, and won't read discs. It's a DVD/CD-RW combo that I don't have any spares for, so I grabbed a regular CD drive, and it works. I get windows installed, all the drivers installed for the 50, and realise it does not have the advertised wireless card installed...

So aside from those annoyances, my take on it is that I like the larger screen and video card (Radeon 9000, and 15") compared to my 28, but the 1.4GHz centrino is not speedy. My 28 boots up faster, and operates far quicker for the tasks I've already done.

In my quick go-over of this thing though, it's been apart many times, and is missing screws. The model number does not match the speed (Model number on bottom says 1.6GHz), and the battery is out of a 48...

I contacted the seller, but I'm doubting much will come of it because they are an eBay dropoff store...

Anyways, just figured I'd rant a bit about this thing. I'm mostly annoyed because it's for my friend and I promised I'd have him a laptop by this weekend... and now I'm a jackass that didn't come through.

 

It's the thought that matters, you're a good friend. Plus ranting always helps

 

I won't tell him that I've now got about $20 of my own cash into this laptop either. He's hard up for money, but needed something to help keep him in contact and connected while he's out on the road (He's a long haul trucker), so I'm doing the best I can.

I do have a nice Atheros card sitting here, but I was hoping to sell that.

 

Modly
on the cf50 what speed hdd is it 5400? I assume your 28 is a 7200 rpm? i cant imagine a newer cpu would be slower on boot up but then again with its other issues who knows what the last owner did.

 

Didn't come with a hard drive. I had to use one I had laying around (which is the original 20GB that came out of my 28).

I think this will be the last time I buy from a drop-off place though, because I don't think they are willing to do anything about it on their end, and the customer is long gone with their cash.

 

Unfortunately ebay is getting more like that. I remember when you could order from just about anyone and count on a good deal. Now you have to research the seller and make sure they haven't ripped anyone off lately.

 

I'm annoyed with the other seller I just bought stuff from. I won two rubber backlit keyboards from the same seller, 5 minutes apart. I emailed him after I won asking if he'd reduce the shipping, and never got an email. I emailed him again, and still no response. It's now almost 43 hours later, and nothing from this guy.

I paid the full price on shipping (Which I would have had no problem doing if he emailed me back), but if they arrive in good condition, he's still gonna get neutral feedback. Nothing annoys customers more than ignoring them.

 

All the quality people joined ebay 4 years ago or longer. Have you noticed how ebay has been advertising to the general population over the last few years? well guess what they're attracting.. your average joe blow idiots. what you reap is what you sow!

 

And then.. you get these "newer" sellers.. who don't give you feedback until you give them feedback first..!! I completed my end of the transaction by paying within a timely manner. ( I usually pay within 10 mins..) I want them to give me feedback 1st before I give them any.. I have about 5 that I am waiting for...And I won't give it to them until they give me feedback first. Am I wrong doing this??
Opinions??

 

You are not the only one with bad experience on evilbay and paypaless. I am a victim too of a crook seller, four times. You know what? i have one item that i am still waiting for delivery, almost a month now. I tried to contact evilbay with regards to this but i am surprised who answer to my e-mail, a volunter! what the heck!! is goin on?. Million and million of dollars they have earned and when you ask a Q? a volunter will give you an answer. Do they mean to say that they can't pay anybody else for those member with a problem on their transaction? come on!

All the necesaary report or action has been reported but all useless.

 

I hold off until giving feedback as a seller until I hear from them to make sure there isn't a problem. Usually that's via feedback.

However, there is one buyer on my list that I'm waiting for it first, because he's only handed out 50 feedbacks to sellers, and he has received 300... I'm holding his positive feedback hostage because history tells me he sucks at giving it.

 

I try to stick with people I have done business with and give them all my business. I use to post feedback immediately. As my feedback has grown I actually started having people try to extort other stuff from me or they would post negative feedback. Now I wait until they post feedback (of any type) and then I will leave them feedback. I email every buyer of mine at least three times. (On anything of value.) Once when the sale happens... once when I know it has been delivered and then a week or two after the sale to make sure that everything is fine and they still like what they bought.

I stay away from the power sellers if they have 20K transactions... You get lost in the shuffle. I am a power seller on ebay and don't post it. (You have the choice to let people see or not.) I don't want the negative connotations of a Powerseller.

 

I'm still waiting for emails from anybody I bought things from... It's like I'm being avoided when deals go south.

The keyboard guy had the balls to forward my info to squaretrade to send me junk mail about a BS warranty, but still won't even email me back to say "No".

Reading through his feedback, he's bad at communication... My mistake for not looking it up.

 

I give up on this ****ing CF-50. The Mini-PCI slot is not recognised, so I can't even fit a wireless card in it.

I emailed the seller telling them that I WILL return this piece of junk.

 

Who is the seller? Please do us all a favor and let us know...

 

azfastsell, out of Tuscon, AZ.

Edit; I notice they are selling more of these things. I'd be plenty happy if they exchanged it for a working one, but I'm still awaiting an email back. I contacted them last night, and they do have operating hours today... so it feels like they are shuffling me to the side.

 

I think I bought one from him too. It was a pretty run down machine... I bought it for parts. It didn't come with everything they listed! I emailed them back and asked about it. They said that one picture didn't load that would have showed me that the part I really needed was missing. They apogized and said they would "Make it up to me" and that was the last I heard from them. I didn't press it further. They have a 1Ghz model I was looking at... I think I'll pass now.

But hey... They live up to their name!

 

Modly, I empathize your position to be stuck in between a friend and a shoddy seller. My experience with the CF-50 was no better, after buying one as a desktop replacement for my Mrs.

What I won was a 1.9ghz unit with WinXP COA and no mention of battery. I received a 1.5ghz, COA ripped out and a dead batt from a 28 (written in marker, "X-CF28"). Seller played down the possibility of mis-packing, etc. and since re-shipping it back to the USA was a costly option, I made do with it. Fortunately, and although not described, the Intel wifi was installed and the mains adapter worked.

The CDRW/DVD combo drive sounded like yours but you said, "... I don't have any spares for, so I grabbed a regular CD drive, and it works". By that, were you using a USB, PCMCIA CD drive or...? The built-in unit appears to be a regular slim-line drive and was wondering if anyone here tried replacing or upgrading it. Any suggestions would be appreciated?

With regards to battery compatibility, it was a good thing that the CF-28, 48 & 50 uses the same blue-tabbed CF-VZSU18 (or green-tabbed CF-VZSU18B), but I guess you all know that already.

Thought you might want to know that you're not a jackass. You tried, did what you could and more, but some days just aren't as bright as others. OTOH, I have to contend with sellers that absolutely refuse to ship anything out of the 48 states and I still haven't figured out why, despite 100% positives.

 

Although I do sell outside the US, I can see some of the reasons why some wouldn't. The ebay model is just too inflexible to make it very attractive to export. Here's a couple cases in point:

I shipped a laptop to Canada, and used Fedex because their rates were quite a bit cheaper than USPS. A couple MONTHS later, the buyer emails me complaining about some bill they got from fedex. I was confused as well, but after a little investigation I found out it was some sort of duty/tariff/customs/etc. fee that gets charged for crossing the border. the buyer accused me of billing them for SHIPPING, which was absolutely not true, as I paid for shipping up-front. Not surprisingly the buyer never paid the bill. So guess what Fedex did? they charged ME for it! Yup, they're gonna get their pound of flesh one way or another. Well guess what, I didn't pay it either, and decided not to use fedex anymore.

Here's another one. I shipped a little hard drive caddy (not toughbook) to canada, and a couple weeks later the buyer starts an item not recieved complaint. Well, WTF, I sent it, I've got the receipt for sending it (no tracking number though, of course) but I really don't have any clear-cut way of defending myself. Luckily it arrived a couple days later but if it had not, things could have and would have got ugly.

I send a small PLC module to Brazil. Its now a couple months later and the guy says he never got it. Once again, since I don't have a real tracking number (you can't do much with a customs number) I can't conclusively say where his item is. If I used UPS or Fedex I could get a real customs number but then I'm back to wondering if i'm going to get these mystery bills months in the future.

So anyway, don't assume it's all roses for a guy in the US shipping overseas. Every time I get a complaint about something I know I've shipped (but can't prove it), I question my decision to continue selling worldwide.

 

I just went through a harrowing ordeal with a Canadian buyer... It's NOT the fault of UPS or FedEx... It's Customs!

I sold a laptop to a guy in Canada. He uses it in his outdoor business. He dropped it on the corner of the laptop and broke the antenna off. Though it wasn't covered under warranty I replaced it anyway. He shipped it back to me. I insure EVERY laptop whether the buyer pays or not. USPS won't allow insurance over $675 for international shipments so I had to use UPS. The problem is that both UPS and FedEx must go through Customs. Now... The story I hear is that USPS goes through while UPS & FedEx must pay some sort of duty for going through Customs. The Adressee has the choice of going to the Customs Office and walking it through themselves to save on the tarriff. But the Customs Office may be hundreds of miles away. Not easily done for some. I got a call on Thanksgiving day. It was the guy saying that, even though I wrote FREE REPAIR on the customs ticket, he was asked to pay $120 for an import duty plus taxes. I called UPS and tried to sort it out. They said that I must write "Warranty Repair" on the customs form and even still... The guy MUST pay $80 for them checking it through Customs... Unless he wanted to come down and do it himself. My customer lived several hundred miles away from the Customs Office so he had to pay $80 for a "FREE" warranty repair.

This is why I don't sell to anyone outside the US! It's just TOO much hassle!

 

I am a canadian buyer, seller on ebay but i can't see nothing wrong whether you ship by fedex or ups. the problem there is the people who don not understand when they buy something from another country their must have a custom duty or tax. So, when you guys list an item for sale just specify that you are not responsible for any duty/tax, warehouse fee and etc. to a country of destination.

 

My issue, and what pissed me off was not the ortiginal duty or tax. It was the fact that they dinged the guy AGAIN for import taxes even though the repair was free. He had to pay $80+ to get his laptop repaired for free.

It's just not right...

 

I suppose I gotta quit offering to ship to Canada. Doesn't sound like it's worth the hassle.

I quit shipping to NZ and Australia for the same reasons, but I thought we had a good trade agreement with Canada.

 

We don't have a good agreement with anyone. I keep on hearing at the post office about how canada is one of the WORST as far as import/export.

 

Hi Gravitar, Toughbook & Modly,
I hope you guys won't misconstrue my earlier post as a poke at US sellers on ePay but curiosity gets to me sometimes and I had to ask!

Although I've had some less-than-pleasant moments, a majority of my transactions went extremely well, even with USPS Surface, Flat-rate envelop or Global Priority.

Shipping times vary with what the buyers are willing to pay and with Surface post (I think USPS no longer offer that for international shipping), it can take up to 12 weeks. I recall the longest time for one of my parcels to arrive was close to 4 months, enough to cast alot of doubts into a buyer's mind.

That said, nothing beats a combo of honest sellers and quick-paying buyers anywhere, anytime (it's the system and a few rotten apples that screw things up for everyone else).

 

To get back on topic, I think the problem is that a lot of buyers have become spoiled by the prices on Ebay. It is getting to the point that if a buyer spends over $50.00 on a laptop that originally cost $5000.00 they want to get a fully working laptop with all original recovery disks and a 10year warranty on top of it all. Seriously though, ebay is a great flea market for onje mans junk is another mans treasure mentality but if you want new you really should consider buying new. As for modly's problem, I don't know how much he paid but I suspect that whatever he paid would not cover the cost of a replacement screen. I consider Ebay like Las Vegas you throw some money at it and sometimes it pays off big. If you lose well hopefully you had fun in the process.

 

If I added another $200 I could have bought a new computer from Circuit City, and paid for all the taxes... and bought an additional 512MB chip. I spent $300 on this puppy, and it's missing the wireless card (Which was listed as having).

It also did not come with a hard drive, but I knew that.

We had a budget of $300, so that's why we didn't go new, but I could have done far better than this for a 3 year old lappy.

 

Sorry... didn't mean to edit your post... Missed the "Quote" button.

Just curious... Was that in relation to the taxes/fees/duties/levies/tarriffs,etc.? My PO told me that they are one of the safest to ship to with regard to how many per XXX get stolen. I guess I have to give them that.

 

Sorry.. I should clarify that. they are "worst" in terms of speed of delivery. I don't know if I believe it, but I was told that they don't deliver mail in Canada on Saturday OR Friday(!) so they're constantly running behind.

As far as stuff disappearing, Mexico is pretty bad. I've had expensive resistance welding controllers disappear into thin air, having gone through the post office. UPS is the only way to ship to a mexican destination, as they don't hand it over to another entity like the USPS does.

 

Currently I am tracking down one of my purchased item from US and pressumed it was lost or stolen here in canada. A cf-28 for parts it was turned it over to postal branch here after the inspection at custom. Based on the tracking no. it was turned it over to postal branch since nov. 19 till now its undeliverable. I called USPS and they told me that it must be the shipper to coordinate with them. So to make story short, i contacted the seller and reported the missing item and he told me that USPS will conduct an investigation and give us an info after 5 days. Hoping that this item be recover.

 

Hi Modly,

The CF-50 has an option in the BIOS for turning on the slot. IIRC it is "WIRELESS" Enable/Disabled. IIRC you have to have a card in the slot AND enable it in the BIOS. I have one here somewhere, so I will double check in a little while.

I have been lurking for a few months, checking you guys out. Decided that with winter coming and me getting caught up with stuff it was time for me to jump in and help you guys with some of the issues I can assist with.

I have usually spent my time over at LinuxQuestions. We have spent alot of time this year working on Linux drivers for the CF-28 Touch Screen. I use my CF-28s for setting up and troubleshooting Point-to-Point Wireless BroadBand connections, 900mhz/2.4Ghz, during the day. (Not your LinkSys routers, but the Access Points 250-500 feet up on towers.) Evening time is often devoted to wireless "Security" when I have the time.

Sorry to hear about your eBay experience. Goes that way occasionally. He looks questionable though:

32 Negative
45 Neutral
8 Withdrawn
85 Total

and he goes on my list.

James

 

They did offer me up a refund, so it's going out tomorrow.

I checked the BIOS, but still got nothing.

I'm very interested in touch drivers for *nix. I haven't coded anything in a long while, but if there is anything I can do to help, let me know.

Now for the task of finding a new 50 for my friend...

 

I sent the 50 back today. I got outbid on a 28 (Had a RIM card too, I was gonna nab that for myself), so I had to find something. Ended up with an IBM X30, which isn't tough, but it's light and great for what he'll need in the truck.

If he wants a toughbook later on, I'll build him one proper.

 

It seems that the Toughbooks are starting back up in price. You can't find a good 1Ghz for a decent price anymore!

 

I was getting worried that my 600 would sell for crap (Even with wireless, GPS, and soon a rubber/backlit keyboard, as well as the power lock keys), but I think it might actually make me some cash.

I think it's the holiday season that is sparking it though, with people buying gifts for family.

 

NOPE~ I think you fellas did TOO good a job on this site!! People are buying and modding like mad now! lol

 

Ha. Yeah. I shoulda bid up on that other toughbook and modded it for GPS too.

Ah well. I'm not in it for the money, I'm in it for the mods.