Bought a Metabox P650HS-G from Affordable Laptops (AU)

After almost half year of waiting, researching, reading, hair pulling finally decided on getting a Clevo based laptop as it seemed to give the best of everything especially with regards to cooling in this tropical island.

I as looking to source the laptop from USA since a friend of mine was traveling there and ill return back on may. I first contacted @Donald@HIDevolution to see what's on offer and he was extremely helpful. However as I had a strict budget, things were not falling into place and I had to give up getting this from the states because of my budget and my friend's travel times were not certain.

I then managed to find out about Metabox from AU and was able to get a good deal from Affordable Laptops. I as lucky to find that another friend of mine is coming down from AU and with AU's Tax return policy, I am able to get about AUD 200 (~USD 150) back which puts me right back at my budget.

I spoke to Jeff at AL before placing the order to let them know the situation (that I am in SL, and shipping to AU and need to be there before a certain date). He was very helpful and even directed me to an offer that was available on a website which gave me another AUD100 discount.

Once I made the payment, called them again and Jeff confirmed the order was received but was waiting for PyaPal to release the funds (which took another 24hrs).

Now the waiting game begins. It's been a pleasure t deal with AL so far and fingers crossed, my friend will receive the laptop before he leaves the country

@Donald@HIDevolution, thanks for your support in the early stage and I'm sorry that I couldn't go with you guys. If the option was there, I'd have gone with you.

Will update this thread as the order progresses.

And while I wait, if the good folks here can let me know what to prepare for the laptop's arrival, and what needs to be done right after getting this baby, I'd be grateful.

 

No worries...I am glad I was helpful.
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So the waiting game continues. The laptop was shipped last Friday evening. Hopefully should reach my friend mid this week before he leaves the country on the 12th.

The only issue I found with this process is that Metabox/AL didn't have a page/place for me to see the progress of the order. So I had to request for updates via email/phone. These requests were answered very quickly and I am happy about the response times.

Hopefully I shouldn't have to wait much longer

 

Update to this.

Laptop was delivered to my friend extremely fast. Shipped Friday, delivered Monday morning. Now waiting until he lands in my country. Hopefully should get my hands on it by Monday.

 

So to follow up on this.

I got the laptop from friend on the 17th of May and only on the next day that I was able to do some work on it. The Laptop didn't come with the O/S installed (even though I specifically asked to have the O/S installed without the license key) and proceeded to install the OS myself.

This where I found out that there's an issue with speakers (which you can find details here). So once i confirmed that this is a hardware fault, it's now back with Metabox in AU.

Let's see how this pans out.