New or Used/Refurbished? - Vaio Z540NCB - URGENT HELP!

Hi, Guys I need some urgent help here. I am planning to buy Vaio Z540NCB. I checked its specs on the internet and found them pretty good. However there is a problem. The shop from where I am buying this laptop is not an authorized Sony dealer. The shop owner says the laptop is brand new. And it looks new too. However a friend of mine says that its a refurbished laptop.

Can anyone please tell me how exactly I can find out if the laptop is brand new or refurbished..........

I would appreciate an early reply as I need to decide by tomorrow.

I would also appreciate feedback from anyone who is already using this particular model i.e. Z540NCB in terms of his/her experience as far as the performance etc of this laptop is concerned.

Thanks

 

Why aren't you getting the latest model if you want to buy brand new? They are already in 8xx series now (instead of 5xx series).

 

The new ones are quite expensive. I dont have that kind of budget right now, plus the specs of this one are pretty decent. Quite enough for me.

 

I don't know, Z540 came out in Oct. 2008, so the likelihood that it is brand new is certainly quite low, but it's not impossible. There really is no way for any of us, including you, to judge whether it's brand new or not till you actually have the box and the machine.

On the other hand, Z540 is a nice machine, I am using a Z540EBB (slightly different config.) right now and it certainly is quite adequate for a lot of tasks. I do wonder how much the shop charges, though. Z540NCB brand new probably costs $1400-1500 back in 2008, but right now I think it would have to be at or below $1000?

 

I am getting it for about $1250.

When I asked the shop owner about the laptop being new or refurbished, he said I can check that by serial number on Sony's website. Whats that about? I couldnt understand. Can someone pls tell me about checking via serial number.....

 

$1250 is a little steep, but market price of used or brand-new-but-in-the-warehouse-for-so-long laptops has always been highly volatile -- completely depending on the individual seller and buyer combination. Not that I am selling since the new Z is not out yet and I am not very drawn to the new style or the 1600x900/1920x1080 screen options, but personally I would gladly sell you my 1.25 yr old Z540EBB for $1100 shipped. Just give you another price reference.

On the other front, no, I have never heard of checking serial number on Sony's website. The only time I used serial number is when I registered my laptop, so conceivably you can ask Sony if that serial number has been registered before -- but that does not mean it's not sold or used before, just not registered.

 

When a brand new laptop is powered on for the first time, it takes 5-6 minutes to do whatever it does (install drivers etc etc). Can this be re-done?

I hope you understand what I am asking, keeping in view the subject of this thread/my query....

 

Yes, absolutely, you just need to do a factory restore from the hidden partition or the restore DVD. So unfortunately you cannot use that to judge whether your computer has been used before.

 

So basically there is no way to find out......

 

No, not really. I think one of the HDD benchmark softwares will report hours used, but technically the shop could replace the HDD before selling. Then there are the usual inspection of the boxing, laptop external appearance and everything, but you have to physically have it to examine. Sorry.

 

For some reason I am unable to "digest" the fact that they is no way to find out