John Lewis - Laptop Heaven (John Lewis)

Member Name: zippyfi

Product:	John Lewis
Date:	21/05/03 (961 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Friendly Staff, Knowledgable, 2 Year Warranty

Disadvantages: None

Having spent years dreaming about owning a laptop I also spent the same amount of time searching for the perfect one. There are so many things to consider and with the computer market changing every second it completely confused me ? somebody who is extremely computer minded and very confident on them.

I knew that I wanted to spend about £1,000 and I wanted to get the best machine I possibly could for that money.

I spent at least a month trawling all of the appropriate shops:

1. Dixons - good offers, knowledgeable staff, 12 month warranty

2. Currys - ok staff, ok prices, awful finance tie-ins, 12 month warranty

3. PC World - far too big, took me ages to speak to any staff, 12 month warranty

4. Every computer website on the entire net - couldn't touch the product

After all that I popped into my local branch of John Lewis (Cheadle) and was completely ready for the salespeople. In most of the other shops I had been to I was virtually ignored by the male staff so they could concentrate on the 'real' purchasers - men. Being young I was made to feel completely patronised by the sales staff who talked to me as though I was stupid (not the case!).

John Lewis took me completely by surprise; I was on the defensive when ?Gary? came over to speak to me. At that time I didn?t know where to begin because all of the visits to the other shops had just added to my confusion. Gary asked what I wanted the laptop for I said (apart from looking good I am a girl after all!) the internet, word & excel. Based on what I had said and after a long time chatting about them, Gary recommended two laptops the main difference being the operating systems, one was a Mac and the other was an XP pc based one. I ended up going for the cute i-book (mac).

When I got home I had a play around with it but started to have doubts, all of my friends had PC based software and I just couldn?t get used to the syst
em. Gary had told me about John Lewis? 28 day no quibble money back guarantee, so I very nervously took it back a few days later expecting them to kick up a bit of a fuss or try to push me into getting something else ? this didn?t happen they didn?t question it and refunded my money.

As it happens I went back to Gary and bought the other one he had recommended ? a Hewlett Packard Pavilion ze4200 250mb, 30gb 15? monitor with DVD / CD RW for £999 (bargain!). Got it home and have not looked back, it looks great and the sound and picture quality is fabulous.

The no pressure selling that I received from John Lewis meant that I didn?t feel pressured into going for the dearest model and I have ended up with a laptop I love and know that it?s perfect for me. Plus the best thing is that it comes with a 2 year warranty, this is virtually unheard of for laptops.

I don?t think you can beat John Lewis for electronic products!

Summary: