catalogue purchases

drelly

We need advice, my mother in law recently allowed us to purchase a new laptop on her catalogue account online. When it arrived, we were disappointed, we hadn't realised it didn't have a disk drive and when my husband eventually got it linked to the internet, we couldn't minimise a page, change screens or anything because it just timed out trying to do anything. For £360 we were not happy and we had read on the laptop advert it was meant to be fast. We have contacted the catalogue company who told us it was non returnable because we had used it unless there was a fault. We argued we felt there was as it was running so slow so they have advised us to deal with the laptop manufacturers. I am aware of the distance selling regulations but would welcome any further advice as regards possibly sending this laptop back as we are unhappy.

jacques_chirac

When did it arrive, and how much have you used it? What computer is it?

deanos

Bear in mind you do not have a contract with the catalogue

drelly

We have had it just under a week and reported it to the catalogue straightaway. We only had it on about 10 mins we realised this was a problem and all I know is it is a brand new model that Acer have out

Fosterdog

You can't really tell in ten minutes whether there is a problem with the laptop, it would still be running initial setup tasks in the background and if connected to the internet it would be downloading updates released since it left the factory. Even the most expensive top of the range PC would run slower at that stage so a £360 laptop would struggle.

The reason you couldn't minimise a page is because all new laptops are running windows 8 and they don't minimise pages, you swipe them in from the side instead to go through programs already open.

Also a lot of new windows 8 laptops come without a disk drive, mostly the really cheap budget models that are very low spec and slow or the much more expensive ones designed for media type work will have them and most in between don't have the drive

ThumbRemote

drelly wrote: »

We have had it just under a week and reported it to the catalogue straightaway. We only had it on about 10 mins we realised this was a problem and all I know is it is a brand new model that Acer have out

In which case your mother-in-law is entitled to send it back under the DSRs.

WTFH

You can return it under DSRs, but if you get another laptop and only turn it on for 10 minutes, you'll end up returning that one too.

There will be a quick start guide with the laptop which will tell you what you need to do, then once it's all connected up it will want to download and install updates (depending on internet speed that could be anything from a few minutes to a couple of hours), after that you should have an idea of the speed/performance.

What model of laptop was it?

societys_child

If it's booting up, it must have a hard drive and I can't believe a catalogue company are selling a lap top without one .

Are we confusing hard drive with optical drive (DVD)?

MamaMoo_2

societys_child wrote: »

If it's booting up, it must have a hard drive and I can't believe a catalogue company are selling a lap top without one .

Are we confusing hard drive with optical drive (DVD)?

OP States disk drive, not hard drive?

Cycrow

technically a hard drive is a disk drive, as its a Hard Disk Drive (HDD).

of course, it could also mean a floppy disk drive, which no new laptops will have anyways

althou i dont think thats what the OP ment, most likely just referring to the optical drive

societys_child

MamaMoo wrote: »

OP States disk drive, not hard drive?

Same thing . . . innit