Hello everyone! This is my first post using my newly bought Toshiba Protege M500-1021E laptop. Been thinking of buying a laptop for a couple of weeks now ‘cos my desktop’s getting kinda slow and since WLAN’s so freely available now, i figured i might as well get a laptop instead of a desktop for my next pc upgrade.
After my Great Laptop Hunt, i finally settled on the Toshiba Protege M500. Went to Sim Lim Sq (SLS) with Azure, Papa Smurf and his colleague after work yesterday. Most of the shops were selling the M500 for $2599. Finally found a shop on the fourth floor, PA Mart, selling it for $2399, with free upgrade of RAM from 512M to 2G, and a 2-year (instead of 1 year) International Warranty thrown in! Was so happy about it.
But not wanting to give up on my great M500 hunt, i went to the shop next to PA Mart (can’t remember the name now) and asked for the price of the M500. The salesman quoted me $2599 so i asked him why can’t he sell for $2399, if the shop next door could? The salesman looked genuinely surprised and called his supplier to find out if there was a new price for the M500. After the call, the salesman said he could match the terms of PA Mart but he said to convince me he could give me the best deal, he asked me to go back to PA Mart, get the best offer from them, and he’ll match the offer plus throw in something extra.
Although i felt really bad… like in a super bitch of SLS way, i nevertheless thickened my skin and trotted back to PA Mart. Told the sales guy that another shop managed to match his offer and asked if he could give me a better price. After a bit of bargaining, the sales guy lowered the price to $2330 and offered to throw in a 1G Toshiba thumbdrive (it was that or some brand of mouse called “Lucky”). I thanked him and said i needed to discuss financing options with Azure and would be back.
Azure and i then went back to the 2nd shop and told the salesman what was the offer from PA Mart. The salesman then called his supplier again but this time, his supplier didn’t answer the phone. While waiting for the salesman to get hold of this supplier, the sales guy from PA Mart saw Papa Smurf and his colleague hanging around the corridor between the 2 shops and he told them that the best price he could offer was $2257, with all the free upgrades & freebies, and asked them to pass me the message.
When Papa Smurf and his colleague told me about it, i couldn’t help but laugh. It was really quite comical seeing the 2 shops pit for my business. I really preferred the service from the sales guy of the 2nd shop… but hey, money talks so… bo pian lah. Bought the lappy from PA Mart ‘cos it was near closing time and the sales guy from the 2nd shop still couldn’t reach his supplier.
The sales guy from the 2nd shop was really cool about it too. He said, “It’s ok lah. We always do this sort of free job. This time let them do lah”. (Ok, i know that doesn’t sound very nice but he really didn’t say it in a sore loser kind of way but in a jovial, joking way).
Anyway, the new laptop came home with me. Hehe. Am very happy with my purchase though the lappy felt a little lonely today because it was home all alone while i was at work. So i went to Harvey Norman after work today to get a pet mouse to accompany it. Got some cheapo mouse (brand – Travelpac?!) but i thought it looked pretty… white with a pink flower on it. The scroll button lights up in white when the mouse is plugged into the USB port. 🙂 Hehe. Neat little mouse that has a retractable cord.
So here’s the first post from my new laptop. Hmm… seems like the batt only lasts 3 hrs with the WLAN connected. Oh well… affordable notebook at a reasonable weight. Can’t complain about it. 🙂
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