Aldi laptop any good ?

[old men and gadgets]

I see the Laptop is about to re-enter the ALDI shops on November 11th. It looks like the same one. All details, specs seem to tie up. Same price too £999.99p, good value. Recap:
1.7 Mhz centrino (= to 2.8 ghz Pentium 4) 80 GB HDD. 512 DDr RAM. Wireless, and loads of other trick or treats "wedged in". (NO IFr tho)
Nice little toy, but, a little difficult to "phone in" about. Explain in depth exactly what the prob is (if there is one) and make sure you understand the path to get rid of the bother.
It has a very clever design, and all parts are easily reached. Battery has an exceptional life of six hours.
On the whole, an excellent machine. Hi Specs, as good as any Sony.
http://uk.aldi.com/ take a look. Click on 'Special Buys' (bottom left) soon, it'll be gone later this week.

 

[johnboywalton]

Think about the German's and their reputation for engineering perfection. Think of the BMW's, the Mercedes, the stereotypical efficiency. Combine that with a company that for the last two years has been the leading German laptop manufacturer, and put aside for a moment your british born misconception that the more you pay, the better the kit. Try to imagine a world where you arent being ripped off. The world that every other country experiences. The Aldi laptop is an out and out bargain. on average £300 cheaper than its equivalent British sold Sony Competitor, but with a much better graphics card and larger hard drive capacity. The Centrino chip is amazing for where it counts graphics applications. I am a 3D professional, and will be quite happy to use this laptop on the move. So the Mousepad isnt the greatest. Who cares! Any serious user will use an external mouse anyway. The speakers arent super quality. So what, someone who uses their laptop as a home entertainment system has fairly serious issues anyway in my opinon. Put on your headphones, stop disturbing the people around you on the train, and you wont notice the difference. Its sleek, its efficient. Its not a yuppies fashion accessory, its a working, useable, honest laptop. Couple that with Aldi's 1 year, no quibble money back refund policy, plus the two year full insurance policy from Gericom, which I remind you again is Germany's leading laptop manufacturer. Get it, try it, if you dont like it, take it back. You really cant go wrong.

 

[Viva]

Re: Aldi laptop any good ? - NO!

Firstly, Aldi are *excellent* for buying quality 'specials' as long as they are Medion badged (Tevion) ..

If your buying anything from Aldi that has the "Gericom" name then you have to be extremely careful. I had been warned off about buying any Gericom gear a few months ago as it came to light that a lot of the gear they supply is 'refurbished' .. i.e someone has used .. returned (fault) .. and Gericom have repaired those parts and put them into a unit and then supplied it to retail as 'new' ..

I, against my better judgement.. went out this week and bought the Gericom £999 laptop that was still available in my local Aldi. Brought it home and immediately noticed that the 'top' of the unit was marked with lots of 'scratches' (and fingerprints) .. not only that but it had a lot of 'specs' of white that I believe is the broken plastic. It was quite obvious that here was a unit that had been used.. oh, but the 'ceal' at the front of the keyboard door had not been broken; but then the brown 'tape' holding the side doors down had clearly been re-stuck..

Anyway, I just wasn't happy with forking out £999 for something that has clearly been used and abused by someone else..

I'd be *very* careful about buying Gericom branded gear .. Aldi, excellent .. Medion.. great; just make sure your aware that you might be getting used components from Gericom.

 

[Thar]

Re: Aldi laptop any good ? - NO!

I, against my better judgement.. went out this week and bought the Gericom £999 laptop that was still available in my local Aldi. Brought it home and immediately noticed that the 'top' of the unit was marked with lots of 'scratches' (and fingerprints) .. not only that but it had a lot of 'specs' of white that I believe is the broken plastic. It was quite obvious that here was a unit that had been used.. oh, but the 'ceal' at the front of the keyboard door had not been broken; but then the brown 'tape' holding the side doors down had clearly been re-stuck..

Anyway, I just wasn't happy with forking out £999 for something that has clearly been used and abused by someone else..

I'd be *very* careful about buying Gericom branded gear .. Aldi, excellent .. Medion.. great; just make sure your aware that you might be getting used components from Gericom.

That sounds almost identical to posts I made in September after I bought this laptop. I too found the lid was scratched and clearly had been used before. I took it back to Aldi immediately and sloped away sheepishly after the security guy told me I needed to take the protective film off first!

I did end up returning it in the end though as it kept shutting down for no apparent reason and I wasn't overly impressed by Gericom's support people.

Aldi gave me a refund without any hassle at all.

 

[Zoulz]

Says in the SUN newspaper today that aldi have a sale on from the 27th december ( which store will be open i dont know )

£799.99 for the laptop they sold last month for £999.99 man id feel gutted if i brought that.

might ask and see if its all true or not.

 

[old men and gadgets]

At £200 OFF in the sale, makes this little wizard an even better buy. I'm just sad that Aldi had to do this. They usually offer the best deal at the time. However, this time they must have got it wrong. I dont think people know enough about centrino processor system yet. Everyone seems to think "GOT TO HAVE" intel P4 3.2 Ghz (daft) centrino is every bit as fast as the 3.2. Then that 80 GB HD, and 512 RAM are excellent built in's. OK, I agree, Gericom, are difficult to deal with, but once a problem is sorted (if there is one) it runs fine. Aldi cant be held resposible for Gericom.
I'm guessing most stores will have about 5-10 of them. So, all in all an excellent bargain to be had.
Seasons Greetings.....

 

[mmdpkaaa]

seriously considering this, but need more of an in-depth review if there is one available??

 

[Starborn]

I just got this laptop myself from aldi - excellent specs for the money (especially with the 9700). No scratching/marks at all. Screen has no dead pixels, overall very pleased. laptop is also quite slim and light - much lighter than my old acer laptop.

I do have one issue though - plugging headphones into the headphone socket does not turn off the sound from the internal speakers; this is quite annoying as the onboard speakers aren't exacly the best around. I don't know if this is by design or if my laptop is faulty - does anyone else who has this laptop have this problem?

 

[mmdpkaaa]

i have been having problems with it switching itself off randomly. have returned it for a full refund - didnt expect this 2 hours after getting the damn thing. going to go for a FS amilo 1630 instead - much better spec and qualiity for a little more money.

 

[mooseman4k]

Hi,

I'm also thinking of getting one of these but it seems its a bit hit and miss.

Which model of the 1630 did you go for and where from?

 

[ken chatland]

Bought Gericom laptop today. Working great, but unable to burn CDs.Tried using Pinnacle and XP software, and installed Nero, but still no luck. All say 'a destination device could not be found'.
Anyone any ideas. Maybe drive is defunct.
Ken

 

[trees a green]

hi- just on mine now changing all over(new email) etc going to put half .L=2 .on and DOOM-3 -my lasT laptop had 8meg graphics (dell4000)=GERICOM has 2 log ins 1 is .net =any one know what is it 4 ?=remote dia. ill keep us posted how it goes +£200 off could not resist= but A.J.P .D900T laptop looks the daddy if u got the cash=ta =tar

 

[ken chatland]

Trying to sort out why I can't burn CDs. It seems that the preinstalled driver is DVD-ROM on driver, i.e. not an R/RW one. I have been searching the net for other possible drivers with no success, mostly as i can't find out what make or model the DVD drive is. the driver name is QSI DVD-ROM SDR-083

Has anyone bought one of these Gericom Ego laptops from aldi and have got to burn CDs/DVDs ok? if so what driver are you using? its driving me mad as it has such good software included for doing so but always says no writer drive detected. can anyone please help?

 

[muckshifter]

err, a DVD-ROM is a read only ram drive. Have a look on the front of the drive itself. Do you see anything like the pic' below ...

 

[robonz]

i'm a friend of ken. it says on side of drive: DVD rewritable, so you can see why we think its the wrong driver.

 

[Thar]

Trying to sort out why I can't burn CDs. It seems that the preinstalled driver is DVD-ROM on driver, i.e. not an R/RW one. I have been searching the net for other possible drivers with no success, mostly as i can't find out what make or model the DVD drive is. the driver name is QSI DVD-ROM SDR-083

Ken - does the Recovery CD included not have the required driver on it?

 

[muckshifter]

I'm sorry, but the QSI DVD-ROM SDR-083 is a ROM drive, not a re-writer.

No optical drive 'needs' drivers, the OS will install all it needs. Delete it from 'device manager' and reboot; windows will install the correct drivers. If it truly is a DVD-RW and not a DVD-ROM then what 'burning' software are you using.

Download, Everest home edition, it will tell you what you have?

 

[robonz]

thanks for everest tip, i'm downloading it right now. this is link to my new pc. as you can see it should be DVD-RW

http://uk.aldi.com/sale/product_531.html

oh yeah there is no driver for it on the driver CD. it seems its a system/XP driver

 

[muckshifter]

I see your point ... but as I said a "ROM" drive is not a re-writer.

Everest will tell you, I do hope I'm wrong, and XP will install the correct drivers for any optical drive it can "see" ... they are all ATAPI recognised drives.

I'll be interested in what Everest sees.

 

[robonz]

everest is great and confirms the driver is the one i mentioned before being DVD-ROM thou it says RW on the outside of drive. if i uninstall this driver and reboot you reckon it will reinstall it? if it reinstalls the DVD-ROM then it looks like i've been short changed and it needs to go back to Aldi.