I need a new laptop charger.
A UK based laptop retailer had an OEM one for £99.99 this morning. I didn't buy it then because I had to pop out. (The laptop is now 4 and 1 month old and still out performs newer laptops.)
This evening, the same retailer has put the price up to £179.99. I cannot get the adapter from anywhere else in the UK.
It's a rare adapter. Needs to output 11.5amps (isn't that cooker territory?) and I am not too keen to try a copy.
I have cleared cookies etc and it's a different laptop - as the one I searched on earlier is the one in need of the new adapter.
I feel like I am being mugged!
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I can't believe a laptop needs 11.5amps - as you say this is cooker hob territory.
My recently purchased Acer has a 19 volt output at 2.37 amps. This equates to an input of 0.2 amps at 240 volts.
It is plausible there is a shortage of chargers at the moment in common with many other electrical items but you are being royally ripped off unless it is a very special laptop.
Key issue is to get an adaptor with the right size connector and the correct voltage. Within reason the laptop will cope with a variation in amps by either limiting the current or charging more slowly.
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My MacBook asks for 3 amps
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11.5 amps is the DC output, not that high*, The 240v wattage will be quite low.
What make and model of laptop is it, the PSU shouldnt be that expensive.
*an I7 desktop PC power supply will need to be able to provide 30 amps of DC power. (5v and 12v mainly)
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It's this one:
www.lenovo.com/gb/en/laptops/ideapad/y900-series/Ideapad-Y910-17/p/88IPY900764
As mentioned, it is just over 4 years old. The adapter ends in a rectangular connector rather than the usual barrel type connector.
Any idea how much a similar spec laptop would cost today as it's fast enough for my favourite game (CIV) and Excel for large data set number crunching.
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How about a second hand oem one?
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Thanks Zero, I had seen similar, but am dithering about them, not being OEM.
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Can it also be charged via the usb-c port? If so, maybe a usb hub would be a solution.
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At a guess a Dell 230W charger. Maybe a Chinese pattern copy would be a solution.
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>> OEM £45 upwards aren't they?
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>> tinyurl.com/yckt3n2c
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Many of these ship direct from China and having read some reviews, they look like OEM parts but seem to be fakes.
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Th OEM ones are probably made in China too. This £95 one is coming from a UK supplier who says it is genuine. Who knows? Maybe the higher price proves it. Maybe not.
www.coywood.co.uk/lenovo-ideapad-y910-charger-20v-115a-62512-p.asp
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Lenovo oem power supplies are made in China, cheaply.
Fake does not apply, the lenovo price is a rip off
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Recall trying to replace a Sony charger in the 90s at a Sony store. They wanted over £100 then. Never bought a Sony product since.
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>Never bought a Sony product since.
Likewise.
I've experienced poor after-sales service from Sony twice. A DVD/HDD PVR that intermittently claimed live TV was copy protected and a compact camera that was so agressive with jpeg compression you lost all fine detail. In both cases Sony support basically didn't want to know.
I won't touch another Sony product.
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>> I won't touch another Sony product.
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I won't use a local garage / petrol station for a similar reason. 1987, skint as could be. Car started back - firing on the way to work so popped in to this garage. They looked at it for some time and said it would be effectively a months wages to fix.
I didn't have a months wages and limped the car to a one man garage who fixed the problem for the cost of two pints (a new wire in the distributor that had become frayed).
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Out of the numerous laptops I've owned or looked after for friends, the only ones I've had problems with, either with spare parts (a minefield) or just simple reliability, have been those from Lenovo.
Surprising really as it use to manufacture in IBM laptops before buying up the brand name.
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ERR no, IBM manufactured IBM laptops, before they sold the whole pc business to Lenovo
At one point I looked after 2200 Lenovo laptops, and I can tell you they made the rest look like rubbish support wise
Last edited by: Zero on Mon 3 Jan 22 at 23:58
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>>IBM Laptops
Had a work supplied IBM Thinkpad in the 2000's. It was a very nice machine with a tough metal lid.
It also had a sensor that showed the orientation of the laptop and parked the HHD heads if it sensed a drop.
There was an animation that got the orientation of the laptop spot on using the sensors.
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>> ERR no, IBM manufactured IBM laptops, before they sold the whole pc business to Lenovo>>
Apologies, relying on memory.
However my comment re their spares and reliability still stand. My best mate and I, for example, spent hours and hours trying to find a simple video screen lead for a V110 without success (two types of screen connectors and different leads had been used during the model's manufacture).
In the end a local computer shop owner, who'd also been searching, was offered and accepted the purchase of the laptop from best mate to use for spares.
Perhaps I've just been unlucky, but two have packed up on me (one, then under two years old, is still housed in its box after the motherboard burned out during a charging session). The cost of the new motherboard and repairs would have exceeded the laptop's value.
I realised I should never have forsaken my Dell laptops and returned to the marque. Also have two desktops (one now 11 years old) which have been completely trouble free.
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I've had a couple of cheap Thinkpads which were really consumer laptops with the Thinkpad branding. They still work, but the cases aren't very good. One has metal hinges but whatever they were attached to broke instead. They were about £300 and lasted 3-4 years which is as much as I've had out of any consumer laptop.
For a couple of years I've been using a refurbed T430 i5 with 16GB RAM and a 250GB SSD. Cost me about £250 and much more robust, not the same thing at all. It's probably 10 years old and seems indestructible.
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I have had 5 laptops in the last 20 years.
3 x Acer, HP (present) and now an LG Gram.
All, except the new LG, have worked well for say 5 years. Then the gremlins start to appear - dodgy connections through hinge to the screen, screen flicker, the odd semi-dead key, battery on it's way out etc etc = New Laptop time! £500 to £700 for 5+ years life is a cup of coffee per week.
I use the same strategy with laptops as I do with TVs, Washing Machine etc etc - not too old it gets fixed once but when it is older or needs a 2nd fix it is replaced.
That said I on my 2nd LG - the keyboard fell apart on setup and Costco replaced it immediately.
£1200 so a "treat for me" - 17", i7, 16Gb, 1T SSD - OTT performance - it goes like the wind.
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The T series were commercial grade, as you say built like the proverbial brick wosname
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Unless you have very particular needs - eg: video editing, games etc - most basic laptops will be more than adequate for spreadsheets, documents, surfing etc.
A basic machine more than around 4 years old is just about obsolete - still functions but partly old tech. A more premium purchase (2-3 times the cost) may give 6-8 years life.
I have just bought a replacement - Lenovo was 4 years old and battered - dropped too many times, and batteries kaput. £300 buys a new machine with larger SSD and better screen.
Just not worth repairing - they are almost consumable items. If it outlasts the warranty and breaks - replace not repair.
This runs counter to the make do and mend culture I was bought up with, but is the norm with most consumer goods where efforts to make them cheap to manufacture and tamper/idiot proof also make then difficult to disassemble and fix.
No different to cars really - buy a new ECU - soldering iron and component replacement not generally possible on a chip inside a sealed casing.
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Laptop Charger £100 this morning £180 now! - Terry
