My wife and I have been using computers together for the past ten years and she is probably more versatile in computer usage than I am except lately computers have become a nemesis to both of us in the last four computers she has bought for her use. The problems started about four year ago when I convinced her to buy a brand computer that I have been using since I first bought one in 1999. We are not talking cheap here-twelve hundred dollars worth of HP Pavilion laptop-and as she was using it the screen would go black and she would restart it and she would try to view a website video and the screen would go black and the words coming from her mouth were black and she was not happy. I was feeling bad, because I convinced her to buy this brand that I considered to be the best on the market and I had a laptop that I had been using for five years but is now unusable because of numerous downloads from Windows uses all of the RAM. She called support and got the help located in India and the man said to her, 'We weill fix problem.', 'Not to Worry.' She was on the phone four hours. When the problem did not turn out to be an easy fix the support guy said the computer will have to be sent back. OK. We spend twelve hundred dollars on a computer and we have to send it back two days after we buy it. I don't think so! After numerous phone calls she checked the computer and discovered NVIDIA had not been installed which would explain the black screen when she would try to watch a video. Wasted days and wasted nights talking to support and she figured it out herself and once NVIDIA was downloaded she was in business.
Two years ago we went to a Verizon store and because the popularity of the tablet was becoming the in thing to own along with the smart phone, we decided to get a tablet. We looked at the most popular brand, a Samsung Galaxy 3, and we wanted to buy one, but we were told there was none available at the time, however, a salesman found one in the back and said it was brand new, so, we believed him and we created a new contract for the smartphone and the Galaxy 3 which was six hundred dollars. As time passes and she begins to use the tablet more and more on FaceBook it becomes very irritating to try to see or watch a video on FB. To someone who has a smart phone and can use it to watch a video on FB and is able to watch it without any problems it is very upsetting to someone who has a tablet and cannot watch a video on FB, BECAUSE IT DOESN'T HAVE A FLASH PLAYER! OK! If a video on FB can be watched on a smart phone, which does not have a flash player, why does a video not play on a tablet which is, to me, just a glorified smart phone and operates on the same principal as a smart phone, since a phone number has been assigned to it in order to be billed for it. Verizon has no answers except to say you can download a flash player for between two hundred dollars to three hundred dollars...why must we pay anything at all? That issue with the tablet has not been resolved, but believe me we are wiser now and should we get another tablet, well, let's say we will be smarter, maybe. Two years ago I decided to buy a Toshiba Qosmio laptop. I liked the way it is supposed to operate as a gaming computer with quick response and its internals will hold a lot of bytes. The computer is a on line order only and they are made in Shanghai, China. It took a couple of weeks to get and I felt it was worth the wait and when it arrived I was tickled pink and couldn't wait to get started. I went through the necessities to register the computer and as I was using it I found the 'V' key was not working properly. The key had to be pushed hard to get a V into the where you wanted it to go and since I had a Verizon e-mail account every time I would try to type the letter V I had to push down hard on the key. With apprehension I decided that I could not live with a brand new computer and I called Toshiba and got the OK to send the computer back and when they received the computer then they would send a replacement which took over two weeks to do. The replacement came and I unpacked it hoping nothing was wrong with this one. After about a month I tried to access the Toshiba web site. It became an exercise in futility to access the Toshiba web site. It didn't matter what password I tried to set the captchas would always come up and try and try the end result was no match to the captchas. I thought I'm only trying to get onto their web site and it should not be this difficult. I gave in and decided to call Toshiba support. Talking to the representative I learned that the computer that was sent back was still under my name and the new computer was never registered in my name and that is what was blocking my accessing the Toshiba web site. Once the representative made the changes and I went to the web site and set a password and immediately had access. Just a little frustration that was eased with a little deductive reasoning.
This past fall wife wanted to find a computer that was not as heavy as the Pavilion and she wanted a touch screen. We had gone to Staples and looked at a Lenovo on sale at fifty dollars off from six hundred forty-nine dollars, but our experiences caused us to hesitate in buying it at that time. A week later we went back and the computer was no longer on sale and there was a lack of merchandise in the store. We went to Best Buy and sought out the Lenovo computers and after an hour or so looking and deciding on what model she picked a Lenovo Touch Screen that suited her while I just stood by not influencing her one way or another. With the problem of the previous computer I wanted no part in helping her to decide on what to get. Another new computer was brought home after one thousand dollars was charged to a credit card. The fun began when it was discovered the Windows 8.1 was not installed, but the model on display had the Windows 8.1 in it-we later learned that the Best Buy Geeks install the update when the computers are put on display-and wife had done research on updating from Windows 8 to Windows 8.1 and learned of the ruination of new computers that owners did not know to not update to Windows 8.1 if the proper drivers for the new windows was not in the computer. After about three months of trying to use the new Lenovo Laptop Model G and the occurrence of a new glitch in the start screen where the charms would just quiver and not move to the app that was touched, we packed it up and drove to Best Buy and met with a member of the Geek Squad. Of course in his expert hands the computer was working fine, UNTIL, the screen repeated the same condition we had at home and that was the charms would just quiver. 'Uh Oh.' said the Geek Tech, 'we're going to have to hold this and send it out for repairs.' A week passes and we get a phone call the Lenovo G died on the operating table. It lost it's brain. We got a refund credit and the search was on again. Before we went on the new search I had seen on my Smart Phone an ad for the new Lenovo Yoga and before I could stop myself from recommending it I blurted out that this looks like the one she should get. I then thought that I had not learned the lesson to not recommend to buy something that I like, because usually when I recommend an item it turns into a bad experience for the person I recommended it to when they buy it. For two weeks we were spending our free time in Best Buy on our days off. We looked at the Lenovo Yoga and wife decided it suited for her to buy it. One week was all it took to learn this one was another piece of crap. I can not write expletives loud enough to convey the irritation felt in buying another piece of shit. Back to Best Buy we went. To the customer service counter to speak to a Geek Squad member and explain to him that videos would not play because a message would appear that read 'You must have a flash player installed' to play videos. OK! We tried to install the flash player, but Windows 8.1 puts up a message that read 'Flash player already installed.' The Geek went on line to a You Tube video and of course the video played. Of course all of us had the look of disbelief and the Geek looked at us like 'Hey, the video is playing. What's your problem?' I said: 'Try playing a video on Facebook.' The Geek hit the play on a FB video and Lo and Behold the message came up that reads: 'Must install flash player.' 'Ummm.' said the Geek. After fooling around for a few minutes to see if he could get it to work he asked wife if he could push the restore button to put the system back to factory default. 'Sure.' wife said, 'I don't have anything in it I need to have.'. Meanwhile, I kinda of became fascinated with the Lenovo Yoga, which I nicknamed Yoda, so I went to the displays and was checking it out and convincing myself I want to have one. When I got back to the customer service desk, wife says to me 'It died on the operating table. It didn't have the brains to carry on.'. The Geek discovered that the brain belonged in a Samsung and not a Lenovo and it could not recover from the operation. The last rites were given in the form of a credit and we went to the computer section to get another Lenovo Yoga and I got one, too. We checked the boxes and saw the labels had as an operating system the Windows 8.1. So, that was three Lenovo Yoga computers in a week that left Best Buy and the packing boxes all had the same date of manufacture: December 16. 2013 and shipped from Shanghai where they were made on December 26, 2013 and we purchased the two on January 29, 2014. So far so good. I have really begun to like mine and wife is beginning to grow fond of hers. The next thing to conquer for her is a Microsoft Mouse. Another story, maybe.
