My experience buying a Xiaomi Notebook Pro from FastTech.com

[Keystone Nyan Cat]

TL;DR- Friendly, quick-to reply customer service coupled with timely updates, shipping and communication for orders- FastTech has been an uneventful shopping experience- just how it should be for shopping for computers and gets my endorsement.

 

Order History (time in PST): (I cannot confirm nor deny any actions, conversations, or correspondences that may or may not have happened below for obvious reasons):

18th July, 12:06PM: Created FastTech account
19th July, 11:52AM: Placed Order for Xiaomi Notebook Pro w/ DHL Express Shipping, gift-wrapping, and hardbox packaging 
22nd July, 8:15PM: Contacted by FastTech to whether I wanted to change the declared value on the package; their message (email and ticket on their site) said if I didn't reply back in 24 hours, the package would be shipped with its true vale.
23rd July, 7:45AM: Replied back asking the declared value of the package to $400 (value of Xiaomi's cheapest notebook)
23rd July, 7:16PM: Followed up with FastTech's live chat about an update about changing the packages declared value since I hadn't heard back from their support yet, and was nervous about it shipping with a declared value of over $1,000. Was told that their colleague would look into it as soon as possible.
23rd July, 8:34PM: Received confirmation that the order would be shipped with my asked value.
24th July, 5:53AM: Received order shipping confirmation (tracking number not working though; website asked waiting for 2 days for it to activate though)
25th July, 6:46PM: Received updated tracking number via email and support ticket; my orders page was updated with a picture of the package and tracking number.
27th July, 10:10AM: Received by me.

 

Pictures of Packaging: https://imgur.com/a/kAxDqI7
Proof of Purchase: https://imgur.com/a/qe4pD6l

 

Notes on packaging: 

• When initially opening the package- I wished there was more bubble wrap around the inside box, but given the laptop box itself was enclosed in soft packaging foam- it wouldn't have helped a lot anyways in hindsight and would only serve to increase the already expensive shipping costs.
• There was a minor dent in the exterior packaging, but but the innermost box for the notebook itself was undamaged.
• The notebook box itself still had it's original shrink wrap on and security stickers- it was brand new
• There was some odor when opening the box, but the actual package enclosed in shrink wrap was odor free.
• For $1.50, the hard box and gift wrapping was well worth it; moreso since if opened by customs- gifts are usually not dutied at all.

The above is as objective and factual as I can get it to be, that all said, if you want to hear more about my experience as I delve into the subjective, read on!

 

Why did I not want to choose FastTech

• Little to no customer reviews nor shopping experiences on high end electronics purchases.
• Website looked outdated/ sketchy with unmatched fonts and styles
• Missing as a recommended seller under the r/Xiaomi wiki

 

Why did I choose FastTech?

• Some subreddits (mostly those around ecigs and vaping of all places, with some scattered posts on tech ones) held their customer service among the best in the industry for imports from China- both in responsiveness and professionalism. This was the biggest reason atleast for me for going through with them- I wanted someone to have my back incase something went wrong and not have to deal bad customer service with weeks in CS replies for shipping delays, damaged goods, etc.; and atleast from what I read- that wouldn't be the case with them, which was a huge relief over others like GearBest whom were plagued with horror stories around delays and non-responsiveness.
• Their return policies were far better than GearBest, BangGood, Aliexpress and I could pay through PayPal- if something went wrong and if they refused to cooperate- I could go through PayPal. I mean, to quote their website- "FastTech reimburses return shipping charges. Contact us for a RMA, within 5 days of delivery, and ship products back via the least expensive method."; aka- they cover back a 100% of shipping fees during that 5 day return window. 
• Comparable price to GearBest, BangGood, and Aliexpress (not really a shopping factor for me; $25-50 here or there is a bit trivial when you're paying $1,000+ for a laptop), I'd rather pay more for better CS.
• They may or may not offer changing the value of packages that they ship as well as gift wrapping them, which means paying little to nothing at all in customs duty. I read horror stories of people being charged over $200 for duties which would be crazy expensive for a laptop, so this, if true, would also have been a strong reason for me going through with them.
• Their policies said they would work as a middleman between the customer and Xiaomi itself if anything goes wrong after 6 months and up until a year after the order date to fix the device.

 

Other notes:
Overall, I'm pretty pleased with my experience- it was uneventful and required minimal input from me after placing my order- just like how anything that was ordered online should be. Atleast from my experience with them- I feel confident recommending them to others and they're definitely going to be my go-to for ordering products in the future if the need to do so arises again. From staff that replied in quite literally hours in legible/ clear English to actually adding a photo of the box as it shipped- buying from them has been a really stress-free experience.

[Keystone Nyan Cat]

This is off-topic to the post, but the Notebook is working (48 hours of Memtest, 24 hours of Prime95 with small FFTs, 1 hour of Furmark, SSD error scan using HDTune, dead pixel test) and with the screen brightness turned all the way down and left running, can run for over 18 hours. I'm currently in the process of buying a 3 year SquareTrade warranty for it alongside a 1-2TB m.2 drive for mass storage on it, but yeah; I guess that concludes my experience buying from FastTech for now. Hope this helps someone!

 

If anyone has any questions about buying from FastTech or about the Notebook Pro itself, feel free to post here or message me!

 

[FIXXX]

Good stuff, thanks for a detailed post.