Monday, November 27, 2006

Some additional information

The support center was called last Friday to get an idea of what it is going to take to have this ACER TravelMate 4000 laptop of mine repaired, the news is in and it isn't pretty.

The support center told me that because my laptop is an overseas model, they are going to have to have parts shipped in for the repair. Their eta on the job is between 1~2 months for the repair! This is also coming from a company which has kindly noted that they have an international network of repair centers for cases especially like these! I hardly can imagine how these ACER repair centers can at all address people that might need repairs while on travel with a 2 month repair window.

I am still going to have to figure out how much this is going to run me. $400~$600, I guess I can make a bite at it. If it's going to cost more, I think I can nab laptops for about $1000 and under in Japan. Probably even cheaper for desktops.

That said, because this particular experience, I am very inclined to say that having a laptop as your primary computer is not recommended because when it breaks down, you're a fish out of water and at the mercy of repair centers to get your computer working. If this were an ordinary PC, I would have already located the problem, swapped parts and been on my merry way.

Now the next interesting problem is if Laptops could be customizable like desktops-- now that would solve a lot of problems and make laptops upgradable!

5 comments:

Sacha said...

$500 for a repair 1-2 months out?

I'd just get a new computer. Right now you can even get things like 1.6GHz Core Duos with the 15.4" displays and XP Pro (legal!) for about CAD$1100.

I have no idea what the retail market is in Japan for this sort of stuff.

Matt said...

That's horrible man. Hopefully you're able to find a replacement soon, I'm sure there are some deals to be had out there in the land of electronics!

Paladiamors said...

Sacha:

Yeah, tempted about buying a new computer if the difference between repairing my computer and buying a new one isn't so significant. The lab is ordering a spare computer for common use at the moment for about $1000 so I will have reign on that computer for the time being. Spending an additional $500 for the same functionality does not seem like quite a deal to me.

Matt:

Yeah, if I do find a cool computer out here I'd be quite inclined to buy it. Laptop designs out here are quite nice and they do have some nice looking ultra thin laptops, but I'm more interested in the standard desktop replacements... which are quite similar to the computers back in Canada.

Of another note, the keyboard layout in Japan is slightly different compared to the standard english keyboards. I'm on my friend's computer and it still throws me off from time to time. For example shift-2 here gets me the quotation character and the @ has it's own key. Crazy...

Wrazn said...

Good luck with that. I've got a similar model (4002WLMi), which is starting to have fits, as well. Grr. Have to keep it running for at least a few more months until I'm back in Canada. (Computers Down Under are way way expensive...)

Paladiamors said...

Yeah? How much are you looking at in terms of cost?

Starting to poke here and there for new laptops. Starting to see things with 3 year warrantys. I wouldn't mind something with a 3 year guarantee, by the time it breaks down, I'd be fine with getting a new model.