Not many reviews cover post sales support, and I thought I'd post my experience with Acers repair department.
I purchased a Travelmate 8103 in August 2005. After a few months of using it, I started experiencing issues with the touchpad buttons. i.e: You had to press a button with excessive force to get a click to register and tactile feedback was poor. I didn't bother doing anything then simply because it wasn't a serious enough issue. (I usually used a mouse anyway and when I didn't the touchpad buttons were functional enough to use, just not great.)
A few weeks ago, while trying to get a headset working with this laptop, I had managed to blow the speakers. (I share part of the blame, but place most of it on buggy drivers.). Not content with having my laptop sound like it had broken glass rattling on the inside of it (and with the warranty only having one month left on it) I decided to give Acers warranty service a try. I was a bit apprehensive at first. I've heard horror stories about people sending in electronic items in for repair, only to have said electronics get returned untouched (read: unrepaired) or in worse condition then when originally sent.
So, hoping for the best, I backed up my files, formatted the drive, reinstalled Acers factory image (from CD, I had long since blown away the backup partition) and removed the extra stick of RAM I'd installed. Satisfied that the problems were still reproducible, I went to a local UPS store and had UPS package the laptop. Total cost for packing, materials, shipping (UPS Ground) and insurance ($2000): $50.
Acer recieved the laptop July 13th and sent it back on the 15th. Most people would probably be excited. I wasn't. With such a quick turnaround time, I was concerned that they might have replaced my laptop with a refurbished one or maybe had done nothing at all. Well, I recieved my laptop on July 19th (they used FedEx 2nd Day - a nice touch) and this is what I saw:
The laptop was well packaged. There was also a sheet of paper detailing the specific parts they had replaced. (Specifically:the motherboard, both speakers and the modem board.) I booted it up and played around with it. The touchpad buttons worked as they should (and actually responded with a nice, satisfying 'click' when pressed). The speakers didn't rattle when playing back music at a reasonable volume. Finally, they had cleaned the screen (it had been pretty smudged with fingerprints). In the end, I actually recieved the laptop in slightly better condition than I'd sent it in. Combine that with a 2 day turnaround time, and I was very impressed.
I purchased a Travelmate 8103 in August 2005. After a few months of using it, I started experiencing issues with the touchpad buttons. i.e: You had to press a button with excessive force to get a click to register and tactile feedback was poor. I didn't bother doing anything then simply because it wasn't a serious enough issue. (I usually used a mouse anyway and when I didn't the touchpad buttons were functional enough to use, just not great.)
A few weeks ago, while trying to get a headset working with this laptop, I had managed to blow the speakers. (I share part of the blame, but place most of it on buggy drivers.). Not content with having my laptop sound like it had broken glass rattling on the inside of it (and with the warranty only having one month left on it) I decided to give Acers warranty service a try. I was a bit apprehensive at first. I've heard horror stories about people sending in electronic items in for repair, only to have said electronics get returned untouched (read: unrepaired) or in worse condition then when originally sent.
So, hoping for the best, I backed up my files, formatted the drive, reinstalled Acers factory image (from CD, I had long since blown away the backup partition) and removed the extra stick of RAM I'd installed. Satisfied that the problems were still reproducible, I went to a local UPS store and had UPS package the laptop. Total cost for packing, materials, shipping (UPS Ground) and insurance ($2000): $50.
Acer recieved the laptop July 13th and sent it back on the 15th. Most people would probably be excited. I wasn't. With such a quick turnaround time, I was concerned that they might have replaced my laptop with a refurbished one or maybe had done nothing at all. Well, I recieved my laptop on July 19th (they used FedEx 2nd Day - a nice touch) and this is what I saw:
The laptop was well packaged. There was also a sheet of paper detailing the specific parts they had replaced. (Specifically:the motherboard, both speakers and the modem board.) I booted it up and played around with it. The touchpad buttons worked as they should (and actually responded with a nice, satisfying 'click' when pressed). The speakers didn't rattle when playing back music at a reasonable volume. Finally, they had cleaned the screen (it had been pretty smudged with fingerprints). In the end, I actually recieved the laptop in slightly better condition than I'd sent it in. Combine that with a 2 day turnaround time, and I was very impressed.
