Well, it's been less than a week and I have to send back my shiny new Powerbook. Something's gone wrong with both the video memory and the keyboard backlight, I have no Apple Store anywhere nearby and the Apple Authorized Service Station closed its doors last week.
I am somewhat disappointed that my Powerbook already has gone "donk," but I'm not really mad - hardware failures happen sometimes. It's a cost of doing business.
That said, I must say I've found Apple's support and service to be beyond reproach. I live in Alaska with no convenient outlets around, so Apple has to ship me the return/repair box. They'll do this DHL overnight, which is a nice theory - "Overnight mail" in Alaska translates to "Four days" in real time - then I'll mail it back to them.
I realise I'm in a bit of a hard position. I'd really love a straight exchange, but there's no Apple Store and besides, I have a BTO machine (I have the 15" 1.67 with 128MB VRAM), and according to the person I talked to they don't do exchanges on BTO, which I can understand. The utter disassociation with anything Apple Support-related within a hundred miles of me also doesn't make the process any simpler. I understand their position and really, there's nothing else that can be done.
The fellow I talked to was very polite and once we'd exhausted the telephone support options (Actually, I'd aready gone through 99% of their list, so it was a short phone call) and determined it had to be shipped back they seemed perfectly pleased to do it. The guy on the line was professional and conveyed a sense that yes, my problem will be taken care of.
So I'm going to be without my Powerbook for bare minimum about two weeks. The reason for this is there's no road into our out of Juneau, DHL doesn't technically deliver here (they hire a courier), and airlines have long since just figured we'll put up with it (Anchorage is one of the busiest airports on the West Coast, and it's not a two hour plane trip from here), so I pretty much get the short end of the shipping stick no matter what.
I can't fault Apple for anything that they had control over. It was nice to experience a support call that wasn't from Kahlil Al-Rashid in Bangalore, or felt like I was attempting to convice the company to let me pull its metaphorical teeth. I have great faith that my Powerbook will be returned to me in a functional condition, and that it (probably) won't break again.
Were I to rate Apple, I'd say 4.5 out of 5 stars. A cross-shipped straight exchange woulda been the clincher.
I am somewhat disappointed that my Powerbook already has gone "donk," but I'm not really mad - hardware failures happen sometimes. It's a cost of doing business.
That said, I must say I've found Apple's support and service to be beyond reproach. I live in Alaska with no convenient outlets around, so Apple has to ship me the return/repair box. They'll do this DHL overnight, which is a nice theory - "Overnight mail" in Alaska translates to "Four days" in real time - then I'll mail it back to them.
I realise I'm in a bit of a hard position. I'd really love a straight exchange, but there's no Apple Store and besides, I have a BTO machine (I have the 15" 1.67 with 128MB VRAM), and according to the person I talked to they don't do exchanges on BTO, which I can understand. The utter disassociation with anything Apple Support-related within a hundred miles of me also doesn't make the process any simpler. I understand their position and really, there's nothing else that can be done.
The fellow I talked to was very polite and once we'd exhausted the telephone support options (Actually, I'd aready gone through 99% of their list, so it was a short phone call) and determined it had to be shipped back they seemed perfectly pleased to do it. The guy on the line was professional and conveyed a sense that yes, my problem will be taken care of.
So I'm going to be without my Powerbook for bare minimum about two weeks. The reason for this is there's no road into our out of Juneau, DHL doesn't technically deliver here (they hire a courier), and airlines have long since just figured we'll put up with it (Anchorage is one of the busiest airports on the West Coast, and it's not a two hour plane trip from here), so I pretty much get the short end of the shipping stick no matter what.
I can't fault Apple for anything that they had control over. It was nice to experience a support call that wasn't from Kahlil Al-Rashid in Bangalore, or felt like I was attempting to convice the company to let me pull its metaphorical teeth. I have great faith that my Powerbook will be returned to me in a functional condition, and that it (probably) won't break again.
Were I to rate Apple, I'd say 4.5 out of 5 stars. A cross-shipped straight exchange woulda been the clincher.
