Hey everyone. This is quite a lengthy review of my experience with Acer so far.
What simply sparked me to write this was that so many review sites gives Acer the thumbs up when it should really give them thumbs down.
The reason being? Well, my experience with Acer ever since I bought my Tablet PC from them has been an utter disappointment. That's an understatement by the way. Words cannot describe how appalling their product and their after sales service has been.
Where to begin? Well, when I bought my Acer TravelMate C111TCi in October 2003, it came incomplete without its battery. Me being a novice at these things, I thought I would double check with Acer themselves so I rang them up (which was no easy task - it took at least 20 minutes before I got through to someone) and they said that their should have been a battery in the box. So I just explained to them that I had spent £100 on a new battery because their wasn't already one in the box. They apologised for it and they said they would send me one. 2 weeks later a package arrived. I thought it would be the battery, but to my disappointment they had sent me a Clock battery instead! It was one of them cell batteries that you get in a watch! So I went straight back to the phone and called them up to tell them their had been a mix up. Only this time I simply couldn't get through to them. So I e-mailed them instead. It took a few days to get sorted out but after about a week the proper battery arrived.
I thought that all would be OK now. And everything was OK until December arrived. The hinge that kept the Tablet PC screen stable at the side became loose and no longer held the screen in place. I wasn't too happy that after only 3 months of use the build quality of the machine was already letting me down. I went through the same procedure again only I tried to get support over email instead because knowing it was Christmas time it would be busy...it's busy everywhere. It was early December but they refused to help over e-mail and simply told me to ring the support line. I was left with no choice but to do so. After waiting the usual 20 minute queue I finally got through to someone and told them what was wrong. Booked it all in for a collection which was next day courier service. The guy on the other end told me it could take as long as 2 weeks to get it fixed. If only it did! I gave them two weeks to fix the product before sending an e-mail to enquire about the status of the repair. I didn't even get a reply. I got a reply the following year however in January. At that point it had been 5 weeks since I had sent the laptop in for repair! Which is simply outrageous under any circumstances. It should not take 5 weeks to repair a hinge on the side of the laptop. I made complaints and enquiries as to why it took so long. Most of them were ignored. They simply sent a letter out the following week with a formal apology. That was the last time that I hoped that I would ever have to deal with Acer support again.
Only to my dismay another hinge broke. The catch that held the screen attached to the base of the laptop snapped right off. I couldn't believe it. I honestly could not believe how poor the build quality was. I questioned my own use of the product itself and wondered to myself, was I mis handling the product? Well, everything else still seemed to be working, it was only the parts that I used often that were breaking such as the hinge which allowed me to transform the laptop in to a Tablet PC and the latch which is used to secure the screen to the base....aspects of a laptop which should be able to handle constant usage. So I went through the same procedure of getting it repaired. Surprisingly it only took 2 weeks to get it fixed, which is a reasonable amount of time. About a month later however, ANOTHER fault was found. I don't know when the fault happened because I hadn't used the Firewire since it was sent in for repair, so it could have been damaged when it had been sent in. But anyway, the firewire wasn't working. I did the usual tests and it was definitely not working. So after spending another 20 minutes trying to get through on the support line, I finally managed to get a Case ID and got it booked in to be taken away again. This time it took 4 weeks to get it repaired. When I got it back I did a thorough check this time to make sure it was all working. I wasn't surprised at the fact that the product had ANOTHER issue. You would think that I would be completely annoyed by now, but it was just expected. Acer had managed to fix the firewire port but they had also managed to do something else at the same time. They managed to switch the processor for a lower spec model. It was now only running at 900MHz! This is a 1GHz model, OK, so it's a 100MHz difference, but if I had wanted a 900MHz model I wouldn't have paid that extra money to get the 1GHz model instead! This time it was the last straw. I wrote back to the Customer Services department asking them why this had happened and what they were playing at. They seem to me like they're a company that doesn't know what they're doing! I also demanded a refund....which in my situation doesn't seem like a un-reasonable request considering what had happened.
Several days later, the customer services rep that I was dealing with said that the refund request had been declined and that she had forwarded details of what has happened with the processor to the technical team. That was four days ago so I wouldn't expect a reply for at least another week.
And that is my experience so far with Acer. I thought that it is my duty to make sure that you are aware of my experience. You can do what you like with it.
Thanks for reading.
What simply sparked me to write this was that so many review sites gives Acer the thumbs up when it should really give them thumbs down.
The reason being? Well, my experience with Acer ever since I bought my Tablet PC from them has been an utter disappointment. That's an understatement by the way. Words cannot describe how appalling their product and their after sales service has been.
Where to begin? Well, when I bought my Acer TravelMate C111TCi in October 2003, it came incomplete without its battery. Me being a novice at these things, I thought I would double check with Acer themselves so I rang them up (which was no easy task - it took at least 20 minutes before I got through to someone) and they said that their should have been a battery in the box. So I just explained to them that I had spent £100 on a new battery because their wasn't already one in the box. They apologised for it and they said they would send me one. 2 weeks later a package arrived. I thought it would be the battery, but to my disappointment they had sent me a Clock battery instead! It was one of them cell batteries that you get in a watch! So I went straight back to the phone and called them up to tell them their had been a mix up. Only this time I simply couldn't get through to them. So I e-mailed them instead. It took a few days to get sorted out but after about a week the proper battery arrived.
I thought that all would be OK now. And everything was OK until December arrived. The hinge that kept the Tablet PC screen stable at the side became loose and no longer held the screen in place. I wasn't too happy that after only 3 months of use the build quality of the machine was already letting me down. I went through the same procedure again only I tried to get support over email instead because knowing it was Christmas time it would be busy...it's busy everywhere. It was early December but they refused to help over e-mail and simply told me to ring the support line. I was left with no choice but to do so. After waiting the usual 20 minute queue I finally got through to someone and told them what was wrong. Booked it all in for a collection which was next day courier service. The guy on the other end told me it could take as long as 2 weeks to get it fixed. If only it did! I gave them two weeks to fix the product before sending an e-mail to enquire about the status of the repair. I didn't even get a reply. I got a reply the following year however in January. At that point it had been 5 weeks since I had sent the laptop in for repair! Which is simply outrageous under any circumstances. It should not take 5 weeks to repair a hinge on the side of the laptop. I made complaints and enquiries as to why it took so long. Most of them were ignored. They simply sent a letter out the following week with a formal apology. That was the last time that I hoped that I would ever have to deal with Acer support again.
Only to my dismay another hinge broke. The catch that held the screen attached to the base of the laptop snapped right off. I couldn't believe it. I honestly could not believe how poor the build quality was. I questioned my own use of the product itself and wondered to myself, was I mis handling the product? Well, everything else still seemed to be working, it was only the parts that I used often that were breaking such as the hinge which allowed me to transform the laptop in to a Tablet PC and the latch which is used to secure the screen to the base....aspects of a laptop which should be able to handle constant usage. So I went through the same procedure of getting it repaired. Surprisingly it only took 2 weeks to get it fixed, which is a reasonable amount of time. About a month later however, ANOTHER fault was found. I don't know when the fault happened because I hadn't used the Firewire since it was sent in for repair, so it could have been damaged when it had been sent in. But anyway, the firewire wasn't working. I did the usual tests and it was definitely not working. So after spending another 20 minutes trying to get through on the support line, I finally managed to get a Case ID and got it booked in to be taken away again. This time it took 4 weeks to get it repaired. When I got it back I did a thorough check this time to make sure it was all working. I wasn't surprised at the fact that the product had ANOTHER issue. You would think that I would be completely annoyed by now, but it was just expected. Acer had managed to fix the firewire port but they had also managed to do something else at the same time. They managed to switch the processor for a lower spec model. It was now only running at 900MHz! This is a 1GHz model, OK, so it's a 100MHz difference, but if I had wanted a 900MHz model I wouldn't have paid that extra money to get the 1GHz model instead! This time it was the last straw. I wrote back to the Customer Services department asking them why this had happened and what they were playing at. They seem to me like they're a company that doesn't know what they're doing! I also demanded a refund....which in my situation doesn't seem like a un-reasonable request considering what had happened.
Several days later, the customer services rep that I was dealing with said that the refund request had been declined and that she had forwarded details of what has happened with the processor to the technical team. That was four days ago so I wouldn't expect a reply for at least another week.
And that is my experience so far with Acer. I thought that it is my duty to make sure that you are aware of my experience. You can do what you like with it.
Thanks for reading.
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