*Jozzua Notes from a Business and Marketing Strategist/Tactician

NEO Endura Laptop Woes

UPDATE: For More Discussions about the NEO Laptop model, please visit the Philippine Laptops Website.

My Neo Endura Laptop did not 'endure' its daily use. After only 8 months of use, it decided to go bust on me yesterday. I was able to watch the extended version of "Lord Of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring" on it just a day before. When I opened it yesterday, the screen was totally blank. The laptop's power LED was on - but nothing was showing up on screen. I hooked it up to a projector just to see if it would show anything on the screen. Nada.. nothing there.

It's still under warranty so I just decided to have it serviced. I promptly called NEO's tech support number. From 9AM to 12NN, I called around 5 times. There was no answer on their hotline. I called them again after lunch and finally somebody answered. I described the nature of the problem. He told me to bring it over to the service center just along Shaw Boulevard. I asked if they needed my warranty card. The tech guy explained that they just need my name and the serial number of the unit. By 3:30pm, I was at the service center.

When I got there I discovered one tech guy on the front desk working on another busted laptop. Another guy was just to my right and was on the phone. Apparently, this guy on my right was the telephone support guy. I discovered that this guy would go to their back office (which seemed to have more tech people) and leave the phones up at the front desk. It rang incessantly. Now I understand why it took me a while to get in touch with them. For a "hotline' number, the people here sure aren't trained to answer it effectively. They didn't seem to have a ready script for incoming calls.

The repair guy looked at my computer and then checked the memory and the CPU. After an hour, he told me he needs to do some more diagnostics and I'll have to leave the laptop overnight. So I signed a 'deposit' form.

Today I called them up to follow up on my laptop and they say that a "cable" part is busted and it will take 3 weeks for them to get it from Taiwan. In my mind, I was shouting "WTF?!!"

I was rather polite with them though and asked if they could provide me with a replacement unit in the meantime (so I could do some work). They said that they don't do that.

Ack.

I decided I would just get my laptop's hard drive for now as I have a lot of important files there that I need to access. I'll get the hard drive tomorrow and insist on getting a replacement unit.

Let's see what happens.

By the way... I can't tell you about what I did just yet. You see involves somebody else and I have not been given permission yet to blog about it. I'll keep you posted.