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Hi everyone,
I've decided to write this review to share with you my latest contact with Asus support UK (I'm currently living in the UK) and Asus product quality (or lack of it). I'll try to be as impartial as I can on the bits about my contact with the Asus support so that you can reach your own conclusions.
Background:
On the 30th of January 2007 I bought my current Asus A8Js laptop in Portugal.. My laptop at the time, was a HP1267ea (14.1'', Centrino 1.7ghz, 100GB HD), which never caused me any trouble but was a bit slow for some of my needs (I'm currently taking my PhD in Finance, requiring a bit of processing power to compute some tasks), and so I've decided to buy a C2D laptop. This HP is still running without any problems, despite being older than this A8Js: no broken plastics, stiff hinges, never had the heatsink cleaned but has never overheated.
I've contacted some friends and asked their opinion about the Asus laptops, and they said that they were reliable and well built machines (most of them were bought in 2005/2006, so I don't doubt about that). I did a bit of background research and realized that the A8Js seemed to be a great machine, although a bit pricy (I paid 1600~=$2000, which was the current price for this model at the time). Given its price, the Asus brand name, the international warranty coverage, and the positive feedback I had I thought I was doing a good deal (boy, was I wrong ). I've also bought a warranty extension of one year.
Contact with Asus UK support (I'll just give you the facts):
In May 2007 (4 months after the purchase) the laptop fan started doing a cyclical whirring noise, as if the blades were scratching the casing. Called Asus UK, got an RMA number and scheduled a pickup. It all took one week, so I think it was a fast service. When the laptop was returned the noise was no longer audible. Before going for repairs the laptop temperature was always around 50º/52º on idle. After the repairs the temperature on idle was/is 38/41º, which I believe is quite good for this processor (T7200) and compared with the ones it previously reported. It also means that there was some problem with the cooling system, given the temperature difference. The technician report only stated "Thermal mod". Your guess is as good as mine as to what this means.
At the beginning of October 2007 (8 months after purchase, 4 months after the first RMA), the fan starts acting up again doing a strange noise. I phoned Asus UK again, stated the problem and expressed my disappointment with the laptop since it would have to be sent for repairs a second time, in less than a year. Again, I've scheduled a pick up and even requested for them to change the fan for a new one, even if I had to pay for it. After one week, and given that the online repair system had the information "repairing" for a couple of days, I phoned back Asus about the status of the repair. I was told that some parts had to be ordered and were expected to arrive by the end of the month. At this time I was astonished because that would mean that I would be without the laptop for almost one month (first RMA + this RMA) in less than 8 months. I've also asked for a replacement, which was denied. Fortunately, by the middle of the week I received the laptop back (total of 1.5 weeks). The technician report stated "Fan replacement" or something like that.
At the beginning of January 2008 when I was opening the laptop I noticed a piece of plastic falling from lcd casing. This was a piece of plastic near the left hinge, and I became aware that this is a problem common with the A8J series that should have been corrected with the A8Js. It seems it wasn't. Again, I called Asus UK but this time I requested a replacement and only sent the laptop for repairs after having an answer to my request. This answer was, of course, no replacement and it took almost one week for them to reach that conclusion (and several emails from me). However, until they've decided to send my request to the replacements department, they offered me at first a new battery and then three more months of warranty. These offerings clearly show that Asus was aware that (at least) my laptop was giving more problems than usual and that I should be compensated in some way. I declined both offers, because my battery is as good as new (only has a 7% wear level) and because I have the extended warranty, which would cover me for 2 more years. Also there might be some legal reasons to which I will return to later. The replacements department told me that we could then sort some kind of compensation (never heard back from them).
After the replacement was denied I was sent a RMA number, but the process was a bit strange: in the UK you can have two types of RMA numbers. One type you call directly a company and arrange for a pick up (that's what happened in the first two times), the other type they will send you some UPS stickers by mail (more waiting days), and you must call UPS directly. So, on a Monday UPS picked up my laptop and it was returned on Friday in the same week, which I think was quite fast. However, when I open the box, I noticed that the box wasn't the same I had sent, and made it impossible for me to send back the computer correctly boxed if a new problem occurs (given the track record, that's something that I expect to happen in the next 4 months). The computer was well protected, but was wrapped around a plastic sheet and a cardboard similar to the system Amazon uses to send its items, meaning that, as soon as I cut the plastic to take out the laptop, I can no longer use it to fixate it again. Anyway, I asked Asus for a new box but they denied it stating that I can use any box I want since they aren't responsible for any damages that occur during transportation. So basically they've decided to send me a crappy box that might not correctly protect the laptop if it needs to be sent for repairs again, and just say that it's my fault.
I realized that the LCD cover and wrist cover had been changed, and that for some reason the BIOS had been reset (the chime sound during POST that I had disabled was activated). When I turn on the laptop and started working I noticed the fan didn't turn. Given that I've mentioned in the RMA that the fan was being a bit noisy again, I thought that they had done something to correct the problem (maybe a change in BIOS?). However, after 10 minutes or so of use and no fan working, I decided to measure the temperature with core temp. The reported temperature was 70º, and no Fan working. Strange, I thought. I then pushed the CPU and saw the temperature rise to 100º, without the fan working, after which the laptop just shut down. Given that I've read somewhere in this forum a report of someone that had the lcd cover changed and the technician didn't connect the fan, I decided to open the CPU backdoor (don't know if this is the correct designation) and check if this was the case. I waited for the computer to cool down, opened the CPU backdoor and, behold, the fan was disconnected from the motherboard. Reconnected it and everything was fine. This means the technician didn't even bother testing the system after repairing it (quality control, anyone?). What is interesting is that, after contacting Asus about this their reply was that they "can't prevent every mistake from happening". Since the laptop has been sent for repairs 3 times in the last year, I leave to your imagination an interpretation to this excuse.
Some considerations:
3.5 weeks in total without a computer that is less than 1 year old. Not bad, given the turnaround times I've seen reported of months, but I would prefer not to send the laptop for repairs. That's what I've paid for: to have a computer that doesn't breakdown every 4 months. This means that, I've paid Asus for something that, due to its lack of quality, I've been deprived of using almost 1 month out of 12. This has made my consumer experience of the laptop a total nightmare, not knowing when I'll have to send the laptop back for repairs, and forcing me to find a replacement every time I'm deprived of the laptop. In term of characteristics, I love this laptop: fast CPU, fantastic LCD, but poor build quality.
The laptop is used basically has a desktop replacement. I only take it out of the apartment once every week. I can only imagine if I used it everyday in a backpack the state it would be by now.
This is the 6th laptop I've owned in the last 12 years or so, and until now I never had so many problems with the others as the ones I'm having with this Asus. I might have been unlucky, but going through this forum I've noticed that recent Asus laptop models seem to be plagued with problems. It's not only a question of being a low range laptop (I don't consider a laptop of 1600~=$2000 to be low range), because we can find reports of high range laptops consistently having problems (just check the V1, V2, VX2, V6, G1, A8, some F series threads and you'll know what I mean). In fact, even some diehard Asus fans agree the latest models are fraught with problems. From the list of laptops with problems I've provided, we can realize that most of the Asus laptop series have some type of problems.
I've been an Asus user for many years, having bought motherboards, routers (have a wl500g and a wl500gp) and graphic cards, that never caused me any problems, but this experience with its laptops line of products has been a nightmare. With all certainty, I will not buy another Asus laptop again and will advise anyone that asks me my opinion not to buy them either. The trouble they cause are just too many. It's unthinkable how Asus doesn't acknowledge the problems with their faulty models and units and do not provide a sort of compensation, or replace defect units.
Final words: the reason for not accepting the offers (battery and warranty extension) is due to the fact that, under Portuguese law, if a product presents any defect during the first two years, the consumer can request its repair, replacement, complete refund or price reduction. This is my third repair, I've asked for a replacement/refund which was denied and the acceptance of such offers or any form of compensation could be considered as a price reduction. I'm returning to Portugal in a matter of months, and if the laptop has problems again (bound to happen), I'll have legal grounds to request for a complete refund.
Keywords: Asus, repair, warranty, replacement, refund, quality, build, fan, plastic, cover, hinge, overheat
On another thread you can find some opinions of some users on regarding the inherent quality of Asus laptops. At the time I was answering to some questions regarding this model which then lead to the discussion of the Asus laptops quality. You can find some good comments there.
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That is an interesting point. Why should he try to fix it himself?? he pay for a new machichine, not refurbished, not used one. I think something is going on with ASUS and so many people here have regular reports of trouble on their machines (and Im not talking about warranty) Some people here have the time to repair their stuff, or even the money to buy new parts just not to lose time but I dont think at all that is the solution. Few lucky ones have gone by without any trouble. Some other do some technical work by themselves and solve their problems for the moment, and some other have had experience with the warranty issue but why a professional should lose all his time with something that was bought brand new???? The machine should work for me and no the other way around like me working for the machine....
Many people has lose perspective of what it should be good treatment for customers who expend the money to buy something to ease their work and not making more complicate for them.
My wife is an elctronic eng. and not because of that she should expend time with her laptop fixing or finding the way around because of some issues. Our time is money. She told me since I bought the c90s this laptop has become more like a toy rather than my working machine. Always finding something new, fixing, find the way around, and so on. She always laugh about that and I just laugh with her
but the important point that if I buy something new it shouldnt give me all this trouble...
regards,
RG -
Well, he should only try to fix it only if it takes less time than sending it for RMA. And it probably would (hours as opposed to days). That is why I suggested it: because time is money.
W.r.t. C90: I think it was intended as a tinkering machine... many owners I see on the forums have bought it for just that. -
well, a person that use their computer only for work, do you think they would spend time to open it and void the warranty?? I dont think so, and that is why time is money so the reply stands, only the crazy ones (including myself
) would open it risking loosing the warranty and screw it up more than it is
ABout c90s, well ,I didnt buy for tinkering but I end up doing that on my free time and do my serious work on another machine because indeed time is money -
p190x:
Hi, I totally agree it is not normal to have a computer fixed 3 times in one year. After my computer has been "fixed" three times (due to the battery wear issue, I kept exchanging batteries and motherboards without any effect), I was offered a replacement. However there was no suitable computer available (the V1J had the same battery issue) so I ended up keeping this one on my own accord.
Like I said, ASUS UK is renowned for its poor support and I'm sure that is part of your problems... but we cannot generalize and say "ASUS support is poor" or "ASUS' care for the customers is non-existent" because these things crucially depends on the country.
Yes, there seems to be a bond between ASUS users and their machines -- I have it myself. I'm not sure what it is, maybe something they put in the cooling system, you breathe it and get infected I also agree this bond shouldn't stop us from seeing the faults of the machines or the company... I hope I see them clearly enough. But I also don't regret this bond exists -- it makes owning a the computer(s) so much more enjoyable.
I also don't think this bond is restricted to ASUS computers. I think any piece of technology that one pays more than 1000USD/EUR for in hard-earned money, one has to love... or to hate. -
Yeah, I also noticed that the techs don't put too much effort into testing the repairs once they're done...
3 times bad LCD... that's not good
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Theros, your email might have been a bit over the top. You are perfectly justified in being angry over this repeated issue, but I'm not sure that was the wisest way of writing it down... You might end up making the people at the other end angry and unwilling to help you.
My advice is to try to be a bit more temperate in your next emails, and to always enumerate the faults that ASUS has had in their interaction with you, but in a polite fashion. You'll probably get more things done like that, in my opinion. If they do refuse to properly solve your situation, then your emails should develop sharp edges as time moves along.
That's how I did it and it worked well for me.
RGS: Again, I completely agree. People without expertise should NOT open their laptop. No customers should be expected to open up a product to fix it themselves in the warranty period, regardless of the price or quality range of that product.
However, in my earlier suggestion about opening up to align the keyboard bezel, I was trying to be realistic and offer some efficient advice: for their own time's and nerves' sake, people with expertise could open their laptop for a minor fault rather than send it to ASUS and lose a week or more over it.
p190x I apologize if I understood your point incorrectly. It seemed to me that you were placing as much weight on the quality of ASUS support in general, as on the build quality issues of the ASUS machines, in your negative remarks in earlier posts. As stated in my first long, explanatory post on this thread, I am aware about the build issues; but support quality issues are not clear-cut. -
I suggest you take their offer and send the notebook in, it would be kind of weird and perhaps suspicious to them if you backed up at this point. Luckily they weren't annoyed by your email
W.r.t. stress testing, it's always possible that the LCD devleoped the fault during transport (although it's very unlikely)... I wouldn't mention this point in your further communication with them. -
Correction again, in your case UK you get ripped off most of the times
I was also accepted a replacement after my 3rd repair -- but I denied it due to lack of any suitable replacement. I was also offered compensations (first 1GB of extra RAM, then an extra battery and a complete replacement of the notebook casing, top, bottom, palmrest, and keyboard).
Not to mention the fact than when I ordered an inverter and switchboard for my M6Ne from ASUS Nederland, and then I changed my mind and wanted the cables as well, they added them free of charge.
Or the fact that when my M6BNe got crushed in a car accident, I sent it for an out-of-warranty repair, they inspected the superficial damage and requested me to pay the LCD, top and bottom case. In the end, they had to replace the motherboard and battery, together with the heatsink and cooling system, as well. No further charges were added to my bill.
Like I said, support quality varies. I will say it again, please do not incorrectly generalize your experience in order to make your point. -
Again, I agree that there are many issues with ASUS computers, and the battery problem of my V6J is certainly one of the most severe ones. No, it is not a normal thing to require support or repairs 3 times a year -- it is very abnormal.
I am actually trying to not veer the discussion in any direction, but follow the thread, keep it on even grounds, and help with suggestions wherever possible. If you re-read my posts, you will see that my corrective remarks about support quality only follow posts where support was mentioned and generalized outside the respective user's experience / country. In any case, I believe that now the support situation is quite clear to every user and needs not be discussed any longer.
Instead, we should focus on the quality issues. And by that I don't mean questions like "Do you believe that {{X and Y abnormal situation}} is normal?", of course I do not believe it's normal. These questions do not add much useful material to the thread.
Interesting questions to try to answer on this thread are on the other hand:
1. What is the cause of the quality issues?
2. What could be done to fix them? (as far as we can tell, we're not notebook designers)
3. (most importantly) How could we determine ASUS to take the steps necessary in order to fix them? -
I wasn't talking about cracks or anything that can be ascribed to mishandling the computer. I was talking about warranty repairs for part failures. In all ASUS ensembles sold in the EU, those types of failures are covered by a 2-year global warranty, so you will not pay for repairs on those things. Except the battery, which is only covered for 1 year.
Now about cracks, if you make your case well in your calls/emails and explain that it's a design fault rather than user mishandling the computer, then you might still get it repaired under warranty -- without any need to resort to legal arguments, just under the terms of the warranty, with minimal arguments with the service point. But of course, this depends on your luck and (again) to what extent that service point is willing to help you.
I don't know the legal details you are talking about, I prefer not to resort to such things as much as possible... That type of thing can take a lot of time which is the most precious commodity in my opinion
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Right, now I understand what you mean.
Yep, indeed ASUS can argue that cracks are a result of user mishandling the notebook, or of an accident like dropping it. The point is to make your point with them in such a way that they don't argue in that way. I still suggest trying that first,
even if ASUS is known to be bad in your region. Can save a lot of time and (as you point it out) money, if you're successful.
Are you suffering from cracks in the notebook case? Maybe we can help with more detailed suggestions if you give details about your case (if you did on earlier pages of the thread, sorry I have a short memory span )
Edit: in fact, it's better if we discuss your problem on a dedicated thread, so please make one describing it with details, unless you already did so. This thread has a different purpose. -
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Yeah, I've got gParted Live which probably could do that. But that's a hassle, and honestly it only takes 10 minutes to install Ubuntu anyway... Vista on the other hand...
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OK, to get this thread back on track.
A summary of what we've established until now:
- ASUS is suffering some hardware design and firmware programming problems, on the budget notebooks (e.g., A8, F3) but also higher up in the food chain (e.g., V1S, R1E, G1S). These have caused some people nightmares with repeated returns and not being able to use their laptop for long periods of time. It appears that quality started degrading in early 2006.
- ASUS aren't doing much to fix these issues / claiming some of them do not exist.
- Compounding the problem, in a number of countries, especially some in Europe (UK, Italy, perhaps some of the Baltic countries) the quality of the support is bad, professionalism of repair techs is lacking, and service people are unwilling to understand the problems of their customers.
On the bright side:
- There exist successful models without reported design issues (e.g., F8, W7, U3/U6).
- Support in US and other countries in the EU (like The Netherlands) is good or excellent.
Why are these things happening?
Here is my theory. These problems are caused by a change in the orientation of ASUS a few years ago. They initially seemed to offer high-quality laptops for a niche market, consisting of people that knew about ASUS from perhaps their reliable desktop motherboards, or from other people that had bought ASUS notebooks and were impressed with the quality. The quality came at a price premium, but those willing to pay it benefited from a high-quality, well-built and reliable laptop.
However, later on, ASUS entered the mainstream notebook market. To do this, they decided that they have to cut on the costs, and make cheaper laptops. They cut cost in all the wrong places: the design stage, the BIOS/firmware programming, and perhaps quality control. This leads to more models with design flaws being approved for production, more BIOS/firmware bugs making their way into our notebooks and causing all sorts of problems. In some cases, choices of cheap components (for instance, LCD screens) leads to recurring problems with the said components, where people return their machines only to find that the new component behaves in the same way.
Perhaps supporting this theory is the fact that currently many ASUS models are among the best "bang for the buck" for high-performance, dedicated-GPU models (at least as far as I understand it). Also, there is a large number and variation of ASUS budget machines that are being sold on the European market for instance (A8 models, F models, X models which are rebranded F-s with I think AMD CPUs).
There are other theories, such as that ASUS, being a designer of their own notebooks, like to experiment with their various models, and some experiments fail. This better explains the fact that some models are high-quality, while some are plagued by issues.
What can be done to stop this?
Well, ASUS can invest more in eliminating design issues at the drawing board. And hire people that actually graduated from Computer Science to program their BIOSes How can we determine them to do that?
1. The "easiest" solution, as mentioned earlier, is to stop buying ASUS notebooks. I'm afraid however that people thinking about these issues/reading these forums are very few, in comparison to the total bulk of the ASUS customer base. Moreover, their main market may be in Asia which means that those few people that do not buy computers in the US and EU might mean even less for ASUS.
2. A second solution is to actively (but peacefully) try to make them accept the issues and fix them. Some of us on these forums, including me, have tried to do this with the battery wear issues on the R1F/V6J/V1J notebooks. However, the outcome was always the same: ASUS did not accept that the problem exists. We all did this separately, however. Another possibility is some kind of online petition where people with problems can sign, and then the result can be sent to ASUS. That might me more difficult for them to ignore.
3. Finally, there is the possibility of lawsuit. Like I said earlier, very few individual users will go into a lawsuit for something the price of a laptop -- the time and money investment will be too large to make it worth it. So the possibility of collective action remains. I'm not sure how these things work, but somebody will still need to invest a lot of time into it. I don't know who is willing to do that, I certainly am not.
Are things really that bad?
Right. Now, I will give some grains of salt to avoid people making an overly negative impression about ASUS by reading this thread / forum.
When we are talking about individual faults with computers, faults that are not repeatable, confirmed design issues, we shouldn't be scared that the frequency with which they are being reported on the forum is constantly increasing. This is simply a statistical consequence of the ASUS brand becoming more popular, and people buying more ASUS computers. Since statistically the same percentage of the computers will have problems, the total number of computers with problems will increase, and the frequency of problem reports will increase. This is not necessarily a sign that the brand quality is decreasing.
Moreover, we have to keep in mind the negative bias that a forum such as this has. Most of the people will come here to report and solve problems. By comparison, very few of the satisfied customers will come to a forum to report their satisfaction -- they'll just be glad their computer works, and they'll keep on using it "silently". Add to that the fact that there is a significant amount of positive feedback on this forum -- check for instance the ASUS Satisfaction Thread poll.
Finally, I have nearly zero experience with other brands, but I find it difficult to believe that many of them are flawless in the aspects where ASUS is lacking, mentioned in the beginning of this post. I'm pretty sure that every firm has their models with design problems. As someone pointed out on a neighboring thread, as long as the design fault is not health-threatening (like exploding batteries), any company will prefer to silently ignore it rather than invest money into a fix/recall. And you will hear horror stories about poor support from disgruntled customers, for every brand. So I do not believe ASUS is special in that it has these problems, and other brands do not. The question is whether ASUS manifests these problems to a greater extent -- and to make that determination, someone with experience with other brands is required.
One more thing, with respect to people reporting to have bought in the past computers that have caused far less issues than their new (ASUS) computers. I think this phenomenon is not restricted to a certain brand. In recent years, I have observed a trend of reduced reliability in all electronic products, starting from mobile phones to laptops. The useful life (for the company) of such a product has kept decreasing; a certain laptop model nowadays is sold for perhaps 6 months, at most. Therefore the design cycle has to be shortened as well, to maintain the competitiveness for the firm. This directly leads to more design/programming problems being missed by error-correcting mechanisms, and as a result to poor reliability.
Related topics: ASUS F3 crack in keyboard (palmrest) corner
Well, apologies for this long post. I hope it helps a little in a deeper understanding of these problems.
ASUS quality: Below expectations?
Discussion in 'Asus' started by p190x, Jan 31, 2008.
