in 3 years... Once Rick Rolled, 3x Serviced...

Almost 3 years ago, after countless hours of asking and reading reviews at NBR and the voodoo forums, i've made a decision to purchase my first boutique laptop...

sorry, i've since removed all the pics and now the pictures are not showing up... but for the past 3 years, i've been a very happy customer.

unfortunately, as time goes by, my laptop specs begin to fall off it's top of the world pedastal and furthermore, with all my travels, i guess my preciouss Voodoo Envy u709 began to show it's age...

First Service:
one fateful morning, in Paris, the system decides to not wake up in the morning... i've tried and tried... but it was certain... it needed a nice long trip to Calgary...

upon my return, i've contacted Ryan, (iMaxx on these boards) got my RMA instantly, and i've sent her in for service.

of course, buying a boutique, i took the 3 year extended service...

well, it was tough going without my laptop... real tough... and when i finally got it back, all worked well, got a nice "spit-n-polish" to the paintjob and i was happy...

the service was actually quite fast... sorry, i did not have a stopwatch at hand... but 2 weeks is what i recall...

Second Service
i guess i must have missed this detail... but sadly, i realized the new system recognized only 1GB instead of 2 GB of RAM... so... called e-mailed Ryan again, set up another RMA and this time, since i had more business trip coming soon, told him i'll send it after i get back from my long trip... all cool...

upon my long arsed trip, it seemed RMA was out of date but my e-mail to iMaxx took care of it... and off it went... back to Calgary.

again the wait...

and dang... 1920x1200 on 17" and then having to go back to a wuxga on a 15.4" is inhumane...

finally i get my laptop back... in record time too... very very quick... what was that, like 10 days?

2GB RAM... check!
512MB 7950 GTX upgrade... check! (yea yea.. i wanted to...)

woot! all is great...

Getting RickRolled
well, at this point, when i received the laptop (mid Aug 2008), i was so pleased... that i just hooked it up in my office and turned it on...
i did not notice the nice surprise the Voodoo folks left for me...

instead of the standard desktop theme and the standard windows startup tada... i see this...



and Rick Astley starts singing as i slowly begin to realize that i've been RickRolled by iMaxx, Driftwood and the voodoo staff... ha ha ha... love this...
my office folks were quite surprised... but it was a fun moment... so fun that i've kept this setting...

honestly, i have to thank iMaxx and Driftwood for their role in this... brightens up my day...

Third Service Call
so my happy self and my happy lappy goes off to Korea, China, Japan, Italy, France... and Korea, China Japan again... when sadly my computer starts to act funny...

does not start up, non-responsive... then finally, does not start...

well, heck... i was a bit upset...
i guess imma gonna have to stalk iMaxx again... RMA'd and in the mean time, again, work load kept me away but i finally got to send it over to iMaxx and this time, i told him i'm in no rush... so he was being extra thorough... making sure that 3rd time's the charm... i guess...

so the 3rd service trip was longer... but still i did not mind...

it came back today, nice and shiny again... turned it on and got rickrolled again... brings about a chuckle everytime i see this...

just reminded me that there is good experience, even in the bad...

just wanted to share my experience with y'all...

as to why my laptop had sudden streak of issues within a 6 month period? i dont know... i'm no pro.. and i did not ask iMaxx...
but what have changed?... well couple of things have changed...

1) i've purchased a $1700 laptop that i will travel with and so i can give my Voodoo a nice spot on my desk to use for my gaming... and something that i wont feel so upset if it fails cus of the cost of being only $1700

2) i will not travel much any more with my 14 lbs u709... despite the fact that it is a laptop... i'm thinking that it's more a folding desktop... and portability is only a occassional thing...

3) despite some folks having some issues with various/all brands... i've had none but positive experience with voodoo AND even dell... lol yea, dell and not the business part either...

4) i think that will i buy a voodoo again... depending on 2 things... wife faction and what else they got coming... but based on my personal experience... for my personal use... yes... for my work and travels.. i dont think so...

thank you for reading...

thanks iMaxx for getting my preciousssss back to me...

 

I must say that rickroll is pretty awesome. Looks like you've had an excellent experience with voodoo so far.

 

well, it was very nice to have received a bit of a personal touch... despite it's sillyness...

similar event on my recent trip to Paris... had a great dinner, sadly, my colleagues and i only had 40 Euros and bill was 65 Euros... i talked to the owner.. a nice old fashioned chap... trusting... it seemed... and when i told him that i'll give him the equivalent in USDollars and come back tomorrow in Euros... he said it's fine and jsut give him the dollars... which i did...

not like i got a good meal but the human aspect of this... was quite pleasant.

same as my voodoo experience, eh?

 

I am glad you picked the laptop you did. The new Studio will serve you well. Just keep the Inspiron 8500, it will last forever is you take care of it.
I am sorry you had all of the problems with your U709, i am glad they fixed your problems, but the turnaround times are unacceptable. 2-3 weeks for return is ridiculous. I am glad that with Dell, you can have a guy come over to your house and give you a replacement part or laptop in one day. Maybe Voodoo will do the same with Hp one of these days, but you never know.

K-TRON

 

well K-Tron, i did tell ryan and also worked out my servicing around my trips and so it did not affect me at all...

ship before i leave for trip, receive when i get back...

the studio is a nice all-in-one laptop... serves me well for my travel needs...

gonna take real good care of the voodoo tho... he he he...

 

sounds like my experiences as a MINI Cooper owner. this is how boutique brands are supposed to do business. it's not just about the product. it is supposed to be a fun experience, even when things go wrong.

I think what voodoo did with the packaging of the envy 133 was genius. opening my voodoo box modeled after a tiffany's box was way more fun than opening a cheap looking black cardboard box that alienware shipped my m15x in. it might not seem important to some people, but little things like that make a difference.