Monday, January 22, 2007

Toshiba laptop hinge lid cracks

Just before Christmas, late November time, I decided to buy a new Toshiba P100-429 laptop, and with a free Vista upgrade, why the hell not?

By late December I started noticing stress fractures in the metallic bronze case around the hinges. I complained to Toshiba and they admitted it was a manufacturing fault (afterall I'd only had it a month) and they agreed to repair it under warranty. The UK based service centre for the repairs is Testlink, and they sent a courier next day to collect. I was informed that the part was on order expected to come in within two weeks.

Well here I am nearly a month later, Testlink still have the laptop and blame Toshiba Germany for not supplying the new improved lid part. Testlink have now had the laptop in their possession longer than I have had it in mine.

What is worse is that I could have bought a laptop after the 30th of January WITH Vista included, which I had actually considered because I really wanted Vista.

Now I have a laptop that is not in my possession and in repair with no end in sight (oh yes, did I mention neither Testlink or Toshiba will give me an estimated time to fix)? Express Upgrade to Vista has been ordered separately at a small cost - £17 - (incidentally my friend has found that Modus Link the company dealing with Vista upgrade for Microsoft refuse to answer emails and their upgrade site consistently fails). Toshiba say they'll return me the laptop for a refund, but will they pay for my courier to the retailer (mail order), refund me for the Vista upgrade I no longer need, or pay for my wasted time and phonecalls/emails?

I still get a lot of hits on this page - if you want to find out what I did have a look at my next post :)