CHRISTOPHJPETERChristoph Peter

I bought my MacBook pro in September 2007 and I loved it til early afternoon of today – 20.8.2008.  The reason I bought it was is this story http://www.chrillo.info/2008/08/20/the-nightmare-…stomer-supportthe-nightmare-of-sony-vaio-customer-support/

I was working on a web site then closed the lid while having lunch. When I opened the lid back up the screen stayed black. Nothing helped. No pram reset, no five seconds on the power button nothing.

Reading up on apples support pages at least gave me the comfort of knowing that there are hundreds of people with the same problem but again no working fix. Some people posted that they could fix the problem by deleting the sleepimage file via ssh.

The I called up apple tech support where a very friendly guy told me to do all the resetting that I had already done. Well since apple does not offer pick up service I will travel to Vienna tomorrow in order to visit one of apples service partners – mc shark that is.

I am very interested to see whether the apple care plan was worth the money or not and if this broken laptop will become the same nightmare as my last Sony notebook, which died last summer and took me five months of fighting with Sony tech support.

I will update this post as the continue my experience with apple tech support.

Update I:

Not even 24 hours after I talked to apple tech support I received an email with a little 5 question survey on the quality of the support. This at least gives you the feeling they care about their support and I credit apple for that.

Update II:

okay i took my laptop to the store today. the whole process did not take longer than two minutes and I was promised that I would have my working macbook pro back within 4 to 7 business days. So far so good. No comes the part where they can really prove that apples service is worth the extra cash.

Update III:

got a call from the service company that my macbook pro was ready to be picked up, only seven days after I took it there. tomorrow I will pick it up and make a final comparison of apple and sony.

Update IV:

today I picked up my macbook pro. Its working, the data was still on it, there was no charge. just nice! This is how service should look like.  The technical solution to the black screen problem is to change the mainboard. there is no software way of fixing this problem.

Update V:

got an email from apple with a small survey about the service. it gives you at least the feeling they care a bit.

A year ago my Sony viao laptop broke while I was on a business trip in the Ukraine. After the 4 month nightmare I went through I just wanted to forget about Sony but now since my macbook pro broke as well I want to post the story and compare the Sony tech support with the apple tech support.

So I left my Sony viao notebook in the office for three weeks without ever turning it on and leaving the battery inside the casing – Don’t do that. Take the battery out – When I returned after three weeks the notebook was dead and there was no way of turning it back on. The battery somehow went dead during the three weeks of not using it and took along the main board.

So there I was in the Ukraine with another 4 weeks of work ahead of me without a laptop. Bad if you work as a webdesigner.

So I tried to call Sony support in Austria. Impossible since they use some weird phonesystem that can not be reached from abroad.

My dad called them and they told him there is no support for viao in Ukraine, and the support guy also pointed out that of is my fault If I travel to such “underdeveloped” countries like Ukraine.

Alright so I was lucky to borrow a computer from a colleague since there was no way of getting the broken laptop to Austria. A week before I went back to Austria a couple of friends came to visit me in Kiev and they took the laptop with them so Sony could finally pick it up for repair.

When I got back a week later the laptop was still at home waiting for Sony and it took another week till they picked it up. We are now 5 weeks from the day it broke.

After two weeks into repair I called Sony to find out how my notebook was doing. The online tool for support status did not work of course. The support guy told me that the main board was fried and they needed to order a new one and that it will take about another ten days.

I called after two weeks. The guy told me there are no more main boards for this two year old notebook so I will receive a replacement and Sony will call me with an offer. They never called.

I called again. By then I already know the thirty digits to dial by hearth. Well he was really surprised I haven’t gotten an offer yet and he will send a massage to sales again since they are in charge now. 2 months after the laptop broke.

Sales never called, so I called sales. Sales told me they are not in charge. So I called tech again. Again and again. By then I already knew the names of most call center employees, but I was refused to talk to a manager in charge. They don’t talk to clients.

After another week or so I finally got an offer. A laptop far worse than mine, but I accepted in order to avoid further delays and because was already determined to buy a mac at that point.

After a while I called again to ask about the shipment of the new notebook. They did not know anything about a new laptop to be shipped. I was alrwady tired of yelling to the stupid support people, but within a few days the finally managed to order a new laptop for me.

In the beginning of November I finally got my new useless piece of shit Sony vaio notebook.

I sold it in order to refinance my macbook pro that had been shipped to me two weeks before Sony’s even though the orders for both were placed in the same week.

Bottom line :

Do not buy a Sony product ever again!
They don’t care about customer satisfaction!
I hate Sony and their incompetent team of call center monkeys!