<p>My son is a freshman now, and bought a laptop and printer last May before he started Summer B. We bought the equipment from a large company that sells only through mail order, and through kiosks at the mall. It has not been a good experience, and I'm writing this to recommend that you NOT buy your laptop this way.</p>
<p>The printer stopped working about four months after we bought it. Even with the warranty, you must call an 800 number, because there is no store for you to bring it for return or repair. The 800 number connects you to a customer service person in another country. He barely spoke English. I couldn't understand him, and he couldn't understand me. He wanted me to hook the printer up to the computer so he could run an analysis and figure out what was wrong with it. He couldn't get a reading on it, so that was the end of it. No help. No repair. No refund.</p>
<p>I asked him if I could bring it somewhere locally for repair, and he said I could, but I'd have to pay for it myself. I visited the salesman at the mall kiosk, and he said that all they do is sell the equipment, and they have nothing to do with warranties or repair. There is no choice but to work with the people overseas.</p>
<p>This company is promoted heavily by UF, and they advertise that your laptop will be pre-programmed with UF's requirements. Best Buy will do the same exact thing, but they ask you the name of the program you want. We found out that the program information is on the UF website. I bought my son another printer FROM A STORE. If it breaks, we just return it to Best Buy, and they will honor the warranty. Simple. I'll never buy from the mail order company again, and I don't think anyone should. If something goes wrong with your laptop or printer, you're stuck.
Good luck to all of you,
g8trmom</p>
<p>We bought a cheap HP printer at Walmart and have had no problems with it. If she did, I would tell my child to just go back to Walmart and pick up a new one (they certainly are cheap enough)!</p>
<p>In terms of laptops, stick to either buying directly from large corporations or stores like best buy or ccity. In fact, I work at ccity as a technician. If you have extended warrranty we fix your pc in the store.</p>
<p>Personally, i buy directly from manufacturer. For example, i bought my laptop from dell.com with 4 years in home warranty. if theres a problem, i call and a tech comes to my house within 48-72 hrs and fixes it at no cost</p>
<p>Unfortunately, that's my point, Ruo. They will not come to fix it until a technician at the 800 number can diagnose the problem from 7,000 miles away. First, my son tried the 800 number from Gainesville. The technician on the phone performed the diagnostic testing, but could not get a reading. He also told my son that the technician would not come to a dorm, anyway.</p>
<p>My son brought the printer home, and we tried the 800 number from home. The technician still couldn't get a reading, so we were out of luck. They do not honor the warranty if they can't make a diagnosis by phone. And they will not reimburse you if you find someone to fix it. Luckily, it was just the printer that broke, and not the $1500 laptop.
g8trmom</p>
<p>Something like that is a breach of contract. You should really get it checked out, because working in the warranty repair field i know what we as a warranty seller is liable for.</p>
<p>We cannot under any circumstance not give service due to failure of diagnostics. sometimes we due indeed fail to diag an issue but if such is the case we escalate it to corporate or simply replace the unit.</p>
<p>Yeah its the same with dells. My mom bought me a dell and when something goes wrong with it (it does like 4 months later, it starts falling apart) They connect you with rude foregin people who get upset because you cant understand anything they say and say "excuse me" a million times so they can repeat what they preciously said. DONT DO IT, Yes dells are cheap for college and stuff since thier gonna get banged up and stuff but its not worth it if you gonna have to replace it before you senior year.</p>
<p>really? ive had nothing but good experience with dell's renewed support. maybe its because i have an xps model but they fix my stuff faster then any other company.</p>
<p>for example, my charger dies at 9pm on thursday, i call for a new one, its here at 10am on friday</p>
<p>That's why I hate Dell's. I have a HP and it has not given my any problems since I recieved it 7 months ago. I bought it and the printer directly from hp.com</p>
<p>personally, im switchin up for next year. im picking up an IBM lenovo tablet pc. It looks like a normal laptop but it has a swivel screen with pen/finger touch input to take notes in class.</p>
<p>that things like 3-4 pounds with 4-9hrs of battery life. say what?</p>
<p>We bought my son's laptop and printer from the Dell kiosk at Countryside Mall in Clearwater. I went back to the kiosk after the technicians at the 800 number couldn't diagnose the problem, and the salesmen at the kiosk washed their hands of any responsibility. Their job is to sell, and not to help the customer in any way when their products fail.</p>
<p>The problem with Dell is that there is nowhere to take the equipment to have the problem diagnosed in person. If the guy (who barely speaks English) can't do it over the phone from 7,000 miles away, you're out of luck. And if he can't diagnose it, it doesn't get repaired or replaced. I'm telling every graduating senior I know about our experience with Dell. Do you think it's going to be easy dealing with them when you're away at school, 2 hours or 4 hours away from home, living in a dorm, and working off of a cell phone? </p>
<p>Buy your equipment from Circuit City, Best Buy, Walmart, or Target, etc., and if something goes wrong, you can just hop the bus and bring it back to one of their stores in Gainesville. I know Best Buy will program your laptop with UF's recommended programs, but I don't know about the others.</p>
<p>One piece of good news is that if your printer dies while you're at UF, you can take your laptop to the library and hook it up to one of their printers. They charge 15 cents a page to print. That could get expensive, but it's a good temporary fix.
Best of luck to all of you!
g8trmom</p>