ASUS – Review – very dissapointing

Review: by Maggie Williams

I bought an ASUS 900 netbook PC last summer for a two month road trip in Europe, it actually performed pretty well while I was there.  It got a lot of attention due to its size and I was plenty willing to tell people about it and I recommend it.  I used it for updating my travel journal, saving my pictures, email, phoning home via Skype, watching movies, and more.

When I returned home, it failed and would no longer boot.  I contacted ASUS tech support who was pretty quick to replace it.  The replacement arrived a week later and failed the very next day with the exact same problem.  I called back and they wanted to replace it again and it failed three days after I received it; same problem.  Then I had to wait for almost two weeks for the third replacement (fourth PC) and I decided then to give up on ASUS; I’d been trying to leave on another road trip, but this experience with ASUS was delaying that and costing me money.  Normally, I wouldn’t put up with such horrible service, but I really liked the PC and I wanted it to work.

During this whole six week fiasco and working with ASUS customer support, I felt like I was talking to a bunch of high schoolers who had not developed their interpersonal skills yet; I was ignored, I encountered an uncaring attitude, I was promised things which didn’t happen. When I called, I couldn’t get anyone to actually listen and I was transferred from one person to the next and sometimes the call was dropped.

Any time one of their support people ran into a wall or encountered something they hadn’t been trained for, they just gave up, they showed no initiative.  No one was interested in getting at the root cause of the problem even though I tried to work with them.  They didn’t seem phased at all that I had three replacement computers; that’s scary.

Even though I asked and then demanded it, I was never allowed to speak to a supervisor for one reason or another.  I did some research and got the email addresses of two managers within ASUS and sent them an email describing my situation and my frustrations.  I never heard back from anyone.

They should be ashamed of themselves.  I’ve searched on line and found gobs of complaints about their customer service; I sure wish I had done that before I purchased this item.  So, buyer beware!  Since I had recommended it to so many people during my Europe trip, I’m probably responsible for 50 or more sales of ASUS computers.  I feel so dirty.   I now consider it my mission to reach at least as many people and turn them away from making the same mistake I did.  So, if you’re considering ASUS, run away, run away, ASUS bad.

I’ve since bought a Sylvania g meso, it’s awesome.  I like it even better than the ASUS model and it comes with Ubuntu Netbook Remix, a linux distribution which I like very much; it’s designed specifically for netbooks and their small screen.  Check it out here at Amazon.  I bought mine on Christmas sale at Amazon for $350.  It’s now down to $269.

Its light weight and small size is perfect for backpackers and other travelers. Since I returned home from my latest road trip, it’s still working great. I can’t wait to give it another work out on my next trip.

Cheers,
Maggie