Bought a laptop on special for $384. Under 2 years the hard drive fail and i can't use it anymore. Asus says because it's a cheap laptop and outside manufacture warranty they won't repair it. Therefore, i sent a formal complain that i believe its a breach of consumer law. And a laptop should last longer than 2 years. But i was unsuccessful again.
Is it worth it for me to take the matter to VCAT (application fee is $60) however to repair the laptop will cost $264.00.
There's more to the laptop than just how many transistors are on the chip, which is why business-grade devices with similar raw specs cost significantly more… They're built to last. At this price point, it'd essentially be the cheapest priced device that they offer.
For some perspective, if you think this should be serviced within two years, how long do you think they should be servicing a device that costs 800? Good luck arguing that that should be more than two years.
OP: It's a 60 buck fee and whatever your time is worth with absolutely no certainty you'll win. Save the money and your time and look at buying a new device whenever you're able to.
I only needed that laptop to do some work like word processing and surfing the net. Although its cheap i still expected it to last a few years for that kind of work. Like tomsco said, i'm expecting low spec no necessarily bad built quality. that it will fail within 2 years.
Looking for something more durable this time maybe a macbook or a thinkpad?
Yeah, if you want something with longevity then avoid Lenovo's consumer offerings and jump straight to their business end. Macbooks will likely be pretty divisive here but their built quality and sales aftercare is A1.
Umm. That's less than a dollar a day.. it's cheap and you will get denied again.. bit another hard drive or ssd and stick that in.
If i can get a hard drive for about the same price or less as the VCAT fee ($60). It's not worth it to go to the tribunal. Although i might choose to upgrade to another laptop than repairing it.
if it's just the hard drive then replace it and move on.
$264 to repair a hard drive? wtf?
Agree - hard drive is simple to replace (if you're sure thats what it is - could replace with a cheap ssd (generally longer lasting).
$55 for 120g here:
https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/250293
As to the cost - its the labour and shipping costs out of warranty.
I'd agree. I would expect any laptop to last longer than 2 years, I'd just expect a $384 brand name one to be not as high specced in performance, not that the components would be a piece of junk.