Product Requirements:
Any touch-screen PDA
The Lamy 2000 4-color
Ball-point, available at Stylus
Central, is a multi-pen with a timeless appearance. I was surprised to
discover that the design was actually made in 1966, with the introduction of the
Lamy 2000 fountain pen. Because I was not very familiar with the Lamy name, I
checked out the Lamy
homepage. I learned that Lamy is a German, family run company, and that Lamy is
considered one of the premier European writing implement manufacturers.
This multi-pen appears simple enough when you first look at it, and it would be
easy to dismiss it as such. However, if you take the time to really study the
Lamy, you’ll find that it is actually an amazing piece of equipment; one in
which an incredible amount of fore-thought and planning has been instilled.
When looking at the Lamy, you will first notice the brushed appearance of the
black and silver barrel. It is similar to a smooth bark, or a grainy piece of
parchment. In fact, the Lamy is virtually identical to the recyclable packing
paper
that holds it in its reusable aluminum presentation case.
In reality, the barrel is made of a combination of Makrolon (Lamy’s special
brand of plastic – as best I can ascertain), reinforced by fiberglass and
accented with brush finished (matte) stainless steel. This creates a solid pen,
that should be virtually indestructible in your briefcase or pocket.
At the top of the Lamy is a single clicker which will expel your desired
writing tip, depending on which way you are holding the pen. Unlike other
multi-pens which have each available tip’s color written on the barrel of the
pen, the Lamy uses a simple slash of color: Red, Blue, Green, and the middle of
the clip to signify the black ink. I like this system, as it is very unobtrusive and understated.
Stylus Central has included one of their multi-pen stylus replacement tips
so that you can decide which ink color you are less likely to use, and insert
the stylus tip in its place.
For those of you that are always pushing out the wrong tip (or so it seems,
anyway), the Lamy uses a wonderful identification system on the tip of their
ball-point inserts. There
is a wide band of the ball-point’s color across it’s tip. This makes it much
easier to keep from using green where you needed black, or blue instead of the
red. Of course the stylus replacement tip will always be simple to tell.
Tips are retracted by de-pressing the clicker.
One thing that I noticed right off about the Lamy, was that it was very easy
to always get the tip that I wanted on the first try. Wondering why that was the
case – I took the pen apart, and compared it with another multi-pen I have in my
queue. It appears that the Lamy has a disk that the tips plug directly into,
that is located at the middle of the barrel. I think that this may hold the tips
in place, better than your average multi-pen. Not once did I have to shake the Lamy
to “reset” it – the way you sometimes have to do with other
multi-pens. I believe that this is another example of Lamy’s exceptional design
and attention to detail.
The spring operated pocket clip is made of solid stainless steel, and by
squeezing it’s spring loaded end, it is easier to insert the clip on your
pocket.
The Lamy multi-pen weighs about the same as a Mont Blanc ball-point, but
otherwise, the comparisons end there. Where the Mont Blanc is a showy
pocket-piece with lots of golden accents, and a width of .42″ (10.70 mm);
the Lamy is an unostentatious gentleman, with a width of .48″ (12.17
mm). I was not surprised to find that this particular design was aimed at
“successful, middle aged men, who were image conscious,” but that
“tended towards understatement” The Lamy 2000 certainly meets
that requirement. I think that women will like it, also. ;0)
The Lamy fit very well in my hand, and it was comfortable to write with for
extended periods of time.
I was very impressed with the writing quality of the Lamy ink. It was smooth,
not too fine, and didn’t skip. This was the case with every color ink.
The included Stylus Central tip is fast becoming one of my favorite styles of
styli.
It is neither too pointy, nor too rounded, and writes equally well on a PDA
screen with or without protection.
Personally, even though I am a woman, so not necessarily the original
intended target audience of this style Lamy, I think it is one of the more
quietly elegant pens that I have ever owned, and it’s function is
faultless.
I’ll end this review with a quote from the Lamy website: “The sign of
the commercial success and timelessness of this design is that these writing
instruments are still being sold today, more than 30 years later. As a result,
the LAMY 2000 has been included in almost every selection of German and European
design and in 1984 was awarded the Busse Long life design prize.”
Price: $72 MSRP
Refills are available in Red, Black, Blue & Green
Pros:
Comfortable in hand
Very smooth ink
More colors than usually available in a multi-pen
Warranty
Cons:
Expensive
Small amount of typical multi-pen rattling
Product Information
| Price: | $72.00 |
| Manufacturer: | Lamy |
| Pros: |
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| Cons: |
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Gadgeteer Comment Policy - Please read before commenting
Hello Judie,
Sorry for your distress! I have a feeling the Zire was the beginning of the end of Palm’s quality technical support. Could you just imagine the financial down fall that would occur if one of those $25 Zire’s (I know it’s more just kidding) stirred up the masses via online forums into seeking free technical support? Seems like Palm really needs to implement some sort of tiered support structure for those of us dropping mucho $$ for their products. Again I sympathize with your customer service problems.
My favorite experience happened just recently: I set up my telephone in my new apartment. Called SBC and after being sales pitched for everything from the cure for cancer to the answer to the meaning of life the associate asked me to rate her performance on a scale of 0 to 5. Here is the gist of our conversation:
Me: “4”
Her: “Really? Why only 4?”
Me: “Because I wanted simple telephone service, not a sales pitch for everything under the sun”
Her: “Well sir that’s just my job”
To boot it all! She signed me up for Call Waiting/Caller ID/ Three Way calling and their Inline repair service. Total pushed my simple telephone bill up to $97! That includes $43 installation (also a rip off, it was remote! Just flip a switch!).
There is nothing like customer service asking you to rate them then arguing with the rating that you gave them! What a joke!
Good luck with your T/T I really hope everything works out!
Regards,
Jason Smith
(Monsoon)
:wow: :wow: :confused::wow::wow:
Ridiculous. Pay $25 then $40 for what should be covered under the warranty? Sounds like Palm is asking for a class-action suit.
Good luck!
*loving my Clie today*
If I send it in, I will “only” have to pay the $40…they won’t charge the $25.”
I am so disgusted, I mean, WHAT is the point of a warranty if it doesn’t cover anything???
What made it really frustrating, is that Janet was at first trying to tell me that me saying the dimming was happening was subjective, and that it wouldn’t be covered. I was like, “I looked at the demo at Office Max and saw the difference!” Then she said that it would probably be covered. <sigh>
I don’t know what to do at this point.
Judie :0P
I originally started with a Palm IIIe (I know, you get what you pay for), and was so impressed initially, I ended up convincing my wife, brother, father, and numerous collegues at work to get a Palm.
After the 3rd month though, it all started to fall apart. I started to experince a number of different problems with the screen (not coming on, digitizer, etc.). In the year I owned the device, I went through 4 units (btw, I did not have any problems with the service at this point). A collegue of mine went through 3 units as well.
The problem arose when my wife’s unit finally died – 1 day after her warrenty expired – when she called in, she was treated rudely, and was told she was out of luck (they did however, offer to sell her a new unit – for $50 more than what the going price was in the retail stores). They were so rude, she hung up in tears (and she is not normally a delicate person).
I called the Palm support desk, explained the history and the problem, and then asked to open an Executive complaint (most large organizations have a complaint process). I was told that because I was a Canadian, I had to go through the Canadian channels to do so.
Once I finally found the Canadian contact e-mail address, I sent in a detailed note with the various dates that I had received service, and pointed out that the various reps I had spoken to had admitted there were quality issues with the IIIe screen, and asked the organization to respond through their Executive complaint process. It took about 9 business days before I actually received a call, but once I did, the person was quite helpful,and swapped bith my IIIe and my wife’s for 2 new IIIx units.
With a little perserverance, you should be able to reach someone who will address this issue in a way that will please you.
Good luck!
GG
Thanks for the encouragement, but what I want to know is this: Should it really be this hard to get customer service? I paid full retail for this Palm, $499 plus tax (!!!), and I am treated like I bought it for $50 on eBay. Blah!
Judie
I think it’s total crap, pardon my language. Even at $40.
They hoops they put you through already were idiotic. I am Client Services / Technical Support Manager for a small software company, and one of the first things I and my people NEVER do is attempt to make callers jump through hoops that clearly have no relation to their issue, whether THEY would know it or not. We LISTEN to what they say, what they have tried, what they are seeing.
Beyond that, the concept of forking over $40 for a fully warranted product is nuts.
Palm/Janet must have lowered their estimation of their customers when they created the Zire. 😉
What type of software does your company sell? I wanna do business with you! 😉
Judie :0)
I’m afraid that just seems to be the trend with larger companies. Smaller companies need to keep their customer base happy because they rely on them more, hence better customer service. The focus of publically traded companies tends to be on profit and on keeping the investors happy. Customer service is often low on the prioroty list. It shouldn’t be that way though. I can remember being on hold for over an hour while trying to get some support for my internet on cable. Don’t get me started on the phone company.
Unfortunately, this is a reminder why I always buy the extended warranty with my electronics dealership. While it will cost me more money I tend to think of it as insurance. When something happens to the handheld (I’m now on my third Casio EM500) I would simply take it in and have it replaced. Handhelds that I have bought online just cause me grief when trying to take advantage of the warranty.
That being said Palm needs to put an unlimited warranty on their handhelds. No “ifs”, “ands”, or “buts”. Also, don’t insult our intelligence by telling us to do a “hard reset”. I guess it’s a part of growing pains for this industry. :rolleyes:
Fleet maintenance management. *eye roll* About as dry a product as they get. But I can darn well guarantee, come what may, our customer service will never degenerate as long as I am onboard. And I’m lucky to have a CEO that feels the same way. I am empowered to do anything I feel necessary to help a client, even if they are being a dope. (Mind you, their level of dopiness can affect my outlook!)
I’m afraid this is just the beginning of the end on Palm OS developer support. Sony has been legend, and I ran into the exact same problem with a Handspring Treo 90. It had the infamous screen death, and before anyone at customer service would talk to me, they demanded a credit card number and a $25 charge for “support” until “we” were sure it was “their” flaw. Same drill – hard reset (several times); charge over night; hard reset again; drain and recharge – all the while full well knowing that they had a recurring problem with instant screen death on those models.
In the end, several abusive emails to Handspring garnered a customer service supervisor who authorized a guaranteed brand new replacement off the factory floor – not a reconditioned unit. That is good service; but taking a week of frustration and dealing with tech support people that were dumber than a post, that’s offensive (“Do you know where the power switch is Mr. Strauss.”)
Anyway, Zire 71 and Tungsten C look to be winners; but this kind of customer non-support is going to kill Palm, Handspring and all the rest. Just look how far and fast Wordperfect fell when their legendary 800 support was killed by Novell.
I went throught the same process when my Palm m505 was suffering from SUDS for the 3rd time or so.
Their procedure involved a hard reset, the uninstallation of all of my third party conduits, the moving of my backup directory, and the reinstallation of the Palm software. I still have some side effect from this process over a year later with my T|T, since the software installed itself into a different directory.
I’d even told the tech person the following:
I synced, took my palm away from my desk, returned, accidently shocked it when I sat it in the cradle, and then it wouldn’t sync.
I still had to go through the process.
It was, as I reported to the tech-dude at the time, a complete waste of both my and his time.
Other attempts at getting support through email from Palm have been fruitless: A question regarding the lack of the Network Hotsync option in the T|T Hotsync manager gave me a completely unrelated reply telling me that I needed to purchase the Palm enterprise hotsync software….
It’s a real shame that their hardware is good since their support is so amazingly poor.
I worked in tech support myself for a few years, and I am amazed that they are so obstinate and useless. It speaks volumes that their hardware must be pretty good, if the majority of their customers had the kind of experience I’ve had, they wouldn’t have many repeat buyers.
Note that I still use their hardware: I’ve owned a PPPro, P3 upgrade, V, m505, and currently use a T|T.
I don’t know exactly what’s going on with Palm, but it seems to me that a warranty is a warranty. I believe that all states have a minimum warranty that protects consumers against manufacturers defects, and Judie’s problem seems to be clearly a mfr defect. I read Palm’s limited warranty and there’s nothing in there about charges for return or repair of defective merchandise.
http://www.palm.com/about/warranty.pdf
I think somebody’s getting hoodwinked, and I think that if you read the fine print in the warranty, you’ll see there’s no way that Palm can charge you for getting assistance or returning a defective unit. While they may be able to charge for “technical support” not related to a problem (i.e. PEBCAK) when getting “technical assistance” that determines it’s not you, it’s the machine, you shouldn’t have to pay. So give ’em hell until they remit the fee, or threaten legal action. If they’re doing this on a widespread basis, they’ll get theirs in the end.
Well, I have waited a couple of days to make sure that the hard resets didn’t magically fix my PDA (said with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek).
So now I am going to call Palm and tell them to go ahead and ship out the refurb, and that I will pay the additional $$ to get it. Sure, I could send my TT in and wait for 10 days for them to fix whatever the problem is for free (since my unit *is* after all, under warranty – but I can’t be without my main PDA for that long. So I will pay. :p
I’ll let you all know if the refurb is any better. 🙁
Judie
WAIT a second — your lead on this story says;
Which I read as saying that you HAVE to pay $40 to get your Palm refurbished.
In no way did you indicate that you had a CHOICE to EITHER get a refurb unit immediately or instead have your unit repaired or replaced in a normal way like everyone else does.
You just lost my sympathy — I’ve had to deal with Palm tech support on a bad unit before, and while it did take a week to get my new unit, I found the whole process to be perfectly normal for customer service. I didn’t have to pay for the support, but now I don’t even know if the $25 fee is to be believed either.
As for the hard-resets, I’ve had to do a number of those as well while on the phone with t/s, and every time they tell me to do it I groan because I know it won’t do anything. It’s a little bit like when I was in college I always heard the women in my dorm complain that when they would go see the nurse about a cold/flu/whatever the first question out of the nurse’s mouth was always “could you be pregnant?”
One thing to understand about t/s and hard-resets though is this; it’s one of the only things that t/s can do from a distance that might actually fix something, and even if it’s unlikely to fix something, it’s worth trying since otherwise you’re going to have to send in your PDA and lose all your data anyway. So why not do a hard reset? Sure, we all know that it’s not going to fix the problem, but why not give it a go and make your tech rep happy. And the next time you visit the school nurse and he or she asks you if you could be pregnant, say “no. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, give me my flu shot! 🙂
So, you are saying that it’s acceptable for a company to have great customer service at one point in their history, and to then slide downhill? I thought the whole idea of business was to IMPROVE not get worse!
As long as the device is within the 1 yr warranty period, which Judie’s is, I think they should exchange the device for a new one with NO hassle. This is how they used to handle these problems. A person shouldn’t have to jump through hoops to get a replacement device like they do now. It’s frustrating and makes Palm look bad if you ask me. 😡
No. I’m not. I recently bought an iPaq and a Dell laptop specifically because the support from those companies is good. But I did have a problem that required replacement from HP, and they still told me to do a hard-reset.
What I am saying is that Judie’s crying foul at having a bad customer service experience without giving the full story — Palm isn’t MAKING her pay $40 for a repair that should be under warranty, she’s CHOOSING to pay $40 for the “advance exchange”. I can’t sympathize with that.
Palm’s policy on charging for tech support is this; free calls for the first three months, free tech support by email after that. $25 per “incident” for non-warranty technical issue CALLS after three months. While the $25 fee seems steep to me, and unwise as a business decision, it’s a clearly stated policy that Judie CHOSE to participate in. And it doesn’t seem to me that Palm would charge her the $25 fee if her problem is covered under warranty. If they do charge her, that’s wrong.
And what’s the hassle that she’s getting? She’s being told to do a hard-reset just to make sure that it isn’t a PEBCAK? Other than that it doesn’t seem like there’s any roadblocks. It seems to me that Judie’s just a little miffed, and blowing the whole thing out of proportion. Sure, customer support sometimes sucks, and sometimes they’re rude, but Palm’s not charging Judie anything for the warranty repair which is what she was originally complaining about.
You want bad customer service, try Creative. They don’t even have a technical support number, and emails take significantly longer than 48 hours to get answered. Or try Aiwa, who I recently called and found that their phone maze for some reason kept switching me to “customer care” instead of “techinical support” — I was told that it was my phone that was the problem, and that they couldn’t transfer me from customer care to tech support. I would have to call back from another phone, which meant that I would have to be at a payphone talking to tech support while the TV that was malfunctioning was in my living room. That’s bad customer support!
PS I don’t mean for this to be a personal attack – I love the site and have been coming here for years. Keep up the good work.
MrBreeze, I’m not taking your comments as a personal attack…
The point is, that before this policy was put into effect, Palm would replace defective units under warranty ASAP. You did not have to play the “Reset the PDA 15 times while standing on your head” game. They took your info, and you would have a new or refurb in your hot little hands within 2 days max. Now you have to give them a credit card number before you can even talk to them and THEN you have to play their troubleshoot game and wait several days before they will believe their test failed. I used to be VERY impressed with their turn around. I would brag about it when someone would ask whether to buy a Sony or Palm PDA. Their customer service has slipped, and that is not an aspect of your company that you want people complaining about. If you read all of the other comments, I don’t think we’re the only ones with these feelings of frustration.
I can understand Palm requiring people to pay for tech support and device replacements AFTER the warranty period has expired, but not DURING.
I hear that. I agree with you (both/all) that Palm needs to have exceptional customer support in order to survive. All it takes is one person with a heavily trafficked website to (deservedly) blemish the good reuputation that Palm has with most of us. It’s a stupid policy to charge or demand a CC# just to talk to a rep about a problem that’s the result of an mfr defect.
I’m done ranting now. 🙂
I have to side with MrBreeze on this one and, in fact, I’ll go one step further: Sadly, I think Palm’s decision to change their policy and introduce the $25 support fee was because they needed to do this in order to survive. The dot-com era is over. Palm has spent its zillions of dollars and right now they have to cut costs wherever possible. Customer support isn’t cheap and you have to remember that Palm’s biggest seller this Xmas was the sub-$100 Zire, so they’ve got a huge userbase of which they made very little profit per-unit. I’m not afraid to criticize Palm for unethical business practices (m130 color issue comes to mind), but I think that this is simply an unfortunate warranty policy change that they had to make.
Scott
I wanted to add something to my last comment:
Palm should be smart enough to offer different levels of support for different product lines. The Tungsten T at its release was their Mercedes. The B&W Zire is their Hyundai. My IBM Thinkpad 600X came with a 2-year warranty. When I had a problem with it, they asked me a few questions on the phone, confirmed that it was a real problem, and I got an all-expense-paid box sent to me within about a day. I packaged it up and sent it to them and about 2 days later got it back. They don’t offer that same level of support for their low-end laptops. So, it would be smart for them to offer one-year no cost phone support for the T|T while charging for it for Zires after the 90-day period.
Scott
Scott:
I can totally agree with you about having different warranty periods for different priced products. But if you tell someone that their device has a warranty for 1yr and you don’t stand by it, I think that is the wrong way to go.
Too bad about your support issue Judie. I have to agree with both you and Julie: If it’s under warranty, it should be taken care of. I’ve had very good experience with Palm Support in most cases, but the few bad ones were bad enough to sour everything.
I don’t think the “subjective” viewpoint holds any water here. If I took my car into the dealer because it could barely make it to 60Mph, I don’t think I’d get the argument that “fast” is subjective and it’s ok as long as it still runs.
I recall my wife’s first 505. Not only was the light dimmer than the usual 505, it was a putrid yellow dimmness that was unusually irritating. We got the “subjective” argument from the returns clerk which was terminated by requesting the store manager. The manager looked at the screen thoughtfully, then compared it with my 505 which I had at the time. He immediately approved a replacement and we were off to another store (it was their last one) and the replacement flawless. Matter of fact, she still has it even after I went through 5 of them before giving up and getting the 515 instead.
I think what is being missed is that when you purchase an expensive piece of equipment (which the T|T is), you expect it to at least meet minimum performance specifications, and to do it reliabily for the life of the product. And if anything does fail to keep working within thouse minimum specification, then the company has an obligation to stand behind it.
This may not be the expectation of a PDA that you pick up in the checkout line, but for a device that many stores keep locked in the special “high ticket item” storage room, it should be expected.
Julie, you seem to be missing my point and that of ScottR. The point isn’t that Palm doesn’t stand by their warranty, the point is that Palm offers a service that most companies don’t — advance replacement and Judie jumps on them for charging for it. Judie herself admitted that the repair is covered under warranty, but that she just didn’t want to wait 10 days to get her unit back;
ScottR’s point is that while paying for support isn’t anything anybody wants to do, with the profit margin so slim sometimes you have to cut some corners or charge for services that otherwise would be free. Palm still does not charge for issues related to warranty repairs, doesn’t charge for tech services in the first three months, and doesn’t charge for email support within the first year. Scott R wasn’t suggesting that their are different warranty periods, but simply that Palm would do well to offer, say, a full year of call-in support for free to Tungsten buyers.
Seriously this time, I’m done ranting. 🙂
Wow, I am out of pocket for one day and look at all the comments! Hey – I am just glad that we are discussing this. 🙂
So here are a couple comments about your comments:
MrBreeze – YES, I was very miffed with Palm when I wrote about my customer service experience the other night. Like I wrote in my diary entry, I was used to bragging on Palm’s excellent customer service, because I had had to use it with other top-of-the-line Palms in the past. The call I wrote about lasted over 30 minutes, during which time I was treated like an idiot – which is definitely the wrong way to deal with me. Having to pay for the experience made me even more upset. In fact, I am not sure if 847 is a toll free number, so I may have paid for the call in more ways than one. 😡
As I had in the past, I expected to be able to call Palm, and if both the CS rep and I agreed there was a problem, I expected to give my credit card information as a guarantee and accept a refurb. – just as I had in the past. I count on being able to do this with Palm, because I can’t to be without my main PDA for 2 weeks.
Now, in case you are not familiar with Palm’s old style customer service, that was the way they used to do business. In fact, that was what kept me buying from them over and over again – even when companies like Handera and Sony were coming out with “sexier” new Palm OS based PDAs. I knew that the one thing I could count on when I bought a Palm (from PALM) was that they would take care of me during the one year warranty period.
Since I rarely use a PDA (as my main one) for more than a year, this warranty period would be more than sufficient for me. But sometime during the last couple of years, Palm changed their rules, and I was suffering from the shock that others have probably experienced since then. That’s why I wrote about it, and I still stand by what I wrote.
Whether you agree with me or not – it’s okay. 🙂
I agree those that mentiond that tiered warranty service would be the way for Palm to handle their various lines.
In any case: I have called Palm, paid my $40, and am waiting on the refurb. Please keep your fingers crossed for me that the new unit will be a better unit…
Judie :0)
I don’t want to belabor the point since I already mentioned it in my last post, but I just want to mention again that the service you received under Palm’s “old policy” is, unfortunately, a luxury that they can probably no longer afford to offer. I believe that Handspring also changed their support policy for the worse within the last couple of years, but I don’t know the details.
Just to clarify, if you had opted to go through the normal channels to have your handheld repaired/replaced for free (but with the longer wait time), would they have still replaced it with a refurb or a brand new unit?
Scott
One last thought…and hopefully you won’t take it the wrong way…but if there’s anyone out there that can afford to be without their main PDA for a couple of weeks, I would think it would be you guys seeing as you probably have spare Palm OS devices lying around which you could temporarily sync your data/apps to, no?
Scott
Scott R.
If I had opted for the repair, my unit would not have been replaced with a refurb or a new unit. It would have been the same original unit. It was pointed out to me that if they could not find the problem, it would be sent back to me unrepaired. No thanks…
Judie
wow.. that sucks big time.. sometimes it pays to get extended satisfaction warrenties..
I rerly do unless it’s with heavy use items..
Is that what the CS rep told you? That can’t possibly be true, can it? If it’s under warranty and they verified that it was a problem, it would seem to me that they would have to either fix it or replace it. Sending it back as-is wouldn’t seem to be an option. This strikes me as misinformation from the CS rep.
Scott
Scott,
Like I said, I was told that if their repair techs could not find a problem once they recieved my unit, that it would be shipped back to me without being fixed – which is why I decided to take my chances with a refurb. Why do you think I got so hot about the whole thing? Whether it was misinformation or not, it is what I was told and I was not happy about it.
I wish I had a transcript of the conversation. It started out with me being calm, describing my problem and waiting to hear what my options were. I made the girl repeat a couple of things several times because I was so blown away by some of her replies.
The only thing that made this whole experience better was that when I called back the other night to request the refurb, I got the most professional, nicest, most helpful rep ever: Bill.
Judie :0)
Perhaps this is where the $25/call issue comes into play. If you get a particularly bad rep, you can’t just call back tomorrow and hope for a better rep, since it sounds like you’d be hit with another $25 charge. Is that right? If so, it sucks for that reason alone. Let’s face it, getting a good rep vs a bad rep is a roll of the dice, where the odds of getting a bad one are heavily favored.
Scott
I had a similar bad experience with Handspring last fall. My Edge gave up the ghost literally a week after the warranty ran out – just stopped working. I didn’t want to pay $25 for a tech support call, so I emailed them, explained all the steps I’d gone through to try and fix it (hard reset, removed all 3rd-party stuff, etc) – and all I received back was a form email telling me to hard reset, and call them if that didn’t work. I bought a Sony SJ-30.
Fast-forward ONE MONTH. My partner’s Edge, purchased at the exact same time – suffered the same fate as mine. She can’t live without her PDA, so, after going through the same email exchange as I had (tried x, y, z, including hard reset – response: Have you tried a hard reset?), she gave in and called ’em. No help; the reps didn’t know their arse from their elbows. The unit, even when we could get it to turn on, would not charge, or hold a charge, after only 13 months of use. All they could tell us to do was the same things we’d already tried, or offer a refurbed unit for about $100 – like we wanted another Edge after two fried ones!
You would think, when presented with a customer who had two devices that were the same age with similar usage profiles die at just over a year’s use with similar problems, a company would realize that they’d sold a defective product and offer something to keep that customer happy. Not Handspring. Everything we tried that worked to any extent whatsoever, we learned about through web research (such as the charging circuitry having to be reset sometimes).
My partner also bought an SJ-30. Even if Handspring were still selling PDAs other than the ugly bricks they call Treos, we’ll never buy another product from them.
Judie,
Followed you and Julie from way back in the Newton days, but never posted on the boards. Just thought I’d drop a note of support – your experience with Palm steered me away from a Tungsten T and towards a Sony TG50.
If it ever comes up with Palm again, you can tell them at least one potential customer was driven away by their poor support!
Can someone please provide details of Sony’s warranty? I find it difficult to believe that it’s better and tend to think that it’s probably quite a bit worse.
Scott
slortar,
I honestly hope that my experience was not the only factor that drove you to Sony, because in my experience their customer service is just as bad – or much worse! Heck – I don’t believe they even offer the option of paying $40 for a refurb!! 😮 Hopefuly you went with Sony because you liked a particular piece of hardware better.
BTW, the refurb that I received is great in every area – except for one major problem…I have to mash it in the cradle with both hands to get a connection for hot-syncing. :confused: It charges with no problem – but hot-syncing is a chore. I am going to live with it, for now.
Judie :0)
90 days or 1 year with registration. I have no experience with Sony technical support – I had just assumed that Palm was better until reading the account in hand.
The quality of service and support (or lack thereof) being equal, I’m happier with my Clie. I realize this is can easily be a religious conflict for people, so I hasten to add YMMV 😉
I can remember when Palm’s support was incredible. I once put a Palm IIIx screen in a Palm III (obviously voiding the warranty), TOLD Palm I had voided the warranty when I had an unrelated problem later, and they STILL sent me a refurb within 24 hours for free. What’s more, the rep I talked to was training a newbie when she did this for me.
Fast forward to 2 years ago: My wife’s Palm-branded m100 faceplate breaks. I emailed Palm support and they told me to send them the m100 for repair.
Another unrelated support story that is not Palm related but funny: I replaced my case fan in my HP CPU and I forget if the air was supposed to blow into the case or out of the case. I called HP support and asked this question.
The tech support guy said, “Hold on.”
I then heard him strain as he (apparently) reached behind his computer and then I heard a loud BBBLLLLLDDDDDDDP, while he stuck his pen in the fan on the computer on his desk, just before he told me “It seems like the air is blowing out.”
Peace.
DF
i read your entry with sympathy. this is my experience with palm all the way. i am a come-lately, buying a 500, then 505 , now tungsten t.
every problem is predictably handled exactly as you describe – indeed there is no longer any point in calling them anymore.
i had so much trouble with my bluetooth – connecting it to my t68i and my laptop – that i ended up telling them how to configure their own device.
thank god for tmobile support.
currently i have a digitizer issue (not fixed by the patch), and their solution is exactly what you say – must be someone else’s app so i must wipe everything off and start over. of course i have almost nothing on it except totally mainstream approved software.