Mobile Magazine's Notebook Tech Support Reviews

antdude writes "Mobile Magazine tested companies' technical support for their notebooks/laptops. Each test had three calls to each of ten major notebook manufacturers (added three additional vendors since last year). Also, called three third-party providers of PC help. On the whole, what they found was a sea of ignorance -- and annoying fixation with pinning down our name, address, and serial numbers. Things haven't gotten any better since our 2004 test -- and most of the vendors we tested have actually gotten worse..."

Comments

The call to Dell

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello, this is Steve Rahashapemndadshomafaridsuaoia, how may I help you?

Click

I tried phoning for tech support

[WillAffleckUW]

but my VoIP on my laptop didn't work and since it was a network problem ...

Um, hello?

I haven't had problems

[Anonymous Coward]

I only buy those notebooks with the black marbled covers and the wide ruled sheets inside. I don't see a help line number on any of them, but then they've never given me any problems, so I've never needed to call anyone.

Re:I haven't had problems

[bhtooefr]

College rule spiral notebooks have greater storage capacity, are easier to move data off of, and are usually cheaper.

Re:My pet on-hold peeve

[generic-man]

I called Microsoft maybe 10 years ago, and they had a DJ playing songs. "That was Barry Manilow. This next one goes out to the folks in the Microsoft Word queue, where the average hold time is 48 minutes right now..."

HP's interruptions are terrible. "HP and AOL have teamed up to simplify the Internet for you!" every five minutes for hours on end. Intolerable.

Re:Three samples isn't statistically kosher.

[Anonymous Coward]

especially during passover.

Re:My pet on-hold peeve

[forkazoo]

I once worked at a place where we managed to get permission for an MP3 server for hold music. Management was tired of customers thinking they had been hung up on due to hold-silence, and we wanted an excuse to build a server to play MP3's all day.

Management didn't particularly ask what music we were putting on the server, so we just put all the MP3's we had handy, and an ancient version of slackware that would run on the 486 we had lying around, and we had to set the MP3 player to mono only so it would play in real time, and custom compile the kernel with no modules, and only what we needed so it would fit in however much RAM it had...

It was great until a customer confusedly asked one of the suits what they had been listening to. If I recall correctly, it was a comedy track about Nick Danger, Third eye. Very wacky.

http://www.thrillingdetective.com/danger_n.html

Suits insisted that it didn't project a professional image, so we cleaned things up, and moved to all funk and scriabin.

Ah, good times.

Re:My pet on-hold peeve

[eodmightier]

When I setup the hold music on our PBX at the office, I set it up with some subliminal messaging to calm them down before I get them.

That way I get the full fun of working them up into a complete tizzy.

true story

[Anonymous Coward]

Troubleshooting a compaq lapotop at work (unable to boot), i had to go online and chat with customer service support. that wass last year, support for compaq was now handled by HP.

HP Customer Service: Hi, my name is Steven, how may I be of assistance.

Me: Hi, I have this compaq (model) here that won't boot, and i don't have the recovery cd.

HP Customer Service: Are you currently typing from this laptop?

Me: :(