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Fujitsu Offers Free Laptop Upgrades For Life

Posted by samzenpus on from the one's-all-you-need dept.

Barence writes "Fujitsu Siemens is offering its customers free laptop upgrades for life with its Lifebook4Life scheme. Customers buying a Fujitsu Siemens Lifebook will be offered a free upgrade three years after their original purchase, and every subsequent three years for the rest of their life — as long as they purchase an extended three-year warranty. Customers will have to hope inflation stays low, though: the value of each new notebook cannot exceed the value of the previous one, adjusted 10% for inflation. Fujitsu says the scheme is profitable, and a raft of small print ensures plenty of people will find they've excluded themselves from the scheme for all sorts of reasons."

21 of 166 comments (clear)

  1. Right... by Schraegstrichpunkt · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Free laptop upgrades for life"... sounds like "unlimited bandwidth" and "Plays4Sure".

    No thanks.

    --
    http://outcampaign.org/
  2. Okay so they admit... by x1n933k · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's a scam, that's awefully direct:

    "Fujitsu says the scheme is profitable, and a raft of small print ensures plenty of people will find they've excluded themselves from the scheme for all sorts of reasons."

    Or this a case of another bad summary...

    [J]

    1. Re:Okay so they admit... by Ksempac · · Score: 4, Informative
      Bad summary indeed : Exact quote from TFA :

      A Fujitsu Siemens spokesperson assured PC Pro today that the scheme is a profitable venture, once the sale of future warranties and upgrades is taken into account. Only Fujitsu Siemens modifications are allowed, so upgrading with cheap third-party RAM is out of the question.

      I can understand that overpriced hardware upgrades can make up for the lack of sales. And they wouldn't be the first ones to offer these kind of upgrades.

    2. Re:Okay so they admit... by Kent+Recal · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What stops me from running my notebook with third-party RAM for 3 years and swapping the original RAM back in only on the day that I return the lappy for "upgrade"?

      No, I think the real kicker is this:

      Customers will have to hope that the UK manages to avoid high levels of inflation, though; the value of each new notebook cannot exceed the value of the previous one, adjusted 10% for inflation.

      The "value"? You mean the price? Hmm. Who sets the price? Oh, right, Fujitsu Siemens. So I suspect 3 years down the road you'll be offered an upgrade laptop that is complete crap, but at the same they'll offer you to upgrade to something worthwhile for "a small additional fee".

  3. Re:Fujitsu actually makes laptops? by nstrom · · Score: 4, Informative

    Fujitsu Siemens as a collaboration sells only to Europe/Middle East/Africa, not the US. I don't think this laptop or offer is available in the US.

  4. The small print by troll8901 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Hit any of these, and you'll get excluded permanently.

    • fail to register within 21 days of purchase
    • lost receipt
    • fail to take an upgrade

    From TFA:

    If customers fail to register their notebook within 21 days of purchase, they lose out, and if the initial sales receipt is lost then they will not be able to claim a replacement notebook. If at any point a customer fails to take an upgrade, then they will also be ineligible for any future laptops.

    1. Re:The small print by Laughing+Pigeon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      As far as I can see it is not about software upgrades but about the upgrade of the entire machine after 3 years.

  5. Classic "90% will lose their receipts" scheme by Rogerborg · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is designed to get money up front on the basis that most purchasers will be ineligible to benefit from it. Thus it takes money from the lazy and stupid which can be used to benefit smarter people. I have no problem with you^W them subsidising me^W us.

    --
    If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
  6. Free by Dunbal · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "Customers ... will be offered a free upgrade ... as long as they purchase"

          The complete ignorance of the majority of people where money is concerned is what has us in this whole financial crisis. It's NOT FREE IF YOU HAVE TO PAY SOMETHING, DAMMIT. At best this is a "membership" or "subscription" deal that has lots of strings attached to make sure it's very easy for you NOT to get your upgrades (like say losing the original receipt or not registering within 21 days (from TFA)), and forces you to pay an undetermined amount for the rest of your life to the manufacturer.

          Reading the fine print you will probably find out that they can change the price or cancel the plan whenever they want without notice. And of course what guarantee do you have that your "replacement" will be a competitive model?

    --
    Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    1. Re:Free by Drakkenmensch · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Reading the fine print you will probably find out that they can change the price or cancel the plan whenever they want without notice. And of course what guarantee do you have that your "replacement" will be a competitive model?

      Fujitsu did state that they calculated that their plan would be profitable. That should have been the first clue right there.

    2. Re:Free by Kjella · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Fujitsu did state that they calculated that their plan would be profitable. That should have been the first clue right there.

      If companies do something that loses money, there's usually something even worse at work. Long story short, it's a loyalty program which pretty much ensures that if you buy this, your next laptop will also be a Fujitsu. Since it's a use it or lose it scheme you'd be a fool not to use if you got it, you can almost call it a guaranteed sale three years from now which they get paid today. If you look at it from the company's perspective, that's good even if the margins are the same as they get paid ahead of product, predictable delivery quantities and if they'd done it sooner they could have gotten people to commit money they wouldn't have spent three years down the line during a recession. All of that without any evil plans to scam people out of it through ineligibility.

      I really don't see how it's compelling to the customer though.
      1. It commits you to replacing in three years, even though you might not want to (use it until it breaks)
      2. It commits you to a Fujitsu, even if others have more compelling offers / feature sets
      3. It locks you to a price range, even though computers grow cheaper and your needs/income change

      Three years... if I think intervals that'd be like: high school - early student - grad student - just employed - regular worker, so over the last 12 years I'd say my needs and financial status have changed massively. If I take the scary option and add "unemployed" as the next one (though I don't fear for my job at the moment) then that's another 3+3 years (reemployed) with big changes. There'd better be a damn good reason for me to commit to anything three years from now.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  7. I have to agree by a302b · · Score: 4, Insightful
    From TFA:

    This offer is far from comprehensive, though, as it excludes case cracks, small numbers of dead pixels, broken keys, smashed screens, software issues, virus infections or failed batteries that are older than one year.

    Basically, the normal wear and tear of a laptop is excluded. This seems particularly negligent regarding failed batteries, as I've noticed that most laptops become almost unusable after a few years. Even with a RAM upgrade after 3 years, it is unlikely to last much longer than that, especially if broken keys and worn out batteries aren't included. (Are batteries even designed to last that long?

    --
    Unity in Diversity
    1. Re:I have to agree by mmxsaro · · Score: 5, Informative

      A lot of people don't understand that it's heat that kills a battery (and not "overcharging", let's talk about Lithium Ion for now). My Dell 700m batteries (2) each hold a charge of 5 hours after 4 years of usage. How's this possible, you may ask? I seldom charge the battery while using the laptop. I usually run it off A/C with the battery removed, and then at night, I put the battery back in and let it charge while the machine is powered off. This method has worked for me and my father very well.

      Manufacturer's won't tell you that, especially since a killer profit is to be made for post-sales accessories.

    2. Re:I have to agree by jg · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Batteries are a big profit center for companies. One of the things we worked hard on the OLPC to achieve is extended battery life.

      You can trade somewhat lower capacity for longevity. Basically, if you are charging the battery, and take it to full charge, you are in fact damaging the battery slightly. So we don't fully charge the battery, so we can get many, many more cycles out of them (we use LiFE, batteries as well, which are much safer than LiIon.

      So that extra 10% or so of "run-time" ensures you'll wear out the battery quite quickly, and you'll buy expensive batteries for the life of the laptop.

      So you see marketing on how long your laptop will run, but not how long the battery will last.
      In our case, the kids may be literally days or weeks from anywhere you might ship replacement batteries to (presuming they aren't stolen on the way), even if they or their school could afford to replace them.

      One of the parts of a low power machine such as ours is that our batteries can be much smaller and cheaper as well, if they do need replacement (or you want a spare).

    3. Re:I have to agree by Crias · · Score: 5, Informative

      From TFA:

      This offer is far from comprehensive, though, as it excludes case cracks, small numbers of dead pixels, broken keys, smashed screens, software issues, virus infections or failed batteries that are older than one year.

      Basically, the normal wear and tear of a laptop is excluded. This seems particularly negligent regarding failed batteries, as I've noticed that most laptops become almost unusable after a few years. Even with a RAM upgrade after 3 years, it is unlikely to last much longer than that, especially if broken keys and worn out batteries aren't included. (Are batteries even designed to last that long?

      Man, you've taken the article out of context. You're implying that what you're describing relates to the Lifebook4Life program - it does not.

      For anyone too lazy to read, here's what they -actually- said.

      From TFA:

      The company is also launching another interesting scheme with its Esprimo range, offering a complete refund of the original sales price if the customer needs to send the notebook back to Fujitsu Siemens for any repairs.

      This offer is far from comprehensive, though, as it excludes case cracks, small numbers of dead pixels, broken keys, smashed screens, software issues, virus infections or failed batteries that are older than one year.

      They're offering full refund on the -first- sign of trouble. It's only fair that they exclude normal wear and tear. No company can make money by giving you back all your money every 3 years because you cracked the case, come on!

    4. Re:I have to agree by Hal_Porter · · Score: 3, Informative

      A lot of it depends on temperature

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery#Storage_temperature_and_charge

      Assuming you keep your laptop plugged in so it is charged 100%

      When you use a laptop it warms up so it dies at 35-40% per year, when it is off and at room temperature maybe 20%. A 40% charged battery in the fridge will only lose 2% per year.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
  8. Re:And this is why... by Corporate+Troll · · Score: 3, Informative

    What do you mean? Here in Europe, many consumers do have Fujitsu-Siemens computers. It seems to be one of the most popular brands. At my local supermarket they sell many models of that brand. Even here at the office (where all laptops are HP), the workstations are Fujitsu-Siemens. Heck, we just got a new VM server and it was Fujitsu-Siemens.

    Fujitsu-Siemens is huge.

  9. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  10. Re:Fujitsu actually makes laptops? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "Even if they came to the US, stay away from them. They're like the European equivalent of Packard Bell."

    Except they are half Japanese and this type of "support" is common practice in their Japanese server market. They simply don't "grok" the western way of doing IT but they must be doing something right in Japan if they can afford to walk away from a billion pound government contract in the UK without the mass redundancies you would expect to see in a western company.

    AC and terribly biased because I work for Fujitsu. Unlike EDS and IBM (who I have also worked for), Fujitsu still have this quaint cultural thing whereby they respect ALL their employees, not just the high-flyers but also the guy who scrubs their toilet.

  11. Re:What about the environment? by jc42 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I find it outrageous that still to this day we are trying to find new reasons for people to throw away their computers instead of actually encouraging them to KEEP THEM.

    But what else could you possibly get from a system that judges a company solely on its sales? Our economic system provides strong incentives to build products that break in as short a time as possible, and can't be repaired, so you must buy a new one. Complain all you like (and we all do), but unless you're doing something to reward a company for durability, you're not solving the problem.

    And yes you can always donate your computer to charity.

    Doesn't this machine come with MS windows? We've already discussed the fact that, if you donate a Windows machine, the license for the software probably doesn't transfer along with it. Yes, I know the MS PR people claim that they have a way to transfer licenses. But I have a number of friends working for charitable organizations who will tell you about the grief and wasted time from trying to get permission to legally run the software. Mostly, they failed at this, and either paid the retail price for a license, or more often they just trashed the hardware. If you go to the web site for MS's Microsoft Open License for Charities, you'll see that they don't actually talk about transferring the original license. The site tells you how to purchase licenses at a special price.

    So if you donate your computer to charity, you may be sticking that charity with the expense of a software license.

    --
    Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
  12. have I got a vacation condo for you by Ancient_Hacker · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Yep, this offer is great for folks that subscribe to record clubs, 10-year gym contracts, "free" tire rotations, vacation time-shares, tenth-cone-free punch cards, and all that.

    The rest of us value lack of lock-in.