Part of the appeal of refurbished computers is that currently, fresh new laptops and tablets have reached a horrible minimum-quality.
I have chewed myself and our household through a possibly obscene number of laptops, tablets and smartphones over the last 15 years or so.
One of the villains in this story is Asus.
An ugly pattern emerges. In my country, there is mandatory 2year warranty on bought electronics - if it breaks before 24 months, the retailer owes you a working specimen.
Well, what do you know.. I see a pattern of a lot of these items breaking before 3 years have passed. It is almost as if some hierarchy of managers have dictated "can you make this thing last for 25 months, but no further than that?"
- 1 the non-replacable battery will die, leaving the device a brick.
- 2 the power management IC will die, so the system refuses to light up or receive electrical current.
- 3 often, when (2) happens, the motherboard will be toasted as a by-product, leaving you to pay 600 DKK to have the retailer inform you "we have looked at your device, unfortunately the motherboard died, so repairing it will cost you same price as brand new. Thank you for the 600 you paid to have us tell you that".
Within the last year, I have had two separate Asus VivoBooks die on me,
both after about 24 months of use - but critically, ">24", so no repair/warranty.
One of them a DKK-10.000 purchase, the other a DKK-6.500 purchase.
Neither of them have seen particular abuse, they were used by me, as "household pets" - so laptops that never left the couch.
I have taken a long time to learn this, but my learned lesson is that
I have stopped buying these "10k DKK for 24 months of laptop" devices.
I am a pathological computer hoarder, and I have plenty of desktop PCs that are still alive and kicking after 10+ years (in which I may understandably have to replace PSUs).
The scam/grift that suppliers like Asus are operating on comsumer devices,
is that the PMIC is designed to fail, is soldered into the motherboard,
and that they love whenever the failing PMIC kills the motherboard during its death throes.
An ugly pattern emerges. In my country, there is mandatory 2year warranty on bought electronics - if it breaks before 24 months, the retailer owes you a working specimen. Well, what do you know.. I see a pattern of a lot of these items breaking before 3 years have passed. It is almost as if some hierarchy of managers have dictated "can you make this thing last for 25 months, but no further than that?"
- 1 the non-replacable battery will die, leaving the device a brick.
- 2 the power management IC will die, so the system refuses to light up or receive electrical current.
- 3 often, when (2) happens, the motherboard will be toasted as a by-product, leaving you to pay 600 DKK to have the retailer inform you "we have looked at your device, unfortunately the motherboard died, so repairing it will cost you same price as brand new. Thank you for the 600 you paid to have us tell you that".
Within the last year, I have had two separate Asus VivoBooks die on me, both after about 24 months of use - but critically, ">24", so no repair/warranty. One of them a DKK-10.000 purchase, the other a DKK-6.500 purchase. Neither of them have seen particular abuse, they were used by me, as "household pets" - so laptops that never left the couch.
I have taken a long time to learn this, but my learned lesson is that I have stopped buying these "10k DKK for 24 months of laptop" devices.
I am a pathological computer hoarder, and I have plenty of desktop PCs that are still alive and kicking after 10+ years (in which I may understandably have to replace PSUs).
The scam/grift that suppliers like Asus are operating on comsumer devices, is that the PMIC is designed to fail, is soldered into the motherboard, and that they love whenever the failing PMIC kills the motherboard during its death throes.