Warranties, app stores and me

Friday, January 6th, 2012

My late uncle and I were very different people. Despite being the two ‘fixers’ in the family, the ones who got the busted kettles and the snapped gear cables from the rest of the clan, we were poles apart in one area: our approach to warranties. Even though he would keep his cars going for 20 years, he had a very sharp understanding of what should be his responsibility, and what was down to the vendor.

Actually, that’s an understatement. Woe betide the firm whose slipshod customer handling captured his attention. Once the horn-rimmed specs and the Brylcreemed bonce were aimed in their direction, he would pursue them relentlessly, his measured drawl torturing their receptionists until they actually did put him through to the MD or the Company Secretary (which incidentally is still quite a good one to try, since chancers seldom know enough about company law and structure to try that route).

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All the week’s reviews

Friday, December 5th, 2008

Free laptops for life, monitors sprouting mini offspring, Toshiba’s first netbook and an open source media player from the chaps behind Firefox – it’s been a busy week for reviews.

Firefox vs iTunes

Surely the most interesting release of the week was from Mozilla. Although its been in development for a few years, Songbird finally saw an official release, with a media player and browser in one. Darien was hopeful it could finally give him an alternative to iTunes: “Since it’s open source, freely extensible and unfettered by corporate interests, Songbird’s future looks bright.” Try it and let us know what you think.

Not just for christmas

Fujitsu stole the headlines with its offer of a free laptop every three years forever, and Jon reckons “if you’re a cheapskate and don’t mind being tied to one brand for the rest of your life it’s got to be worth looking into”. If the best you can get is the Fujitsu Siemens Lifebook S7720, however, you’ll probably be turning them down on their kind offer.

Dell’s Inspiron 1318 is a much more tempting proposition, with a price tag of just £383 exc VAT putting it dangerously close to netbook territory. Sasha was impressed by the ”portable chassis with great ergonomics and fine battery life – a potent combination”, and more than enough to earn it an award. 

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