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Comment by codegeek | Hacker News Reader

aah system 76. I hope they have improved recently with their customer service but I had a horrible experience with them back in 2013 when they had to replace a keyboard (the CEO actually sent an email explaining how shitty their keyboard was) and when I asked for a refund, they simply refused. NO refunds. I had to literally open the laptop myself and install the new keyboard.

I am not one of those types who asks for refunds on anything. This was genuinely a defective laptop with a faulty keyboard (turns out that is how they were shipping it back then to everyone) and their answer was to replace with the new one (after the CEO sent a bulk email to every customer) . Why should I have to go through that hassle ? This was the first time I almost thought of doing a chargeback but didn't.

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From my experience their repair services are somewhat understaffed: they did a fine job as described but I had to keep asking them for status updates and it took about a month. Kind of a sharp contrast to the ThinkPad overnight shipping, same-day repair, overnight return shipping experience.

I was thinking that System76 might have problems not being in a volume sweet spot; IBM and later Lenovo could invest a lot in a fancy, well-staffed repair facility near a shipment hub, while System76 may get warranty and repair requests that feel only occasional and so just can't support huge investments in being great and fast at it. :-(

I'm still hoping to continue supporting them because of their commitment to Linux-based computing. (Edit: other people in this thread sure didn't seem to like their laptops, but I guess I had a much better experience in other respects.)

> Kind of a sharp contrast to the ThinkPad overnight shipping, same-day repair, overnight return shipping experience.

And an even sharper contrast to the ThinkPad onsite service ;)

(of course, as you can probably tell by my username I'm not a big fan of Lenovo after Superfish etc. So I'll just sit here and wish that Apple would start offering a similar service)

So we have a data point from four years ago and you are still harboring a resentment so hard that you feel you need to air your grievances for a completely different product. I get it. Hell hath no fury like a customer scorned.

I have two coworkers that just had to get replacement keyboards for their System76 laptops. They have to replace them themselves as well.

> They have to replace them themselves as well.

It happens. I've done field replacements on Dell laptops for DOA components for non-technical friends, most recently a dvd drive and previously a keyboard. Dell shipped the components and I swapped them out for exchange. Dell quoted moderately long (over a week) round trip if it went to a service center but my friends wouldn't have attempted it themselves.

Well, to be fair, it's not just one data point, that's failed customer service for an entire product—most likely thousands of data points.

You're damn right. Let this be a lesson to treat your customers well.

Could be ten years ago, doesn't matter, if they cant support consumer laptops what makes you think a 5/6 figure server they'll do warranty any better.

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