| Subject: Re: Poor quality and continuing support |
Author:
Andrew
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Date Posted: 12:06:31 08/20/99 Fri
In reply to:
Trent
's message, "Re: Poor quality and continuing support" on 07:16:05 08/20/99 Fri
Wow, so Trent's feelings got hurt, life's tough.
> I don't even want to hear about it. You had no
> complaints until after about 6 months. And stop your
> belly-aching about the 6-6 support. You knew that
> before you purchased your SE. Due to the limited
> support hours, most of the Transmonde customers were
> fairly knowledgable about computers. You obviously
> were not.
I was switching from Macintosh, and specialize in multi-lingual applications. I was new to Windows 9x, though thanks to frequent crashes and unstable hardware, I learned quitea bit about Windows. I did know about the support hours, but that doesn't mean I liked the support hours. As for the six months, I had complaints before that, and had my hard drive replaced because of suspend problems. I didn't notice the USB until I bought the USB Zip drive, which worked and continues to work perfectly with every non-Transmonde computer I plug it into. I also have a USB mouse, which did work with the Transmonde (Microsoft replied to a post of mine about USB stating that USB actually has two controllers, one for high-bandwidth devices like drives and scanners, and another for low-bandwidth devices like mice and joysticks). Judging by other posts on this board, Transmonde seems to have a problem with the hig-bandwidth USB.
>
> If Transmonde had such poor quality as you state, then
> they would have gone out of business long ago. If the
> quality was so poor, Jessica would not have bothered
> taking the time to create this site. If the quality
> was so poort, John560 wouldn't have wasted his time
> for 3 years recommending them. If the quality was so
> poor, no one would have been complimenting and
> recommending them. If the quality was so poor, they
> wouldn't have won as many awards as they have. If the
> qualify was so poor they wouldn't have been selected
> to be on the cover of Portable Computing, September
> issue. The same quality that went into the Vivante SE
> is the exact same quality that built the IBM Thinkpad
> 650 series, and the first 2 generations of WinBooks,
> among many others.
If you read more carefully you will notice that the replacement machines I had were of poor quality. These were of course used, and who knows how used. The first one was very nice-looking, and seemed well-built, but without the bottom PC card slot (required for the Xircom RealPort card I use) the machine needed replacement. I am sure that MOST of Transmonde's machines were of high quality and good fit and finish (as my first one was), but there is no excuse for the instability, the frequent resume failures, the bad hard drives, bad AC power supply, bad USB and cheapo floppy cable. Nor is there any excuse for sending out a replacement machine with the same problem as an earlier one that had been previously replaced.
>
> You had your side business as a computer consultant
> *before* you bought your SE. And based on the newbie
> tech support questions you were constantly asking, you
> weren't a very good computer consultant either. I am
> WARNING all the Transmonde owners out there, if you
> have any tech support questions, DON'T ASK ANDREW
> FISHKIN. Instead, post them here and I'll try to
> answer as many as I can. I have landed myself a new
> job in a Silicon Valley which keeps me busy, but I'll
> try to post answers in the evenings and weekends.
I was VERY new to WIndows, not having used a PC since 1990. I was a technical support trainer for Apple prior to being hired into the government job I now have (the computer consulting is a sideline). Everything that I've learned about troubleshooting Windows I learned from Ken and Mark at Transmonde, after many, many incidents of trying to get everything working properly. It never did.
I have no doubt that many people were very happy with their machines. This reputation and abundance of praise is what led me to purchase my SE in the first place. Moving from Macintosh to Windows, I wanteda knowledgeable support staff to help me with the transition. I just didn't expect such an unreliable computer.
>
> > I had the unfortunate experience of buying a Vivante
> > SE last year, and went through 9 months of hell
> before
> > getting the company to refund some of my money. That
> > said, I feel very sorry for the many people out there
> > who still own Transmonde computers and depend on them
> > to get their work done. I had so much trouble with
> my
> > SE that I feel more qualified to diagnose these
> things
> > than the support staff was, I had to do it myself so
> > many times (love that 6a-6p only support policy).
> >
> > Two days after buying, I sent it back for a bad PC
> > Card slot. They sent me back another, USED machine.
>
> That's a lie. It was replaced with a brand new system.
>
> > I had three more replacements, all with either
> > suspend/resume or USB problems (very common on
> > Transmonde SEs). I also had three hard drive
> > replacements, two floppy cables and a power supply
> > replaced; what junk. These things were so poorly put
> > together that if I lifted the a front corner, I could
> > see the case visibly flex. Only after a letter
> > threatening legal action did they even offer to
> refund
> > my money. They gave me $1150 out of the $1820 that I
> > paid. I was planning to take them to small claims
> > court to sue for the rest, but now there is nobody to
> > sue.
>
> You're lucky you got that much. You were just
> suffering from buyer's remorse because you saw what
> was available for less money. That's the problem now
> a days. Everybody wants to sue everyone. It's so
> hard to make an honest living without the threat of
> being sued.
>
> > I am now the proud owner of a Micron Transport Trek2
> > laptop computer with a 300MHz PII "PE", 128MB RAM and
> > a both drives built-in (three spindle). The
> > difference in build quality is amazing, this machine
> > actually feels like it will outlast Micron's generous
> > 3-year (5 on CPU and memory) warrantee.
>
> I'm very happy Micron now has you for a headache.
>
> > With that said, I feel for those of you with stuck
> > with your orphaned machines, and would like to offer
> > my assistance in supporting them. If you email your
> > questions to me, I will try to get a concise reply
> > back in a day or two (unless I get bombarded, then it
> > may take longer). I learned so much about PCs in
> > fixing my recalcitrant Vivante that I now have a
> > side-business as a computer consultant (I guess that
> > everything works out well in the end). My email
> > address is yamac@earthlink.net
> >
> > Good luck to all of you,
> >
> > Andrew
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