Overall shopping experience was good - responses to questions were quick, and the purchase went through very quickly once we passed a couple of technical difficulties (from my end, since I was placing the order from overseas)
My only gripe I have with BTOTech/Geared2play is (as I believe has been brought up in other comments) that customer service is somewhat lacking in approachability. In other words, responses can sometimes be brusque making one feel unwelcome.
I know that the people working at BTO have a lot of experience at what they do, but when I had some technical issues after I got the laptop, I did not appreciate them hinting that the problem was possibly caused by installing AVG (antivirus), Zonealarm (firewall), and Firefox (browser).
True, sometimes software DOES cause problems, but just because they don't use firewall/antivirus/alternate browser doesn't mean that other's can't - and I certainly didn't appreciate their deleting my post explaining my reasons for using 3rd party software.
(for those who are interested, the issue concerned error messages that came up after installing drivers for the Intel Turbo Memory chip - and I resolved it by updating the BIOS)
Bottom line - I would say that they are trustworthy and quick to deliver (in terms of hardware). However customer support relations are also important for any company and that is an area they really need to work on.
EDIT: I am sincerely trying to remain civil but I believe that BTO's reply amply illustrates my point about "approachability". Note that I'm not throwing stones or otherwise trying to undermine credibility here - I did not say that you were slow to get a hold of, in fact I specifically stated that you are trustworthy and responded to questions quickly.
I'm merely commenting on the fact that your attitude comes across as making one feel unwelcome, particularly when I challenged your diagnosis of the issue.
I won't add anymore save to say that I did perform a clean reinstall of the OS without adding any 3rd party apps during the course of my troubleshooting (which did NOT work, whereas a BIOS update solved the issue). For those who are interested, I posted about the issue on the Asusforum site http://geared2play.com/phpbb/nfphpbb/viewtopic.php?t=1955 (if the thread itself doesn't get deleted as well) and if anyone wants to contact me for clarification I can also be PM'd at the notebookreview forums.
Thanks
This review was modified by its author, cheerfulnut, on
9/4/07 3:20 AM.