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I live near an Apple store and frequent it every few months when I need to fix a phone or laptop, or buy a dongle, etc. The store near me gets lots of foot tra

I live near an Apple store and frequent it every few months when I need to fix a phone or laptop, or buy a dongle, etc. The store near me gets lots of foot traffic, but the experience is just fine. There are usually at least 2-3 employees who will come up and ask me how I'm doing and what they can help with. Given the size of the store, the number of employees is surprising actually. And it's as easy as ever to book appointments, in my experience anyway. I think what's changed is that the novelty has worn off. When Apple Stores first became a thing, it was new and sexy. Now, they're everywhere and don't have that wow factor, because it's become a feature of our lives that you go there every so often if you want to try out, fix or buy an apple product in person. And with the novelty factor gone, people find things to complain about if their experience isn't perfect, even though Apple's customer service is still light years ahead of most anyone else [0]. [0] I say this as an Android and Lenovo X1 user. I personally prefer non-mac products, but my wife has a Macbook Pro and an iPhone and I'm always jealous that when things break, she can get them fixed right away, while I worry that a fix will entail multiple unpleasant interactions with phone agents, followed by a multi-week repair process. EDIT: I want to add two ideas here in the hope that someone here finds them helpful. When I make laptop purchases (for non-apple products), the first place I look is Costco. They offered the Carbon X1 laptop with pretty good specs (16gb RAM, i7 processor, 512GB SSD. Similar specs on the Dell XPS 13 that they sell) at a great price, with a 90 day, no questions asked return policy and an extra year of warranty included in the already great price. Even if you aren't a costco member, it's probably worth joining for this deal if you are looking to get a Dell or Lenovo laptop. And in my experience, Costco is very easy to deal with when problems arise. A second idea is to buy using a Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card, which also add a year on to the manufacturer's warranty. Usually, they require you to get a quote from a repair shop and they will reimburse you. In some cases, they will just replace the product straight up. And they are fairly easy to work with. This is the only card I use to make purchases that I know have a chance of breaking.

davidy123 7y ago
Lenovo's onsite service is inexpensive and, in my experience, excellent. I've used it a few times over the years and it's involved minimal interaction with helpful, focused staff and techs.
- chadash 7y ago
  In my city, for onsite service, I have two options within 30 miles: one is an office depot, and the other is a computer repair store. Both seem to contract with Lenovo. I'm sure that there are some repair centers that provide excellent service and some less so. Meanwhile, Apple has five stores within a 30 minute drive. And in my experience, every single Apple store I've been to gives me a more-or-less consistently good experience. Is it perfect? Far from it. But they can fix most issues I've had onsite, and the turnaround time is predictable when they ship out for repairs. Meanwhile, with other companies, it's a crapshoot. I had a phone from LG that broke. I mailed it in and after 5 weeks and many follow up phone calls, I still didn't have it back. They claimed that they were out of the part that they needed to repair the phone and were waiting for it to come in. They initially told me that the repair would take 2 weeks. In my mind, a company with decent customer service would see that the part is out of stock and just give me a replacement phone if they can't turn around the repair in a reasonable time frame. With Apple, you know what you are getting into. And if they say 1 week, they usually mean 1 week.
  - yasth 7y ago
    Onsite is your site. It is at times a confusing term, but if you get an onsite warrant you needn't go anywhere, you wait at your place of business or your home and the tech comes in and fixes it. Lenovo actually does pretty well at this.
- phlyingpenguin 7y ago
  I spent four weeks trying to order a genuine replacement keyboard for for my X1 after Lenovo Service tried to charge me $400 for a user-replaceable part. The parts order line was only open a few hours a day and hold times tended to go past their closing time. I'll never Lenovo again.
  - davidy123 7y ago
    Yes, but what I'm suggesting is you pay the pretty low cost multi year on-site (they come to your place) comprehensive service plan.
snowwrestler 7y ago
I think the "add a year to the warranty" feature is pretty common among credit cards. Last I checked, all my credit cards offered that. It pays to read the fine print!
deepakhj 7y ago
Citi Double Cash extends warranty by 2 years. Plus 2% cash back on everything. I haven't used it yet so I'm not sure how good service is. Amex does 2 years too. Their customer service is unmatched when it comes to warranty claims. I've had them credit my account same day. https://www.comparecards.com/blog/extended-warranty-credit-cards/ https://www.comparecards.com/blog/extended-warranty-credit-c...

davidy123 7y ago

Lenovo's onsite service is inexpensive and, in my experience, excellent. I've used it a few times over the years and it's involved minimal interaction with helpful, focused staff and techs.

chadash 7y ago
In my city, for onsite service, I have two options within 30 miles: one is an office depot, and the other is a computer repair store. Both seem to contract with Lenovo. I'm sure that there are some repair centers that provide excellent service and some less so. Meanwhile, Apple has five stores within a 30 minute drive. And in my experience, every single Apple store I've been to gives me a more-or-less consistently good experience. Is it perfect? Far from it. But they can fix most issues I've had onsite, and the turnaround time is predictable when they ship out for repairs. Meanwhile, with other companies, it's a crapshoot. I had a phone from LG that broke. I mailed it in and after 5 weeks and many follow up phone calls, I still didn't have it back. They claimed that they were out of the part that they needed to repair the phone and were waiting for it to come in. They initially told me that the repair would take 2 weeks. In my mind, a company with decent customer service would see that the part is out of stock and just give me a replacement phone if they can't turn around the repair in a reasonable time frame. With Apple, you know what you are getting into. And if they say 1 week, they usually mean 1 week.
- yasth 7y ago
  Onsite is your site. It is at times a confusing term, but if you get an onsite warrant you needn't go anywhere, you wait at your place of business or your home and the tech comes in and fixes it. Lenovo actually does pretty well at this.
phlyingpenguin 7y ago
I spent four weeks trying to order a genuine replacement keyboard for for my X1 after Lenovo Service tried to charge me $400 for a user-replaceable part. The parts order line was only open a few hours a day and hold times tended to go past their closing time. I'll never Lenovo again.
- davidy123 7y ago
  Yes, but what I'm suggesting is you pay the pretty low cost multi year on-site (they come to your place) comprehensive service plan.

snowwrestler 7y ago

I think the "add a year to the warranty" feature is pretty common among credit cards. Last I checked, all my credit cards offered that. It pays to read the fine print!

deepakhj 7y ago

Citi Double Cash extends warranty by 2 years. Plus 2% cash back on everything. I haven't used it yet so I'm not sure how good service is. Amex does 2 years too. Their customer service is unmatched when it comes to warranty claims. I've had them credit my account same day. https://www.comparecards.com/blog/extended-warranty-credit-cards/ https://www.comparecards.com/blog/extended-warranty-credit-c...