I bought a new ASUS ExpertBook B5 (B5404) computer from Staples. I was told that I would not regret buying from Staples, since Staples was a very large company and stood behind, and supported, the products they sold.
Yeah, right.
I deeply regret buying from Staples.
As soon as I got the laptop, I started to notice difficulties with regard to charging and/or the battery. The battery, even in "hibernate" mode, would not hold a charge for long. It seemed to drop very precipitously, and from a full charge within three or four days the battery would be completely dead.
This was not the only problem as when the battery was drained, the charger, when plugged in, on occasion would not start the computer and would not charge the battery. However, this didn't always happen. So, it was a sporadic problem, and intermittent faults are always the most troublesome to determine.
I took the laptop back to Staples.
They plugged it in. And it worked. So they saw no problem.
So I took it home again.
I continued to work with it, as I could. It works well enough as a computer. But lack of holding of a charge on the battery and seemingly faulty indicators of how much the battery had charged (and how much time was left on it) continued. I reported the problems to Staples via their online review system. Twice. Both times they responded, but neither time did they specifically address any of the issues.
So, a couple of weeks later, I took the computer back to Staples. I took it to the problem desk, and someone had a look at it. He looked at the status reports contained on the computer, in regard to the battery and power. It was interesting to note that the history that was displayed to him was not consistent with the status as reported to me earlier.
He took no other actions. He suggested no other actions. He said that as far as he was concerned, it was working.
So I'm stuck with a laptop with some kind of intermittent problem in it, which no one seems willing to address.
I regret buying anything from Staples, and I certainly can't recommend Staples. I've had laptops built by ASUS before and I haven't had particular problems with them. This particular one seems to be a lemon. And nobody seems to be willing to fix it, or, indeed, even to look at what the possible problem might be. It seems like a one-off situation but it certainly does not recommend ASUS as a manufacturer.
As I have mentioned before, do not annoy grieving widowers. They are already angry at the world, and, if you give them a motivation to be angry with you, specifically, they have an awful lot of time to inventory, in detail, all the failures of your customer service.
A response from Staples:
> We do apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.
Oh, really?
> Please reach out to our technical support services at 1 (877) 258-0369 for further assistance.
Why would I waste more time on your technical support, when it has been so abysmal so far?
> For the inconvenience caused, we would like to offer you 10% off on your next online order, with total credit not exceeding $200.
Why would I order anything else from you, when this order has been so fraught?
Further:
Staples head office didn't like the fact that I posted a not-terribly-flattering review on them. So they asked me to send them my phone number. Which I did. I gave them my home number and my cell number.
Somebody from the local Staples store phoned me. Didn't get me, of course. Beyond his name (first name only), he wasn't very informative. He didn't say anything about what Staples could or would do, or if they wanted me to do something, other than come back to the store. Which would make for the third time. And there was no promise that the third time would yield any better results than the first two.
He left this message on my voicemail, as he had called when I was out. He said to call back. He didn't even leave the store's number.
When I did call back (having looked up the store's phone number), the person that I was able to talk to had absolutely no idea what the issue was about (and, quite obviously, neither did he care).
I left them my email address for further communication. So far I haven't heard anything back from them.
Eventually, the computer simply stopped working, and made a perfect emulation of a brick. So, I took it back to the store.
They plugged it in, and it worked perfectly. I have no idea why. *They* have no idea why. They tried to blame it on the power at my house.
They finally agreed to give me “store credit” on a replacement laptop. They didn’t, of course, have the one that I originally bought, so they sold me a more expensive model.
At the moment I am trying to migrate from another ASUS laptop that I have, and the ASUS Switch program seems to be doing absolutely nothing ...
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