General 19 Apr 2006 11:36 am
What to do when your electronics fail…
Like relationships, consumer electronics are sometimes prone to “breaking up” before maybe they should (or anyone thought they would). As a consumer, there’s nothing much worse than purchasing a nice expensive gadget only to have it break six months or even two years later (when you expected it to last maybe for three or four). Sometimes you have a manufacturer warranty still on the product or purchased an extended warranty and you are taken care of. But what happens when the warranty has expired or you bought a used/refurbished product that had no warranty? Do you just have to toss it and buy the next gadget out there?
The answer, as with many things in life, is it depends. Depending on the product, you might just be able to get it fixed, and sometimes cheaper than you may think. Now some companies, such as Apple and Sony, may charge you almost the price of a new iPod or Playstation to fix your old one (if they even fix the product at all). Depending on the problem, such as a busted LCD, they may tell you it is not fixable (or cost effective to fix) and to just buy a new one. Of course this is beneficial for the big company, but what about you - the poor individual consumer? Relax - all may not be lost. Not only are there sometimes small businesses that will repair the product for you at a reasonable price, but you can even fix it yourself for fairly cheap (relatively speaking) in certain circumstances.
If you search around eBay and Google for certain electronic spare parts (such as LCD screens, new laser heads, refurbished hard drives, etc.), you’ll often see there are a few vendors selling them. You can also often find detailed instructions for repairing your product (sometimes you have to pay for an eBook, and other times you might find the information free on a forum). If you are just a little tech savvy, you might repair your electronic gadget in under an hour and for a lot cheaper than the big boys charge if you do it yourself.
At Micro Portables we have realized there is a need for this, and thus our main focus is to carry the actual spare parts for repairing many portable electronic products. In addition to providing you with help for self-installation, we also offer professional installation by a Micro Portables technician at very reasonable prices. Repairing a portable gadget not only saves the consumer some money and lets them salvage the product for awhile longer, but it also keeps more electronics out of the landfill and in use (which is a fairly big issue considering how much we dump in broken and old electronics every year).
So next time your portable electronic toy breaks, try seeing if you can repair it first before you toss it and fork over another $200 for a new one. You might just be surprised!