As I mentioned on Friday, I recently broke (or rather, found broken) my relatively new 32GB ASUS Nexus 7 tablet. I didn’t drop it, but I also doubt that it was a manufacturing error. More than likely, the tablet broke due to a chance set of unfortunate circumstances while in my backpack last Friday. However, I decided to go ahead and contact ASUS about the issue, and see if perhaps they would fix the tablet for a reasonable price or just maybe repair it under warranty.
In the somewhat long above image, you can see the most important portion of a conversation that I had with one of ASUS’s representatives. It took only about 15 minutes, but the important facts of the conversation are few. First of all, I won’t know if the damage to my tablet is covered under warranty until after it is in their hands. I expected as much, but it is interesting to have confirmed. Since I pay the shipping to ASUS, that means that even if the problem was discovered to be their fault I would still be responsible for a one way shipping charge regardless.
Since I don’t think my issue will be covered under warranty, I was more interested in what the repair quote would be if I had to pay for the repair. I wasn’t hopeful based on my research from Friday, but thought that perhaps ASUS would be able to repair the tablet for around $100 since they could source the parts internally. Sadly, the cost for the repair was quoted at about $205, which means that if the broken 32GB tablet would sell for more than $25 on eBay (I bought the tablet for $230), it would make more sense to just sell the broken tablet and buy a new one.
There were several comments on my previous posts with suggestions for how to go about dealing with this problem, but first I’m going to give ASUS a chance to be very nice and potentially repair my tablet for free. Since I only owe shipping one way regardless, which will be about $10 or less, I think I’ll risk a small shipping fee for even a small chance at a brand new tablet. Of course, I won’t be surprised if ASUS expects me to pay for the repairs not covered under warranty, and although they are perfectly within their right to do so, I will have to decline.
