Acer rejigs warranties

Acer Computer Australia has rejigged its notebook warranty service, opting to introduce three-year warranties on its Premium range of TravelMate laptops.

The company has also decided to stop offering its two-hour Express repair service as standard. Instead, this service would be an optional upgrade for the Acer TravelMate range only, Acer said.

Raymond Vardanega, marketing director at Acer Oceanic region said, based on recent surveys conducted by the company, customers wanted on-site and three-year warranties offered on Acer machines. "Eighty percent of resellers wanted on-site warranties," he said.

According to Vardanega, a lot of people are using their notebooks as a desktop replacement and are not necessarily travelling with them.

These customers did not necessarily want to use the Express service facility where they are required to take the product to an Acer repair centre.

The Express service was launched five years ago and the number of customers using this service had gone down. "The Express service was more beneficial to people on the road," he said.

The new warranties are effective from 15 March. Acer Extensa and Aspire series notebooks have a one-year return to base warranty.

The TravelMate series ships with a one-year pick-up/repair/return courier service, and the Premium TravelMate series (models TM8100, TM3200 and TM380) have three-year warranties.