"It's a lemon" said the customer service rep...
Written: Jun 17 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Beautiful, lightweight PDA that's also easy to use
Cons: The customer service when things start going wrong...
The Bottom Line: I love the product itself, but the customer service hassles would make me think twice before buying this PDA or anything else Palm makes.
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| uraniumorchids's Full Review: Palm Vx Handheld |
First Came the Research
After months of playing with PDAs belonging to friends, acquaintances and strangers I met at conferences, I decided on the Palm Vx. I wanted a stylish PDA that was small enough to fit into the pocket of my jeans, and light enough to be unnoticeable in a jacket pocket. I liked the idea of being able to add on an optional modem for email access anywhere I went.
It was August when I decided to purchase the Vx, which was bad timing in a major way. Ever electronics store in San Francisco was hoping to restock them soon. I finally tracked one down at the Good Guys, and talked them into holding it 'till closing for me.
And then the Real Fun Began
The setup process went fine, and I was quickly on my way to PDA happiness and efficiency. EXCEPT my cradle, which came with the Vx, wouldn't let me sync with my computer. I searched through countless pages in the support section of the Palm Web site to no avail. Finally, I came across a small mention on one of the pages about a known problem with the cords on the cradles that shipped with this model -- they all required a new adapter to work.
I called the phone number Palm provided (they didn't offer a way to make the customer service request online), then waited 20 minutes for a representative to come on the line. After taking down a lot of personal information, the representative then informed me my adapter would be shipping to me via Airborne Express and should arrive in less than a week.
To some people, this would be a good thing. To me, this was horrible. Airborne is located in an industrial part of San Francisco that is ill-served by transit. This is an important factor because they will not let someone else in your building sign for your packages, and anything Palm ships out requires a signature for delivery. This means I generally have to trek out to the Airborne offices during the brief window they are open on Saturday mornings to pick up packages.
I begged the representative to use FedEx at my cost, since they are located in my building at work. No dice. I ended up having to go to Airborne to pick up the package. This is where my saga should have ended, but, a few days later, another notice from Airborne was left on my door, stating that Palm had shipped something to me. After calling Palm to ask what they had shipped, and no one being able to tell me, I went down to the Airborne office again and picked up the package, on the way out of town.
I opened the package on my way back into town to find...a refurbished Palm Vx. I immediately called Palm to ask why they had sent this to me, and what I should do with it. You guessed it -- I made another trip to Airborne.
Fast forward to this Spring. After a 2-week vacation, I came back to find my Palm completely dead even though it had been fully charged when I left it in a drawer and went on vacation. After my previous experience, I dreaded contacting them. After exchanging emails with a representative who emailed me help pages from the Web site that didn't fix my problem, I called and talked to several different representatives, trying to find a solution other than Airborne. No solution was acceptable to them, not even my sending a courier to pick up a unit.
This time I decided to gamble with fate and ask Airborne to deliver to my office. I enlisted multiple co-workers to track me down wherever I was so I could sign for my replacement PDA. My planning paid off and I received my replacement without a hitch, and used similar tactics to get my old PDA into the hands of the Ariborne courier.
Nice PDA but Bad Overall Experience
I whip out my Vx in meetings to take notes and help schedule upcoming meetings, or to use Vindigo to suggest lunch locations, but have an overall bad impression of Palm from my customer service dealings. Given the unreliability of my unit, and of friends' units (one friend went through 3 replacement units before selling his on eBay), I simply can't recommend this unit again, especially at the $399+ price tag I paid. Of course, they now retail for $299, which would make it less painful.
As the customer service rep said to me, after informing me her manager wouldn't let her ship out a replacement via any method I suggested, and I expressed my frustration with this and with the short battery life of the product, "it's a lemon."
If you decide to go ahead and buy one of these, be sure to sync it every day so you don't lose your data and be prepared to have to send it in if anything goes wrong with it.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 399 or more
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Epinions.com ID:
uraniumorchids
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Location: San Francisco, CA
Reviews written: 37
Trusted by: 15 members
About Me:
An urban gourmet on the loose in SF, currently buried in an editing project
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