I'm never buying an ASUS product again.

[jason41987]

---

i
purchases an asus transformer infinity tablet roughly 2 months ago, and it was
all fine and dandy until i decided i wanted to do a factory reset and clean off
all the useless data i had been building up trying out different apps.. so
because it was unlocked via a program supplied by the company, it wasnt under
warranty

well, the recovery image was corrupted, and because of this it
essentially erased the operating system and i had to send it in for repairs...
this is the good part

so to reflash the software, they claim they have to
replace the entire motherboard (yeah right, theyre just going to reflash the
motherboard thats already in it and send it back).. also, theyre asking me to
pay six times the cost in shipping than what it cost me to ship it, so theyre
over-charging in return shipping too... thats $161 + $65 shipping for a total of
$226 for something thats not going to cost them a dime to fix, and only $10-$15
to ship

i also sent an LCD monitor back about a year ago that was under
warranty and they made me pay for shipping it to them, cost a quarter the price
of the monitor and when i got it, about one full week later the problem was
back, and then some

has anyone else been having problems with asus
products?... i remember when they used to be reputable, if they hadnt been i
wouldnt have given them a second chance with this tablet.... but they lost me as
a customer forever... and i hope more people follow suite until they clean up
their acts

$226 to reflash and send it back.... half the price of the
tablet itself.... un-freakin-believable

 

[Frederuco]

Welcome to the forum!

I have a TF101 which does not have the locked bootloader, so I have not had any issues with that side of it. I am not sure why Asus decided to lock the bootloader on the future devices (TF201, 300, 700) but it is unfortunate that you lose warranty if you want full control over your tablet.

I did have to send my TF101 keyboard dock in for a warranty repair (bad battery drain issue required new firmware chip) and I did have to pay shipping. This is quite common with Asus, but it only cost me about $5 to ship my dock because my company has good rates with FedEx.

I have used Asus products since back in 2003 when I built my first computer and have nothing but praise for them, other than the locked bootloader. I have heard a lot of issues with some of the international (non US) service centers and some shenanigans that have happened.

 

[jason41987]

the worse part is that if you unlock the bootloader, you still cant replace the bootloader and it doesnt have any nvflash support either, so if any data is corrupted, or something goes wrong with your bootloader you simply CANT fix it whether its unlocked or not... so they give you the tool to unlock it, but refuse to make the tablet fixable by the end user forcing you to pay for a repair which as stated above is far beyond what it really costs to reflash the device... and this is what makes me angry... is they set it up to fail and deny you the tools to fix it..... and charging me for a new motherboard kind of reminds me of how auto-mechanics treat the average female customer.. charge them for a new engine when they only needed their spark plugs cleaned

 

[leeshor]

I'm fairly certain ASUS made it clear that you used the unlocker at your own risk. They certainly didn't suggest or in any way make you use it. I'm certain they were hesitant to even provide it as most vendors don't - just to try reducing the potential for problems it can create.

I personally have sold many hundreds of thousands of dollars of ASUS hardware since I began using their stuff in 1992. Their service has always been what I would call very good. Some other vendors, not so much. As a commercial computer reseller, they were my sole motherboard supplier for many years.

 

[vampirefo.]

I am not familiar with this tablet, seeing you had access to bootloader why didn't you flash the firmware yourself?

 

[jason41987]

obviously an asus fanboy here to defend his brand loyalty.. who knows quite well a corrupted bootloader does not call for the replacement of a motherboard... are people really naive to think its a coincidence that asus would allow you to unlock a bootloader to void the warranty on something you cant really modify anyway?.. if they werent trying to make extra money out of repairs they wouldnt have specificially blocked the usage of nvflash in their recent firmwares.... you tell me why someone would specifically block the use of nvflash, the only brick-proof solution to paying for repairs if they didnt want to force people into repairs that their software bricked in the first place?...

only a moron would not see it as the corrupt business practice it is.. and those who have earlier bootloaders on earlier tablets are definitely lucky they got theirs when they did

 

[jason41987]

vampire, the newer firmwares seem to block the ability to do that, and when it actually corrupted is when i was attempting to do a factory reset which had an error in the process

 

[Tom T]

obviously an asus fanboy here to defend his brand loyalty.. who knows quite well a corrupted bootloader does not call for the replacement of a motherboard... are people really naive to think its a coincidence that asus would allow you to unlock a bootloader to void the warranty on something you cant really modify anyway?.. if they werent trying to make extra money out of repairs they wouldnt have specificially blocked the usage of nvflash in their recent firmwares.... you tell me why someone would specifically block the use of nvflash, the only brick-proof solution to paying for repairs if they didnt want to force people into repairs that their software bricked in the first place?...

only a moron would not see it as the corrupt business practice it is.. and those who have earlier bootloaders on earlier tablets are definitely lucky they got theirs when they did

Not sure which of the moderators you are refering to as fanboys, but most people who have had experience with Asus tablets tend to have had quite positive experiences, myself included. I think when Asus made the decision to lock the bootloader they felt they were actually trying to protect people from themselves, but it became clear to them many of their dedicated customers were knowledgeable people who were actively modding their tablets. For these people they offered the unlock tools and specific warnings as they couldn't afford to fix for free tablets bricked by people experimenting with their devices. One of the keys to successful modding is to fully understand the firmware before you end up bricking the device. Its kind of a stretch to think this was some evil conspiracy by Asus to boost their bottom line through intentionally bricking their tablets, it just wouldn't do much for their reputation.

Sent from my Galaxy Note 10.1

 

[Frederuco]

Am I an Asus fanboy? Yup! But not because of one tablet, it is years of quality motherboards and graphics cards.

I guess if an unlocked boot loader was that important to me I would see about getting a device that is unlocked (Galaxy Note 10.1, Nexus 10, A700) and stay away from a locked boot loader.