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Life right now with a broken screen

18 September 2005Posted By: Tracy
Posted in: Blog Related, Tracy's Updates

Well, my screen is still broken and I still have the tablet in my hands.

There was confusion about the SystemGuard warranty I bought but Toshiba didn’t have record of. After faxing my proof of purchase to two different numbers after talking to two different people, I finally talked to a great service rep who was nice, answered my questions, and was able to take care of everything warranty and computer related (way to go "Eddie").

I didn’t want to wait for them to ship me a box, so I said I’d drop the tablet off at the local UPS store. This was going to happen yesterday except the back-up of my computer strangely took three hours and I had to wait until 6PM for it to finish.

With the repair delay now explained, on to other things. I officially miss using my convertible at school. A family member is letting me borrow his M1400 until I get my tablet fixed, which has saved me a lot of printing. Since my life is in GoBinder, I would have been lost. I don’t want to install programs on the loaner tablet, so anything that needs to be turned in I’m doing on–dun dun dun–paper because there’s no printer installed.

The programs I’ve missed dearly are Maxthon (the tabs and gestures), RoboForm (I hate filling in passwords), Virtual TI (complex functions on they system calculator is tough), and PDF Annotator.  I think if every tablet came with some built-in programs like these, people would be a lot happier with Tablet PCs right out of the box.

Playing with a 180 degree viewability slate hasn’t changed my opinion on convertibles. I still miss my keyboard, and I still think the extra pound is worth it. The thinness and extra viewing angle on the slate is nice for reading and notes, however.

I ordered the Tom Bihn Monolith and a 1GB stick of RAM from NewEgg.com, so at least I’ll be better off when I get my tablet back from repair. I put extra metal clips (like the keychain ones) on my the straps of my backpack to keep it from coming undone again. On the new screen I won’t be removing the Toshiba screen protector just in case that weakened the screen; since I have the writeSHIELD on the broken screen, I don’t think the repair people will even notice. 

Thanks for all the support, by the way. I was depressed a day or two when it happened, but the response from everyone made it all a little better. I hope everyone made sure they have a good bag, a good warranty, and a good back-up plan.

5 Responses to “Life right now with a broken screen”

1. Nitin Says:
   September 18th, 2005 at 2:53 pm

   Tracy,

   Make certain that you gest Toshiba to ship you the warranty sticker that reflects your SystemGuard warranty. I dropped my M200 last year around this time, and cracked the back casing, not the screen. I went into an authorized Toshiba repair depot, and they said they couldn’t repair/replace it since they couldn’t account for my accidental drop warranty…..and that was only after 3 months of use. It took six calls to Toshiba, over a period of nine months to get the sticker. That’s not a good track record.

   The crack on my Toshiba wasn’t enough to justify going in again to get the repair, but I finally got my sticker for a 4 year SystemGuard Warranty 13 months after I bought the thing.

   On another note, the machine has been real sturdy, and mostly I’m pleased with it.

   Good luck on your Toshiba adventure!

2. Renee Says:
   September 18th, 2005 at 5:29 pm

   Tracy,

   When I read your Rice Crispy post the first day, my heart sank. Looking at the screen when that happens has occured to me on 1 laptop and a few PDA’s. And like you, I now buy the Accidental Damage protection on all my laptops, including my TC4200. The only difference: Mine is on-site, wherever I am (Which if I end up on deployment in New Orleans could be tricky).

3. Walter Says:
   September 20th, 2005 at 6:22 am

   Well, Tracy, I know how it feels to be “off-line” and I can understand your kind of feeling depressed a bit. We really grow to rely on these things to keep us “together”. Hope you get it back very quickly.

4. whirlyman Says:
   September 20th, 2005 at 10:44 am

   Well, after reading these posts I’m going to start making sure the screen is swiveled into laptop mode before stowing into my bag!

5. Tracy Says:
   September 20th, 2005 at 12:01 pm

   Except it WAS in laptop mode in the backpack. Some how the angle it hit at managed to push the latch down into the screen and that’s what cracked it. It would probably have been a lot worse had I stored it screen up.

   My Monolith bag came today. It’s not the cast iron protection I was hoping for but it should provide enough protection. Plus, it fits into my bag perfectly and it’s a neat red color.

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