No doubt, wacom is at the top of digital tablet producers, however, behind the fancy advertisement is the trap of unfairness to its customers!
I purchased an A4-sized Intuos 3 tablet 2 years ago at S$545 (which is now S$730+, nice marketing, wacom!). I believe any personal user like me really need to think twice to spend this amount of money on a digital gadget like this (S$700 can easily afford a 24" LCD monitor now, or TEN Razor Diamondback mouses).
Before the prevailing 1-year warranty expired, I lived a happy life with this beautiful, fancy digital tablet. I only realized how bad a situation I'm in when I found my tablet faulty while the 1-year warranty expired!
I went to the whole distributor for wacom---Peripheral Solutions in Macpherson Road, they told me they could not do any repair job because the warranty expired. When I told them I am willing to pay the repair fee since buying a new one would cost another S$730, they told me the truth: There is NO place in Singapore -- or to be more precise, in SEA region -- can get faulty wacom tablet repaired! They also told me if I insist, they can help me send the faulty set back to Japan, but the transportation fee alone would cost me S$500+, the manpower and replacement part is not included yet.
I suddenly woke up: the money I paid for a wacom tablet is in fact for my first-year usage, after that, I'm all on my own, anything happened to the tablet, it goes to the trash bin!
Then I called Wacom Singapore in Bishan, they told me exact the same thing except they promised me that they would check my tablet again before I decide to send it back to Japan or not.
I have to admit I like wacom tablets; I have been into wacom tablets since Intuos 2 and graphire 3, and however, getting into this kind of situation really makes me frustrated and helpless. To all wacom users in SEA region, out-of-warranty means out-of-service, because getting the faulty set repaired costs as much as (probably even more than) buying a new one.
Even if I decide to buy a new one, what should I do if the same thing happened again after 1-year warranty? Trash bin again?
I purchased an A4-sized Intuos 3 tablet 2 years ago at S$545 (which is now S$730+, nice marketing, wacom!). I believe any personal user like me really need to think twice to spend this amount of money on a digital gadget like this (S$700 can easily afford a 24" LCD monitor now, or TEN Razor Diamondback mouses).
Before the prevailing 1-year warranty expired, I lived a happy life with this beautiful, fancy digital tablet. I only realized how bad a situation I'm in when I found my tablet faulty while the 1-year warranty expired!
I went to the whole distributor for wacom---Peripheral Solutions in Macpherson Road, they told me they could not do any repair job because the warranty expired. When I told them I am willing to pay the repair fee since buying a new one would cost another S$730, they told me the truth: There is NO place in Singapore -- or to be more precise, in SEA region -- can get faulty wacom tablet repaired! They also told me if I insist, they can help me send the faulty set back to Japan, but the transportation fee alone would cost me S$500+, the manpower and replacement part is not included yet.
I suddenly woke up: the money I paid for a wacom tablet is in fact for my first-year usage, after that, I'm all on my own, anything happened to the tablet, it goes to the trash bin!
Then I called Wacom Singapore in Bishan, they told me exact the same thing except they promised me that they would check my tablet again before I decide to send it back to Japan or not.
I have to admit I like wacom tablets; I have been into wacom tablets since Intuos 2 and graphire 3, and however, getting into this kind of situation really makes me frustrated and helpless. To all wacom users in SEA region, out-of-warranty means out-of-service, because getting the faulty set repaired costs as much as (probably even more than) buying a new one.
Even if I decide to buy a new one, what should I do if the same thing happened again after 1-year warranty? Trash bin again?