Archive for May, 2009

Who is MSI? New Netbook Manufacturer Makes Waves

msi_wind

If you’re anything like me, brand name matters. This isn’t because I’m more interested in the name of the product rather than the quality, but because the two, normally, go hand in hand. This is why Sony is one of the top sellers of electronics, and Armani suits are in such high demand. Companies with good quality products establish a name for themselves and capture market share. But, what about new kids on the block, do you avoid them because they’re not well known, or do you try them out and see what happens? Well, this is just the case with the MSI Wind. Most people haven’t even heard of the name MSI until the MSI Wind came out and proved to everyone that it was a name to be reckoned with. Because of a product like the Wind, there’s a good chance that MSI will start increasing their market share. So, let’s get some background on MSI.

First Things First

First of all, MSI stands for Micro-Star International, Ltd. They are a rather large company based out of Taiwan, making all sorts of consumer electronic products from notebooks to graphics cards. Also, to several people’s surprise, the company is actually 20 years old, and has been present in the United States for 10 years. Their sales amount to an overwhelming $2.4 billion, making them a large company even without huge laptop market share. So, definitely not your mom and pop kind of store, we’re looking at a large corporation, with a well-established history.

The Pros

We haven’t quite done an in-depth review on the MSI Wind, but you can find several articles on this site that do list some of the pros and cons. Overall, the MSI Wind is not your top of the line Netbook, but it does have one major thing going for it: a very good price to feature ratio. As in, this netbook, as well as several other products from MSI are definitely some of the best buys for your money. Also one of the reasons that the MSI Wind joins the top ranks of netbooks. MSI also makes several of their own parts: motherboards, graphics cards, etc, so you can expect good functionality from their laptops. A lot of companies (even larger ones, not naming any names) use several cheap parts, including motherboards, graphics cards, etc, from various companies and put them all together. This saves the companies on cost, and makes the laptop cheaper, but can provide a lot of shortcomings in overall quality, because the parts don’t interact well together. Chalk up a win for MSI in the quality department.

The Cons

There are only really two cons I see with MSI right now. First is, obviously, they don’t have a lot of variety in their products. Quite frankly this is because they don’t have several products out. So, if the MSI Wind works for you, then great, if not, well you don’t have many other options. The other huge shortcoming I see in this company is customer support. There is no toll-free support, and no 24 hour service. Even more so, to post a question online, you can’t talk to a live representative but you have to fill out an online form. There is definitely a huge shortcoming in the customer service department, dissuading several potential customers.

Overall, MSI seems very solid as a company, and makes good products. But right now, their lack of technical support and customer support makes me want to avoid them until this problem is remedied. Even in the past year nothing has really changed in this department, but if MSI does choose to increase their market share, hopefully we will see an improvement.

Another Apple Pro: Customer Support

Mac Mini

It used to be, back in the day, where everyone prided themselves on customer support. This is where products were made or broken in the real world. When Dell first got started, their top notch customer support is one of the reasons that they got off to a booming start; much faster than most of the other laptop companies. Well, now, the Dell customer support is in a sad state of affairs, but more on that another time. Let’s just take a look at Apple’s customer support and see why its so much better than the rest.

The Non-Outsourcing

Now, I’m not being racist in any way, especially because my parents are from India, but the fact of the matter is that out-sourced customer service almost always causes problems. There are serious communication issues, due to either language barriers or inability to understand accents. Even further are the problems with a non-integrated customer supported. Usually the upper level customer support and management is in the United States, whereas the outsourced lower level customer support is in a different country. This causes several communication and time lag issues between customer service escalation. Apple, on the other hand, keeps all of its customer service (to my knowledge and experience) in house. This helps eliminate all of these barriers.

The Genius Bar

I’m sure if you’ve ever walked into an Apple store you’ve seen it, or even read about it on the internet. Basically it is just a help desk at the Apple store, with decently trained technicians. Most of the time only software problems are actually solved by the people at the Genius Bar, but even so, it is nice to actually interact with a person rather than a voice on the phone. Although the Genius Bar can’t solve your laptop problems most of the time, it is nice that they take care of the process of shipping, receiving, and everything in between. This saves you some time and trouble if anything else.

The Quick Turnaround

This is probably my favorite aspect of the Apple customer support. With most non-Apple products, whether it be Dell or Toshiba, or almost any other laptop company, the turn around time is weeks. Usually the quote time is between 2 and 8 weeks (depending on how lucky you are). This isn’t the case with most Apple repairs. The timeframe is generally in the span of days, not weeks. Usually its approximately 3-5 days, barring any unforeseen circumstances. When most people use their laptops for school, work, or just daily functionality, it is definitely not something you can do without for more than days.

From the examples above, and countless customer satisfaction stories online, it is clear to see that Apple’s customer support is leaps and bounds above most others. Obviously, this customer support isn’t free, and the costs may not be passed on to you directly, but one way or the other you will pay for it. Whether this is one of the reasons why Apple products are significantly more expensive, or why out of warranty repairs are considerably more expensive, the cost eventually comes back to the customer. Many laptop companies end up outsourcing to lower the overall cost of their laptops. The additional customer support is something I’m willing to pay some extra money for, but its up to decide whether the tradeoff is worth it for yo.