ACi offers ‘all-inclusive’ warranty on laptops

Allied Computers International (ACi) has rolled out a comprehensive

protection plan for its laptops, which will cover all damages caused by unusual

circumstances. All new ACi laptops will now carry one-year warranty that covers

repair for any problem with the machine.

The ‘insurance scheme’ as ACi calls it, will cover laptops for all kind

of failure, like malfunction of components and damage to the casing of the

machine. Says Hirji Patel, MD, ACi, "Usually vendors do not repair broken

components and powerboards that have been damaged due to surge in the electrical

output, saying it is not covered under the normal warranty terms. But it is

important to realize that a laptop is a mobile device and as such the risk of

dropping it or banging it somewhere is high."

ACi had first launched this scheme in UK four years ago and following its

success, decided to emulate it in India too. Users can go for an extended

warranty which will bundle this insurance scheme for the second and third year

for a cost. For the second year, the warranty will cost 10 percent of the

depreciated value of the machine and for the third year, it will be 17 percent.

ACi has also decided to use the franchise model in India. Under this model,

the company will tie up with dealers and retailers, who will sell and service

their machines under the same roof. "Our USP is service and we realized

that if we tie up with a national distributor, he will only push boxes, without

providing service throughout the country," says Hirji.

ACi is also launching Impression, a P4 laptop with 128MB DDR RAM (upgradeable

to 1024 MB DDR RAM), 14.1 TFT color display and nVidia GeForce4 Go graphics card

- 32MB DDR for VRAM. The machine weighs 2.8 kg and is priced at Rs 1.5 lakh

upwards.

States Hirji, "This machine is equivalent to Toshiba’s Satelite 3000

series which would cost about Rs 2 lakh in India." The Impression notebook

also comes with a memory slot for adding additional memory through a memory

stick.

VINITA BHATIA