Cheap At A Fifth Of The Price

I’ve been off the grid for the last three days or so – life got in the way of blogging – thank god, because I was running out of ideas – blogger’s block!

I’ve been having a slight problem with my laptop for a while now, and I thought I’d managed to get it fixed last month, before the guarantee ran out. The disc drive wasn’t working properly (it wasn’t burning discs), so I took it in, Sebastian the engineer bloke said he’d sorted it, and I was happy. He told me to check it out, so that if it still didn’t work, it could be sorted while it was still under the guarantee. It was fine, so I didn’t bother. Then, last week, the disc drive stopped working completely – it would not play any type of disc at all. I was pissed off, but not massively so. I wasn’t sure it could be fixed, wasn’t ready to change the laptop as it’s great otherwise, and was quite willing to have to buy an external drive. But I took it back to Sebastian anyway. He had a look, and told me that I would have to replace the drive – no big surprise. With his company it would cost me €241 to get it sorted. Then he told me to take it to his friend down the road who had a computer shop. He said that his company had to use a certain supplier, but that independent people can shop around and I might get it cheaper.

So, off we toddled to his mate’s shop. I explained the problem, he flipped the laptop over, undid a couple of screws, pulled out the disc drive (I didn’t know it did that!), checked the model number, and ordered one. €50, not €241 – almost a fifth of the price! And no labour charge as it takes 30 seconds to fit it. It’s a generic model rather than a branded one, but I don’t care, as long as it works. And it comes with a brand new 1yr guarantee on the drive.

So, when it comes in next week I will be a happy person. I love my laptop! Not sure if I love the laptop or iPod more – it’s a close one!