> Heh. *My* laptop came from PC World, so it had a 6 month warranty instead 
> of the usual 12 months.

Regardless of the warranty advertised, if a battery fails within an 
"unreasonably" short time, you can request a refund or replacement free of 
charge.  If it failed within 8 months, I think most people (including a 
judge) would think that unreasonable.

> Also, if you want support, you *must* get it through PC World. (If it had 
> been bought anywhere else, we would have got it direct from the 
> manufacturers.)

It's the place you bought it from that is legally responsible to 
fix/replace/refund anything broken, not the manufacturer.

> Also, it apparently took my mum many, many months to find a replacement 
> battery. Apparently she had to buy an exorbitant sum to have one shipped 
> over from Korea specially. (Or at least, this is what she told me...)

Oh, our IT guy just phoned up Dell and they were here the next day, I think 
they were something like 50 pounds each.

> All different versions of Acer TravelMate. None of them are young any 
> more. (Maybe 2, 3 years old?) A few of them will run on battery power for, 
> like, 20 minutes. But none are very reliable. Apparently they were when 
> new.

I would say that after 3 years hard use, 20 minutes battery life is not that 
surprising.  Batteries don't last forever, which is why replacements are 
readily available from the usual manufacturers.

> My dad bought a Belkin WiFi router which comes with a free Belkin WiFi 
> adaptor for your PC. In other words, the entire rig is same-brand - and a 
> pricey brand at that! But no, he had endless problems with it.

Belkin, pricey? :-O

> But even so, if you move too far away from the router... no signal.

Oh yeh you wally, you should have told him to get the router with infinite 
output power :-D

> BTW, is WiFi faster or slower than Bluetooth? Every time I have to use 
> that thing, I'm struck by how utterly low it is. (10 minutes to transfer a 
> few KB??)

Bluetooth is way slower, I don't think it's meant for data-heavy 
applications, but 10 minutes for a few KB is too slow for BT.  I can usually 
send an MP3 (about 3MB) to my phone in 10 seconds or so.

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