Praise for Best Buy

[caryseidner]

Over the past 6 years of inspecting, I had been averaging 1 new camera every 8 months or so. All of them were purchased online, except for the last one which I bought at Best Buy because I was in immediate need. I also figured I would take a little gamble (or little less gamble…I was hoping) and bought the 2 year replacement warranty for about $50.00.

Yesterday I dropped my camera in a sink filled with water. So I pulled my trusty spare out to finish the inspection and went to Best Buy this am. They told me that it would be 2-4 weeks to repair the camera, and I told them that I needed my camera everyday for my job and I could not wait that long. With veeeery little pushing on my part, they ended up giving me a store credit for the full amount of the original camera purchase price, plus a pro-rated amount for the balance of my extended warranty!

I haven’t been so pleasantly surprised with a retail store and their customer service in a very long time! Just thought I would share and by the way, switched over to Lumix from Canon.

[Steven Hockstein]

Thanks for sharing. It is nice to hear about a good retail experience for a change.

[Terence McCann]

I like Best Buy and spend wayyyy to much money there. There's never any pressure to buy, I've never been hassled when I return an item and once in a while you actually get someone in the know. There is one about 2 miles from my house.

I'm looking for a local chapter to get off electronics though - I've been strung out since my first Atari 800. Hey, I think I've just taken my first step.

[ejager]

Hi, My name is Egbert.

I am a Home Inspector and it has been 6 months 3 weeks since my last flashlight purchase.

[Erby]

I too, used to go thru way too many cameras from careless handling.

I've had this last one almost two years now. It's connectred to a lanyard around my neck and kept in a belt pouch with a LARGE velcro patch on the flap for easy secure closure. I still drop it but the lanyard catches it instead of letting it hit the ground.

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[caryseidner]

I too, used to go thru way too many cameras from careless handling.

I've had this last one almost two years now. It's connectred to a lanyard around my neck and kept in a belt pouch with a LARGE velcro patch on the flap for easy secure closure. I still drop it but the lanyard catches it instead of letting it hit the ground.

-

Erby, are you suggesting that I was careless in handling my camera? I wrote it up for slow drainage in the sink[]

[inspector57]

I've just received my Cannon back after out-of-warranty repairs for the second time. I typically consider cameras a throw away item but since I like his camera and they don't make it or anything similar that I have found I tried their factory repair. It is a flat fee to fix everything wrong with the camera and they rock. The first repair was a broken LCD screen and the second was a defective lens cover and would not focus. Less than $100 each time with the camera sent back in just a few days in like new condition.

Thanks Nolan for telling me about this.

[Jim Katen]

I've just received my Cannon back after out-of-warranty repairs for the second time. I typically consider cameras a throw away item but since I like his camera and they don't make it or anything similar that I have found I tried their factory repair. It is a flat fee to fix everything wrong with the camera and they rock. The first repair was a broken LCD screen and the second was a defective lens cover and would not focus. Less than $100 each time with the camera sent back in just a few days in like new condition.

Thanks Nolan for telling me about this.

Really? Do you have contact info on this?

The last time I looked into it, the flat fee was about $350. As a result, I taught myself to repair my own. I now have a working stable of 4 identical S100s and a half dozen "parts" bodies. It takes me about 2 hours to break down an S100 and reassemble it. If I could get each of them fixed for $100 each, I'd be on it in a minute.

- Jim Katen, Oregon

[Nolan Kienitz]

Really? Do you have contact info on this?

- Jim Katen, Oregon

Jim,

It is a Canon repair center. They have two locations for shipping the products to. Being in the D/FW market Jim L. and I get to send them up towards Chicago.

Here is the URL: Canon Support - Repair

It will step you through the particular product and advise of the base "out of warranty" fee. The cameras that Jim L and I happen to use are the Canon PowerShot A630. Good image screen, but still has a viewfinder as I've yet to come across any of the newer cameras with the image-only screen that lets you see things in bright sunlight.

I'm sure there are some out there, but I'm very happy with my A630 and I can get it refurbed every so often without any hassles.

[Jim Katen]

Really? Do you have contact info on this?

- Jim Katen, Oregon

Jim,

It is a Canon repair center. They have two locations for shipping the products to. Being in the D/FW market Jim L. and I get to send them up towards Chicago.

Here is the URL: Canon Support - Repair

It will step you through the particular product and advise of the base "out of warranty" fee. The cameras that Jim L and I happen to use are the Canon PowerShot A630. Good image screen, but still has a viewfinder as I've yet to come across any of the newer cameras with the image-only screen that lets you see things in bright sunlight.

I'm sure there are some out there, but I'm very happy with my A630 and I can get it refurbed every so often without any hassles.

Thanks.

When I filled out the request for a repair estimate, they said that they never heard of my camera. I'll call them on Monday.

- Jim Katen, Oregon

[Inspectorjoe]

....... It takes me about 2 hours to break down an S100 and reassemble it. If I could get each of them fixed for $100 each, I'd be on it in a minute.

Why, when you can get them for half that price on ebay? Every year, they get cheaper and cheaper. I just bought an S200 in like-new condition with a 128 MB card, two batteries and a Canon Powershot belt holder for $45 plus about $7 shipping. At prices like that, I might stop trying to fix them.

I think it's crazy to buy new cameras for inspection work. I'll be using S200's for the rest of my inspection career. It's the perfect rugged little camera. I've had one tumble end over end off a roof onto concrete to suffer only scratches. My latest mishap is having one slip out of my hand, sliding down a slate roof and landing in a gutter full of water. After drying for about two days, it started working again and has been my primary camera for several months.

The biggest 'operation' I've performed on one is replacing a screen. With what they are selling for today, I might put away the screwdriver except for little repairs such as door replacements.

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Plus, they take darn good pictures for a simple point and shoot. I took this snapshot with my new ebay purchase Saturday evening while on vacation. It's unretouched, just as it came off the card:

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[Marc]

I'm in my 8th year in business and third camera. I don't bother with repairing them.

Marc

[Brandon Whitmore]

Did anyone else used to use the cameras that used a floppy disk for storage vs. an SD card? I thought they were the greatest 'til I switched over........

[hausdok]

I used to use a really strange camera.

You opened up the back, dropped a little metal cylinder in there and then pulled a piece of celluloid stuff out of the cylinder, stuck it onto a slotted spool, cinched it up with a little lever and then closed the back of the camera. You could take pictures either in color or black and white and you had very precise control over brightness, exposure and contrast and could emphasize certain objects and/or take advantage of certain light conditions by tweaking shutter speed or aperture settings.

The detail you could get was incredible; although, if you didn't know how to control your breathing and finger movement you could end up with blurred out-of-focus pictures.

They were a little bit of a pain to use, and expensive; because, besides needing to manually adjust the focus, shutter speed and F-stop, you only got about 36 shots before you had to buy more of those little cylinders of celluloid film. Then, in order to get the pictures, you had to turn over the cylinder to a pimple-faced kid in a tiny kiosk out in the middle of the shopping mall parking lot and wait a day or so to come back and get your pictures.

Yep, those were the olden days. Why, I can still remember walking to school in the snow, uphill ten miles in both directions without shoes. Did I ever tell you about the music media we had - it was these wonderful black hard pressed vinyl disks. You put them onto a spinning turntable and then placed a little pointed barb on the disk while it was spinning and.....

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

[kurt]

I use an AFTWSD camera, as in any fxxxxxx thing with SD.....they're the best......

[ghentjr]

I used to use a really strange camera.

You opened up the back, dropped a little metal cylinder in there and then pulled a piece of celluloid stuff out of the cylinder, stuck it onto a slotted spool, cinched it up with a little lever and then closed the back of the camera. You could take pictures either in color or black and white and you had very precise control over brightness, exposure and contrast and could emphasize certain objects and/or take advantage of certain light conditions by tweaking shutter speed or aperture settings.

The detail you could get was incredible; although, if you didn't know how to control your breathing and finger movement you could end up with blurred out-of-focus pictures.

They were a little bit of a pain to use, and expensive; because, besides needing to manually adjust the focus, shutter speed and F-stop, you only got about 36 shots before you had to buy more of those little cylinders of celluloid film. Then, in order to get the pictures, you had to turn over the cylinder to a pimple-faced kid in a tiny kiosk out in the middle of the shopping mall parking lot and wait a day or so to come back and get your pictures.

Yep, those were the olden days. Why, I can still remember walking to school in the snow, uphill ten miles in both directions without shoes. Did I ever tell you about the music media we had - it was these wonderful black hard pressed vinyl disks. You put them onto a spinning turntable and then placed a little pointed barb on the disk while it was spinning and.....

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

I have a cabinet full of those little metal canisters with the strips of celluloid that I will be happy to sell to you at a really reduced price. As to the black vinyl disks, I still buy them at tag sales. Found an "Ethel Waters" album of 78's that had never had a needle laid on them. Great sound with the proper equipment.

[Jim Katen]

....... It takes me about 2 hours to break down an S100 and reassemble it. If I could get each of them fixed for $100 each, I'd be on it in a minute.

Why, when you can get them for half that price on ebay? Every year, they get cheaper and cheaper. I just bought an S200 in like-new condition with a 128 MB card, two batteries and a Canon Powershot belt holder for $45 plus about $7 shipping. At prices like that, I might stop trying to fix them.. . .

That's a good point. The last several S100s that I bought were all at or under $30 each from evilbay. It really is kind of absurd to even spend two hours fixing one but it jangles me the wrong way to throw out something that I could fix. That's why my office looks like the city dump.

- Jim Katen, Oregon