Purchase of ASus Laptop

When Asus Zephyrus G14 I was very excited about this laptop. At the current time I was using and Apple devices starting with Apple watch ending up with iMac with everything in between including iPad and MacBook pro however I had also own Xbox one for gaming. Looking on the reviews and specification the Asus Zephyrus G14 Ultrabook has I was very confident to sale all my devices and switch to windows-based system that will fulfil my needs from work to gaming. At the time, the Asus Zephyrus G14 was not available yet but I decided to pre-order the highest spec unit with AMD RYZEN 4900HS and GFORCE RTX 2060 max-q.

First experience with Asus Ultrabook

I had very good first impression with this unit, it ticked all the boxes for me despite the fact it I a noisy system but taking into consideration the power of this laptop I accepted the fact that the cooling system must be sufficient enough to cool the laptop down.

The packaging was impressive and also 2 years warranty inspired confidence about the product as well as the company. I felt like I found perfect replacement for all my stuff that I just sold without missing anything. At this stage I was very happy user for about two months until some unexpected stuff start happening.

Problems with Asus laptop

First, I want to say that I have watched every YouTube video that was available online to make an informed decision to buy Asus Zephyrus G14 Ultrabook and I was very impressed with the reviews taking into consideration the preference users may have and I was confident there is nothing that could make me regret my decision, but I was wrong.

First problem with Asus laptop showed up after few weeks of use being a touchpad. The trackpad on this Asus Laptop is not bad despite its small size which is sufficient for me however after some use it developed tap click as you can see on the video bellow.

I do understand this was not a serious technical issue but coming from apple force trackpad it just kept driving me crazy and as I said it before this meant to be the best gaming Ultrabook in the world in terms of specs and build quality. Talking of the build quality this takes me to another point here :(

Asus Ultrabook build quality

At first glance you may say the Zephyrus G14 is premium product as Asus claims and all youtubers say however here is the catch. They do not own this product long enough to find out about potential problems that may accrue in the future and I do not blame them as they job is to test the unit and give a first impression about a build quality.

So here is the problem with my unit. After a few weeks of normal use and I mean having this laptop in my home seating on the desk or my laps the soft coating start peeling off by itself creating damaged look around the sides of the ASUS laptop.

First, I thought I will ignore this as during the lockdown I was heavily depended on this laptop do my work. However, the trackpad issue and coating peeling off kept growing on me and I decided to get in touch with Asus Customer Service and sort this out. And here it is the main story!

Asus Customer Service

I contacted ASUS customer support by phone still having more then year and a half active warranty. The ASUS representative told me to submit online RMA with the issues as well to attach the photos of the damage. I have submitted the RMA and after few days the laptop was picked up by the courier to the designated repair centre in UK www.letmerepair.co.uk

At this stage I had direct number to the repair centre so I called them up to ask if my hard drive will be deleted as I wanted to make windows copy image in case will I need to restore my system. I was ensured this will not going to happened as there is no software issue involved in the repair.

After around three weeks I got the laptop back in the same condition but with the hard drive wiped out. I called the Asus customer service again explaining the situation that the case was not fixed so the representative promised me to investigate this and get back to me. After a few days I got the replay the trackpad issue has been fixed but the case is not under warranty because is a cosmetic issue. So, I called them again and again, but they just kept telling me the same story, we will escalate your case to level 2 support but at the end the answer was this is not covered by our warranty which makes no sense to me as this is clearly build quality issue.

Conclusion

I do understand the things happened and this was a first model however I cannot understand the Asus Customer Service approach to clearly defective quality build. In addition to that I spend hours explaining the same story over and over the phone just to be ignored. So specifically, here are my points.

1. Why Asus accepted the repair having the photos of the issue clearly showing defective part and the coating peeling off.

2. Why I was not informed about the issue not being fixed while the laptop was in the repair centre.

In result of their misleading actions, I have wasted hours of my time dealing with Asus customer service both over the phone a by email and restoring my hard drive to the stage before.

The most disappointing fact is that I was very close to be happy customer and I would definitely buy a new upcoming model of Asus Zephyrus G14 2021 but taking consideration my recent experience with Asus Customer Service I will most likely avoid Asus products from now on.

Of course, after the fact I found more similar cases like mine which just confirms this is a build quality and manufacturing defect and should be sorted out under warranty and not to be ignored by Asus Customer Service.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ZephyrusG14/comments/hqclbx/shells_coating_peeling_off/

https://rog.asus.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-41863.html

https://www.reddit.com/r/ASUS/comments/etj1om/worst_customer_service_i_have_experienced/

https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.asus-uk.com

https://asus-terrible-customer-service.blogspot.com/2021/01/asus-terrible-customer-service-and-poor.html

https://www.cnet.com/forums/discussions/asus-the-worst-support-ever-403905/

https://hardforum.com/threads/recent-terrible-customer-support-experience-with-asus.1941639/

https://www.resellerratings.com/store/ASUS