Illini Union Tech Zone

I dropped off my laptop on a Friday knowing it had a battery issue. I get an email from the technician saying he wants to charge me $370 to replace it and I need to come into the store to pay him so he can order the part. By the time I read the email he was off his shift. Saturday I go in to take back the laptop because I don't want to pay that much. They tell me they know where the laptop is but they can't give it to me because I needed to email that specific technician and tell him I didn't want the repair. So then I email him and I don't get it back until Monday. Stupid system.

- Augustine Fisher

I would be very skeptical of anything the mac repair people tell you. I took in a macbook pro with a display that didn't work. I thought at the very least since they charge around a $30 diagnostic fee, they could tell me what was wrong with it. When they called, they said my display was broken, and I asked if they knew what was wrong with it. They said "yeah, it doesn't work". Helpful. They quoted me for a repair that was over $1000, more than the price of the computer. I asked if they could recover the data on the drive, they quoted me some price in the hundreds (might have been as high as $200 or $300!!). If you don't know, the only thing you need for data recovery on a computer whose only problems are the battery and display is a thunderbolt cable, which I bought for $17 online. DO NOT PAY them that much to do data recovery. Unless there's some sort of wizard reconstruction or decryption going on, it is not worth that much, it's literally plugging a cable in and transferring files. When I got the computer back, it had more problems than when I took it in, as they hadn't bothered to plug the keyboard into the motherboard when they reassembled it, so I had to take it apart and do that. Then it turned out that all it needed to get the (nearly brand new) screen working was a $20 cable. They were correct the battery is messed up but with $20 worth of (admittedly laborious) repairs and the computer works fine when plugged in. I can't believe I paid them a diagnostic fee to be told something so unspecific, and I can't believe the level of price gouging in a place that's supposed to be affordable for students. Try some place else.

- Wyatt Kuehster

I want to check my pc for a potential liquid damage; everything is good until we went to there before store closing to pick up. The woman technician totally denied that she said we could have it back by the end of the day. She directly told the receptionist to refund with a bad attitude. The receptionists are welcoming but this store really needs to hire a technician with the right attitude.

- Chang Chen

I bought a pair of on-ear headphones, but apparently they have a no-return policy on headphones, because I wore them, which is ridiculous and completely made up. What's worse, is that I wasn't told about this policy during the checkout, and it wasn't on the receipt. So I was stuck with headphones that hurt my ears, and all I got from the manager was "oh honey, these are great, you should keep them", not a refund or at least store credit.

- Nikita Annenkov

0 STARS!!! Extremely slow and inefficient service. It took them 1.5 months to order a part for my Macbook. On top of that, it didn’t even fix my laptop. Why would you not keep SPARE PARTS to test something??? And then they charged me $30 for “diagnostics” and labor? Why?? They clearly failed in diagnosing the issue. Horrible experience, NEVER coming back!

- Bella Sharma