Tuesday 25 November 2014

iPearl mCover For Acer C720/C720P Chromebook Follow Up Review (Part 1)

After owning the iPearl mCover 9 months and three days it started to fall apart slightly. The rear folding leg on the left hand side broke on the inside of the base of the case meaning that the leg keeps falling down, making it hard to just slip it into my Laptop bag without having to think carefully how I'm sliding it in, and the rear right corner of the base of the cover where it wraps around the corner of the Chromebook has broken slightly.
How the rear left corner of the mCover looks un-broken

How the rear right corner of the mCover looks broken

Rear right fod ut leg broken





This is despite treating my Chromebook with care therefore while I've been using the mCover I've also been treating that with care, so the cover shouldn't just start falling apart when it's been treated as carefully as the Laptop that it covers. I decided to send an Email to iPearl on Sunday detailing my problems.

To who it may concern,

I bought an iPearl mCover for my Acer C720 Chromebook from your Amazon UK store on the 21st of February this year.

 After 9 months and three days of owning it the left hand leg has broken meaning that it constantly falls down when not in use, and the right hand rear corner has broken.

The case hasn't been treated roughly while in use, so quite why the left leg & right rear corner has broken I don't know.

I did a two part review of this cover on my blog over a week when I first received my cover and gave it a very favourable review, had I known that there was these two defects I wouldn't have given it such a favourable review.

Regards

Mr. Roland Hurt
I was shocked at how quickly I got a response from iPearl with it being a Sunday, as they replied to me within a few hours of me sending them an Email.

Thank you for contacting us.  We do have a 90 day warranty on our case, however your case is now out of warranty at this time

Thank you,
iPearl Inc

I was a little shocked that they only have a 90 day warranty on their cases as most Manufacturers have a 1 year warranty on their items. This means that since the cover has started to break after their 90 day warranty period I'm left ether with a broken product or out of pocket having to replace it.

Since I'd not left a Review of the cover on Amazon UK even though I'd had the case for over 9 months, it gave me the ideal opportunity to let people looking at the cover know what happens.

If the cover had been a cheap Chinese knock off bough on eBay then I could expect it falling apart quickly, but I bought the cover from the iPearl UK Amazon store, so I'd expect it to last years with care not just to last past its warranty before falling apart.

I'm a little angry that the case has started to fall apart so quickly as it cost me nearly £20 GBP when I got it. For the build quality since it doesn't even last 1 year without starting to fall apart despite been treated as if it's as fragile as the Laptop that it covers then it should be priced in the range of a cheap knock off Chinese cover sold on eBay.

I'm starting to wish that I'd left the second part of the review for a little longer than a week, so I would't have needed to write this Article, but I expected it to be of sufficient enough quality to have lasted years, especially when I first saw these covers reviewed on Android Central.

I said that I'd recommend the iPearl mCover in the second part of my initial review of the cover earlier in the year. If I was to do the same review now I'd have to think long and hard about whether I'd recommend the iPearl mCover or not. based on the fact that it's only covered by a 90 day warranty I'd probably not recommend it, but as it's the only hard shell cover for the Acer C720/C720P then I'd still recommend it but this time with a warning that it's only covered by a 90 day warranty and even if it is treated with care like the Chromebook that it's protecting it'll start to break after the 90 day warranty has expired.

Rant over

Roland

Portable Docking Station Review

I'm using a Portable Docking Station in my desk setup as it acts as I riser for my Acer C720 Chromebook meaning that I can angle the screen at just the right hight to use it as a desktop system while I'm at home.

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