Old For New

When I opened the mailbox yesterday, among the other mails was this:



My thoughts immediately went to our 4-year-old Compaq PC, which since middle of the year have been behaving crankily by auto-rebooting every so often, sometimes obstinately refusing to boot-up and protesting with a loud BEEEEP when the power button is depressed, and then eventually dying on us completely when the failure to power-up gradually increased to 100%. We have got this PC shortly after returning from the UK in 2003. Notable upgrades to this unit included an LCD monitor, active speaker set with subwoofer and a quite recent addition of a DVD-writer drive. Anyway, after reading the flyer I remarked...

Me: Acer 有 promotion 可以把旧 PC 和 laptop trade in $700 leh. 要不要把我们的那架坏的电脑换掉，买新的？

Angie: 哇，酱好啊？那当然Ok 啦!

And so this morning we showed up at Funan IT Mall Level 1 Atrium at 10am, after having our breakfast at Maxwell Market. The event was slated to start only at 11am, but already, there was a substantially long queue.

However, we noted that most of those present in the queue didn't have any hardware with them, and quickly realised that they were all there not for the trade-in offer, but rather for the redemption of the free Acer optical mouse (worth $49.90). Wah, got free things leh! No wonder got people queuing since even before 9am lah (I was later informed by a Acer sales staff there)! Since we were there, absolutely no sense in not picking up the freebies too. The redemption of the free mouse was limited to one person per household, and valid to the first 100 households on a first come first serve basis. As the staff went around giving up forms (to record address for verification purposes) to those in the queue, we realised that we were 50th in the line.

At the first sight of the Acer sales staff, I went up to ask...

Me: Hi. I'd like to know if there are any requirements with regard to the condition of the old PC and laptop for trading in?

Sales guy: Any condition.

Me: My old PC has problems with booting up. Would that be elligible for the trade-in?

Sales guy: No problem. You just bring your PC here.

Swee.

What followed then went smoothly too. They took in my old Compaq CPU and LCD, presented me with a $700 voucher, I went ahead to an ATM on Level 3 and withdrew the $$, made payment, and that was it. Our new laptop - the Acer Extensa 4620 - original price $2,098, price after trading-in $1,398.

By the time I was handed the laptop nicely packed up in the free laptop bag, Angie has also received the free Acer wireless optical mouse. Works like a charm with the new laptop.

Swee.