Buy one laptop, get one free
WE'VE ALL SEEN 'buy one, get one free' offers, but Fujitsu Siemens Computer UK (FSC) has taken it a step further. The company is offering to renew your laptop every three years for the rest of your life, if you buy a laptop right now with an extended three-year warranty.
The Lifebook4Life campaign will let consumers and businesses buy a Fujitsu Lifebook notebook right now, with the mandatory three-year warranty, and down the line receive another one of 'like for like specifications' as a replacement.
Filtering the wording on this, it actually means that the new laptop will be in the original’s price range plus ten per cent, and not a laptop with the same specifications as the original... otherwise that would be a very sorry laptop indeed. So if you buy a £1,000 laptop today, you’ll receive a £1,100 equivalent laptop by this time in 2011.
Of course you have to return the old one in the process. These old notebooks are recycled and will not be able to be purchased off FSC UK, in case you were wondering.
The campaign is open to businesses and consumers alike, but there’s a 10-unit cap on the purchase/claim. Also, the right to the new laptop cannot be passed on and is inexorably linked to the person/owner of the business who claimed the renewal (having gone through the registration and claim hoops), so if you’re thinking on getting creative, think again.
The financial reasoning is a bit deep: considering the three-year warranty costs about £50, FSC considers this an investment for the future, as the company will get the cost of the computers back on selling additional products and services – for example a FSC server for your company’s sales force.
As things stand the campaign ends March 31st 2009 and is limited to the UK. However, as of March 31st 2009, FSC officially ceases to exist and is replaced by Fujitsu’s own brand (which we have on good authority is to be called... Fujitsu). FSC gave us around 99.9 per cent certainty this promotion is carried (and held) in the new company.
We can't see a sales surge in FSC UK's business hurt its position in the future Fujitsu structure, either.
We’d just read all the fine print if we were considering buying up new lappies under this campaign. µ
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I would presume We get to choose the replacement with a given budget of £original price + 10%?!? Or that would be a lil pedestrian... can someone confirm? i hate reading small print ^_^
Based on previous experience I wouldn't even buy a laptop from FSC if it meant I would get a new one every three years for the rest of my life and my money back.

List of mishaps in two years on a single machine:
- Broken charger (2x)
- Broken off powerconnector
- Overaged battery (2x)
- Dead harddrive
- No OpenGL-videodrivers
- Broken of hinges of screen (2x)
- Backlight bleeding
- Backligt defect

And that was without dropping it even once.
Perhaps they don't mean anything by it, but Clause 5 of their T & C s states:

"The replacement Lifebook value will be determined by the original purchase price shown on the invoice, increased by 10% every 3 years. For example; a Lifebook purchased for £1000 today would be exchanged for a model with a recommended retail price not exceeding £1100 in 3 years time."

So, they can provide you with a replacement model with a recommended retail price *not exceeding* £1100 - so they could provide a replacement for £ 199, say. This makes the offer a little pedestrian, doesn't it?