no love for sony

if anyone is thinking about buying a dvd burning drive, my advice is to steer clear of sony's dru-710a. i had one that stopped working after 3 months. the technical support left something to be desired, and the whole experience soured me a bit on the company. even though i've lived in japan and want desperately to support japanese companies, sony has lost me as a customer for the foreseeable future.

the good people at staples, a company i definitely plan to support in the future, hooked me up with a fine memorex dvd burner, saving me the trouble (time and money) of packaging and sending the defective sony drive to iowa. i told the manager of my 2 hour ordeal with the sony "support" team (90% of that time having been spent on hold) and she offered to exchange it for another drive instead of making me hassle with it.

so, this was my recent experience with market economics. sony dismissed me, staples embraced me. guess which one of these companies will get my business in the future.