Pain in the neck

Ok, so several pains in the neck.

An actual one to begin with. For some reason, my neck has been hurting the last few days. And no, it's not from the way I slept, cause I tried sleeping in different positions to no relief. So have been walking around with a twinge in my neck that spikes up to severe pain every now and then...or should I say every Ow and then. Yep, that's my pathetic sense of humour...and I get to blame it on the pain in my neck.

Next up, Bose. Not the several good natured Bengali families who carry that last name. Bose, the makers of sound equipment, you know...speakers, headphones and the like. As you all might remember, I blogged a long time ago that I am the possessor of the Bose Quiet Comfort series QC3 headphones. These are amazing headphones that cancel noise and make the audio experience so much better. I have carried them around with me everywhere since the last year and half. So why is Bose the pain in the neck you ask?

A month ago, the battery charger for my Bose QC3 died mysteriously. One moment it was charging my battery, the next moment it was just sitting there doing nothing. Out of the blue, just phlat! So I went to the Bose service station to check on a replacement. Guess how much they told me a replacement charger cost? Rs 3000! Close to $70! What the ^%$@?!?!

So I politely declined, went back home, opened up my QC3 charger, only to find that they have sealed a bunch of stuff inside which makes it impossible to DIY repair it. So left with no choice, I went back to the service center and agreed to pay the ransom they demanded to get my headphones working again. Only this time, I asked them what the warranty is on the charger. Guess what? NONE! Not even for a day. All they would agree to do was to show me that it charges a battery and that's it. Nothing more. After that, I'm on my own!

Now my question is: are they penalizing me for buying their stuff? I can understand companies like HP selling cheap printers to make money off the printer cartridges, but Bose already charges a premium for their products. So why be so inconsiderate towards their customers? Once thing is for certain. I am not buying another Bose product in my life. They just lost a customer.

On the flip side, my headphones are back where they belong...over my ears :)

And finally there is Tata DoCoMo, whose latest 3G service is something I have wanted to try for a while now. Since I have an extra iPhone (thanx Vasu) which I am using to test the Android OS on the iPhone, I can use that as a backup phone while I use my 3GS to test the DoCoMo call quality as well as the power of the 3G network. So I walked into the DoCoMo store on Richmond Road and asked for a pre-paid card. They were very helpful and quickly took care of the formalities to get my card ready and topped with Rs 373 to get me off. What they forgot to tell me was that the account balance would not show that amount, it would show only the buffer amount (Rs 10) in case I overstep my charged amount. Also, they forgot to tell me that I have to enter an APN number (TATA.DOCOMO.INTERNET) to get my 3G connection going. Since I did not know this, I kept getting a connection error. That meant another trip to the store to resolve this. A completely unnecessary trip. Another pain in the neck.

As far as I can tell, the network is just a shade better than Airtel's and my phone has lost signal a couple of times, but has caught it back on quicker than Airtel's. Also, while the 3G browsing experience has not exactly knocked my socks off, it is visibly faster than the Edge network I get on Airtel. More testing and network reviews coming, so keep a lookout here.