A Happy Ending

Well,

I returned to the Canon Service Center on Monday. They weren’t picking up the phone, so I just went straight there. They returned my camera.

It is working.

Not only is it fixed, but it is working perfectly. I went from very dissatisfied and upset to quite happy. I can now recommend Canon to my friends.

Thanks CANON!

What happens when your new Canon A470 digital camera breaks in Cebu?

I just purchased a new Canon A470 digital camera 11 days ago at Ayala Center Cebu. After two or three days, I started getting weird behavior from the lens. It would sometimes take photos with a lot of lines through them and occasionally the camera’s screen would go completely black and just display a “Lens error, restart camera” message.

Now this is a brand new, Canon A470 digital camera. Not pre-owned, but straight from the box. I kept using the camera because it was still functional most of the time. Finally, 7 days after purchasing it, the “Lens error, restart camera” message became permanent.

I wasn’t too happy about that, so I took it back to the store and they gave me the address for the Canon Service Center in Mandaue City. I had to take a taxi there because I’m not familiar with the area. Anyway, the Canon Service Center is on Hernan Cortes street and the taxi driver eventually found it.

I went in and waited about 5 or 10 minutes. Apparently, they can’t fix it here in Cebu, but have to send the camera to Manila. They asked if we broke it or had dropped it. (We hadn’t). Apparently, they are going to determine if the Canon camera was broken by user error or by its own fault. I would say if you have a camera that breaks within 1 week if is the camera’s fault!!!

The whole ordeal will take 1 month, at which time I will know what the fate of my camera is going to be.

So, before you buy a new Canon A470 (currently around 9,450 pesos in most stores in Ayala Center Cebu and SM City Cebu), you might want to consider that it could break in a few days and you won’t have it for a month.

A last word, the camera has a warranty, but they said it would be invalidated if the camera was broken by me. Hello!!! Do a search on the web, and you will see this error has happened to many users of Canon cameras who did not drop their camera.

Canon needs to work on their quality assurance and make their cameras less fragile. While the A470 camera itself was easy to use and took great photos, the retractable zoom lens is fragile and error-prone.

I will give you an update in 3 weeks when I contact the Canon Service Center for an update.

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If you haven’t seen the update, you can see it HERE.