[jackbrown]

Well, the minute I bought the repair vouchers, I got two very nice surprises. A reply from the store saying the repair was actually in warranty, and a note from Karel (at Irex support) saying he'd been out of the office on vacation for a couple of weeks, thus his lack of replies, and that now that he was back, he'd cleared up the mix up at the repair center, and that my money would be refunded promptly and they'd do the repair for free.

All of which needless to say puts me in a very good mood toward Irex again. My feeling after this (my interaction with Karel and the repairs dept. people) is that when it comes down to it Irex is a very very small operation and they just don't have enough people to deal with weird problems like mine (a repair center mix-up) with any degree of speed and effectiveness. If it was Sony, the replies would have been more prompt, but on the other hand I wonder if they would have ultimately been as nice as Irex... Anyway, assuming the Iliad eventually gets back to me with the screen fault fixed, I will be a very happy customer again...now if they could just line up some newspaper subscriptions!!!