[G Tablet General] bardell3600:
Merimobiles Purchase Detailed Review

Merimobiles is being unfairly maligned in this tread. Most of us do not deal with international shipping frequently. Once I sort of understood what was going on, my opinion changed markedly.

First let me state that I am in no way associated with Merimobiles nor did I receive anything for writing this review. I live in Washington State USA, just south of Microsoft-land, in a little city with an Indian name – Issaquah.

I am a first-time Chinese tablet purchaser. My biggest fear was my money going off across the Pacific and 1) not being able to contact the merchant with questions or 2) problems with the product and an unresponsive merchant.

I decided to try Merimobiles for two reasons; they have a North American 800 number and they have a good reputation with ResellerRatings.com.

I decided that before I placed an order with Merimobiles that I would place a test call to the 800-204-0883 number. I called and got a recording. My mind goes to tales of online merchants that never answer their phone and never return calls. I left a message literally saying I was considering a purchase with Merimobiles and the purpose of my call was to see if they answered the telephone. I left my phone number and said I would test call again in 2 hours. Much to my surprise I received a call back in about ½ hour. We discussed three tablets I was considering. He suggested I would be happiest with the newest of the three I listed but warned me that because it was so new that there would be a delay in shipping because they were had sent their stock back to the manufacturer for software updates.

I was so pleasantly surprised and satisfied with our telephone chat that it was at this point I started thinking that these folks are being unfairly maligned. I envisioned writing this review to tell of Merimobiles current level of customer service.

If you read through the various reviews you will see that they have improve as you read the more recent reviews. The very angry posts are the older ones.

Here are the bullet points of my experience (today’s –midyear 2013 – service)

Responsiveness:

•	Called 800 #, the call was returned within 30 minutes

•	Emailed support@merimobiles.com a half-dozen times, each and every email was replied to within the promised 48 hours, usually within 24 hours and sometimes within just a handful of hours

•	I used LiveChat three times, I always had to wait a while for my turn but that was always within an hour or so and usually just minutes.

•	I also used LiveChat’s Offline leave a message capability once and this was responded to the next morning

Product:

•	I ordered one of the latest and greatest dual-core Android tablets that had only been released the month before (Window N90 II) and received exactly what I ordered.

•	It came with the latest firmware which was only released but the manufacturer on the day that I ordered the tablet!

•	It was double boxed with bubble-wrap between the two boxes to protect the inner box which was the manufacture’s shipping box.

•	The entire outside was wrapped with shipping tape to prevent the packaging from coming apart. I had to use shears and a knife to get into it

•	The tablet and all the parts arrived undamaged

•	So far I really like this tablet (which, but the way, is the one that was recommended on my 800 # call.)

•	I have one small issue concerning the Power Adapter-Charger that I have emailed them about (it works fine.)

Shipping:

•	I opted to pay more and use DHL. I can’t say enough about DHL. Total time from their pickup in Hong Kong to my front door was 33 hours

•	There are couple days that I don’t truly understand from the time it leaves Merimobiles’ facility in Shenzhen China to when DHL logs it onto their system in Hong Kong. Both Merimobiles and DHL are a bit vague on this but just plan on 24 to 48 hours to get across the border into Hong Kong.

The complaint (this thread) about B.S. tracking numbers is part of this mysterious 24 to 48 hours. Merimobiles can give you a tracking number quite a bit of time before it shows up in the carrier’s tracking system.

•	There was the issue of the tablet having been returned to the manufacturer for some software update. This ended up adding insignificantly (1 day) to Merimobiles advertised delivery interval. And I need to note, that as of this writing (a few days after receiving) many online merchants still have the tablet in question as a pre-order. That is, they have yet to start shipping at all.

Overall Experience:

•	Excellent!

•	Tremendous responsiveness on all three channels of communication that I tried.

•	Latest Firmware – only days old

•	Exactly as ordered

•	Undamaged

•	Great little tablet

•	They even threw in a carrying sleeve that I hadn’t expected

•	Overall shipping time was one day longer that their posted schedule but I had been forewarned of more than one days delay so they exceeded my expectation!

•	I will wait the response to my email concerning the Charger (but the nice thing is I am 100% positive they will respond.)