India's repair culture gives new life to dead laptops

Re:India's repair culture gives new life to dead laptops by ravirajx7 on Tuesday April 08, 2025 @01:08AM (#43618508)

This reminded me of something that happened to a friend of mine not long ago. He’d just been laid off from a pretty good Salesforce Admin job and was already in a tight spot financially when his laptop’s motherboard fried after a voltage spike.

Local shops were quoting ₹25,000–₹30,000 (roughly $300–$360), which he just couldn’t afford. Then a friend told him about Nehru Place. He sent the laptop there through someone he knew, and the repair only cost him around ₹5,000–₹10,000 ($60–$120). Way more reasonable.

He was glad to get it fixed without spending a lot but it does make you wonder how reliable those reused parts are. Like, how long is it gonna hold up before something else goes wrong?

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Re:India's repair culture gives new life to dead laptops by sokz on Tuesday April 08, 2025 @01:57AM (#43618739)

Delhi NCR in general looks like a pretty nice place to source tech in India. The Bangalore counterpart of Nehru Place, SP Road felt expensive and a bit less competent than I expected.

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Re:India's repair culture gives new life to dead laptops by gyomu on Tuesday April 08, 2025 @01:12AM (#43618523)

I could also see unscrupulous businesses swapping out original parts in machines sent for repair for cheaper ones as a way to drive their costs down. The vast majority of customers wouldn’t be able to tell/prove what happened.

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Re:India's repair culture gives new life to dead laptops by sokz on Tuesday April 08, 2025 @01:53AM (#43618719)

Spare parts are expensive in general in India. Add to the fact that there are unscrupulous repair centers, I am certain that the theft of genuine parts happen regularly.

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Re:India's repair culture gives new life to dead laptops by LordGrignard on Tuesday April 08, 2025 @01:28AM (#43618587)

this is all the more important since 60$ in india is enough for a meal for four in an expensive restaurant in one of the better malls ( for e.g. in Mumbai ) ... and 25k to 30k is just ludicrous for a laptop. Even 5-10k will easily hurt his pockets but it depends on what the laptop's specs were and what it was worth

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Re:India's repair culture gives new life to dead laptops by InfinityByTen on Tuesday April 08, 2025 @08:43AM (#43621067)

Heh, my brother got his Xbox original controller fixed for ₹200 which was just misbehaving due to old battery gunk. He could have afforded a new one, sure, but the charm of having the thing get another life, is a separate kick altogether :)

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