Apples & Oranges Computer and Phone Repair - Ann Arbor — Local services in Ann Arbor

This is from my repair experience back at the start of the semester.

I am part of the University of Michigan Esports team Varsity. My current system is a custom-built PC with an Intel i7-11700k and a 6700XT that I have been using for the past half a year or so for homework and esports tournaments with no issue.

At the start of the semester, I upgraded my system from Windows 10 to 11. All was fine until my mouse couldn't click on specific desktop elements. For example, I could click and multi-select by dragging my mouse across the desktop. Still, I couldn't click on any of the programs or files on the desktop and launch/open them. If I had Firefox opened, I could click and navigate through Firefox, but I couldn't click on the desktop, the start menu, etc. I spent days trying to fix this, including reinstalling Windows 11 and reverting to Windows 10. I have tried all the online solutions for the issues, which were only temporary. I could click other desktop elements for one click, and then the same problem would reoccur constantly. I have also tested multiple mice and tested each mouse and four different systems to confirm they were fully functioning, both wired and wireless. The mice I tested were:

Finalmouse Starlight Pro Small/Medium Logitech g303 SE Logitech GproX Superlight Logitech Gpro Fantech Aria XD7

I can confirm with 100% certainty that this was not a mouse issue.

With no other options, I opted to take my PC to this repair shop with a detailed description of the symptoms, as tryouts for this semester's esports team were only days away.

The repair shop had the PC for about two to three days(I need to remember the specifics) and charged me 100 dollars for the motherboard repair, cleaning, and BIOS updates. However, the same issue persisted when I got my system back to my apartment. I contacted the repair shop, and they requested that I return the PC. This was impossible to do so, as tryouts were a few hours away. I had to have a working system in the next hour if I wanted to qualify for Varsity.

I ended up wiping the system and Installing Fedora Linux. To my surprise, everything works, including all of my games, and I have been using the system perfectly ever since. Our team is now within the top-ranked College esports in BEC and NECC.

I write this review now as I realize that Apples and Oranges charged me for things I never initially requested and were never able to fix the issue. And from the calls and conversations I had with the representatives, they even failed to replicate the symptoms of the problem!

It's already been a month or two since then, and I've only been charged a hundred dollars of labor, so there's no point in pursuing further. So, I'll leave this review here to help whoever might consider shopping here. Always ask for an itemized bill and a detailed list of what the technician performed, and make sure they only do exactly what...

DON'T DO IT! I thought I could save time by letting the "experts" fix my Windows Explorer problem. Their version of leaving all my files in place was completely destroying the directory structure, losing all the metadata (e.g., time and date stamps for last modified), and moving my hundreds of files from several directories and subdirectories into a single "Apples and Oranges" folder. (Now I know how they got their name, I guess.) And they weren't volunteering this info either - no mention of it when they called to tell me it was ready, or when I picked it up. Didn't even tell me they had removed all password protection - if I hadn't checked while I was still there, I'd have no idea how far back they set me. FYI - dropping a bomb on it would have been faster, guys.

...and now they are posting a dishonest response. No one ever offered to restore my original file structure, and yes, the time stamps really are changed (to a time when the computer was in their possession). I also did not "request" a clean install. I approved their recommended solution to the Windows Explorer problem, after being told that the only drawback would be that I would have to reinstall programs (e.g., TexStudio, Stata). I was repeatedly reassured that my files would be left intact. And yes, you really did remove all password protection. When I booted it, everything came up without entering a password at all.

Thinking that maybe the owner (Raul) was honest and lied to by his employees, I just called him and tried to have a calm conversation. He told me that I should have expected the consequences of the clean install (even though I was not told about them in advance). He also asked if I was just a miserable human being who likes posting negative reviews, and a lonely woman with nothing better to do. He was still yelling things like this into the phone...

I had a laptop with a broken hinge that I brought in here. They epoxied the hinge to my casing, and that fix broke in a matter of days. This made buying a new back casing necessary, which the tech admitted should have been done in the first place. They offered to attach the new casing with only a charge for the part. This would have been fine, except they charged me double what the part actually costs. When I brought this up, they admitted that they "charge a retail markup like any other store". Given the mistakes on the first repair, it felt like I was being taken advantage of.

Nonetheless, I went through with it because I'm a broke graduate student and I couldn't afford starting the process over and paying labor costs again elsewhere. They fixed it, and less than a week later my laptop is in worse shape than before. When they attached the hinge to the new casing, they didn't do so properly, so now my backlight cable gets pinched and the screen shuts off if I tilt the screen too far back. I'm also missing two of the rubber feet on the bottom of my laptop, so it can't sit evenly on flat surfaces. I literally saved up a months salary to buy this computer, and when I brought it to these guys based on the reviews, I thought it'd be okay.

My whole experience with them has just been a huge burden that has costs me weeks on grants I'm writing, classes I'm teaching, research, and money I don't have in the...