The newest business in Thompson’s City Centre Mall hopes to become the one-stop shop that people can turn to for solutions when their cell phones and tablets stop working.
Mobile Tech Lab, which opened in the old Rogers location on June 7, follows in the footsteps of the owners’ previous locations on Corydon and in St. Vital in Winnipeg.
“We’re shipping lots of stuff up to the north,” says Kyle Jagassar. “Every week we’re always shipping stuff up, people shipping repairs down, It only makes sense to open one up in the north. Now we’re serving the whole north, We have our central location as Thompson but we’re taking in mail-ins from everywhere, free shipping labels so people actually get their stuff fixed fast. They don’t have to send it to Winnipeg anymore. They can get it done within one to two hours if they come to our location … or they can actually mail it to us, have it shipped out same day and then they have their phone back 24 to 48 hours later.”
What might have once become an expensive paperweight gathering dust because someone didn’t have the money to repair or replace it can now be returned to its original purpose, says Daniel Okagbare*.
“We do repairs on phones, tablets, computers, consoles ... all this kind of stuff that currently, if it doesn’t work, you have to put it to the side or buy a new one and throw it away,” he says.
Some common fixes for phone and tablets like battery and charging port replacements cost as little as $60 through Mobile Tech Lab, says Okagbare, though often there are even simpler solutions. Many people who think they need a new charging port often turn out only to need their existing one cleaned, he says.
The store is an Apple independent repair provider, Jagassar says, meaning they can fix whatever needs fixing using genuine Apple parts, technicicans, processes and software.
“Certified parts mean you’re not going to have to worry about a bad touch screen or an ugly discolouration of a screen after you get it fixed.”
They also offer a lifetime guarantee on their work.
“If it stops working, for that same price, you don’t have to pay anything, bring it back in 10 years when your child’s still using it,” says Okagbare. “We’ll still help you as long as we are here.”
In addition to repairs, Mobile Tech Lab can also help people get signed up with several smaller mobile phone service providers or finance the purchase of a new phone.
“We make everything about technology, reusing it, selling it, financing it, insuring it, easy,” Okgbare says. “We try to simplify all that so it’s as simple as just go to that store, they’ll help you out and that’s what Mobile Tech Lab is about.”
Customers can also trade in old devices for cash or give new life to electronics that have stopped working entirely.
“If you don’t have a phone and you need a phone, you can come and get a phone from us, whether it’s a flip phone, whether it’s something basic so you have a way of communication,” Jagassar says. “If you want to give back to the community you can drop a broken phone off here, we’ll refurbish it using our parts that we have in our scrapyard to build the community phones.”
Jagassar says the reaction to the business’s social media advertising has been great so far.
“We saw that this was an actual need in Thompson and they respected us coming up here,” he says.“People are commenting, liking the posts so we’re expecting a busy day today hopefully and busy all week hopefully.”
For more information on Mobile Tech Lab, visit their website at Mobiletechlab.ca.
*The original version of this article misspelled Daniel Okagbare's last name. The Thompson Citizen apologizes for the error.
