GF's 3-week-old Nexus One died. HTC: We will replace with a refurbished phone?

[GTaudiophile]

So, the GF's 3-week-old N1 is dying.

The phone can no longer "connect to camera" and she is experiencing other issues such as over-heating and rapid battery loss.

She's been on the phone with HTC for over an hour, jumping through their hoops: shutting down, removing battery, rebooting, etc.

At the end of it all, they are offering to repair and/or send her a refurbished phone. They cannot send her a new one because they don't have any new ones in stock to send her.

Sounds like BS to me...she could potentially get a phone older than the one she has.

Or is this common these days?

 

[JS80]

So, the GF's 3-week-old N1 is dying.

The phone can no longer "connect to camera" and she is experiencing other issues such as over-heating and rapid battery loss.

She's been on the phone with HTC for over an hour, jumping through their hoops: shutting down, removing battery, rebooting, etc.

At the end of it all, they are offering to repair and/or send her a refurbished phone. They cannot send her a new one because they don't have any new ones in stock to send her.

Sounds like BS to me...she could potentially get a phone older than the one she has.

Or is this common these days?

Didn't you hear? Google is capitulating on the N1. They are chalking it up in the fail dept and scrapped plans to have it on Verizon...

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

well if your HD dies in warranty, you get a refurbed one. Ive replaced 3 Hitachi laptop drives, 3 IBM Deathstars, and 3 Seagate 7200.8s. It's a refurb everytime. Deal with it. Same applies with your N1.

 

[sygyzy]

Sounds like BS to me...she could potentially get a phone older than the one she has.

Or is this common these days?

Depends on the company

Didn't you hear? Google is capitulating on the N1. They are chalking it up in the fail dept and scrapped plans to have it on Verizon...

Talk about twisting words.

 

[PhoKingGuy]

If you don't like the unit they give you simply call and ask for another, stating the replacement does not live up to your standards.

 

[ra990]

Didn't you hear? Google is capitulating on the N1. They are chalking it up in the fail dept and scrapped plans to have it on Verizon...

That's ridiculous. All these rumors stem from one forum posting by a Google employee saying that they are no longer looking at engineering improvements for a single 3g connectivity issue that they already determined was either HTC or T-mobile's network's fault.

 

[ra990]

Sounds like BS to me...she could potentially get a phone older than the one she has.

This phone is about 4 months old...how much older can that refurbished phone really be?

 

[QueBert]

You should definitely get a new one, now people who have shit break a year after they bought it and expect it replaced with a brand new one crack me up.

 

[rudeguy]

1. Wrong forum
2. They will replace it with a new or like new phone. What's it matter if its refurb? That just means they tested it this time.

 

[JS80]

That's ridiculous. All these rumors stem from one forum posting by a Google employee saying that they are no longer looking at engineering improvements for a single 3g connectivity issue that they already determined was either HTC or T-mobile's network's fault.

Google pulling CDMA version...Vodafone now offering N1 for free...writing is on the wall. It's going the way of the Palm Pre/Pixi.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

wtf wrong thread.

 

[SparkyJJO]

You don't expect to get a brand new item when turning in a used one do you?

 

[rudeguy]

This has been talked about very in depth....

IN THE RIGHT FORUM

 

[Q]

Sounds OK to me -- though I can see how you might be a little annoyed. Microsoft sends you a refurb'd 360 when you send yours in, and I have dealt with other companies that do the same. Doesn't bother me as long as it works.

 

[dwell]

Didn't you hear? Google is capitulating on the N1. They are chalking it up in the fail dept and scrapped plans to have it on Verizon...

G1, Droid, N1, Incredible. Seems like every other month there's "the Android phone that Google is REALLY putting their weight behind".

 

[GTaudiophile]

Sorry about the forum issue...my question was more about the commonality of getting refurbs than specifically about phones.

 

[Pliablemoose]

A bad N1? Blasphemy.

I have a love hate thing with mine, and it gets hot as hell charging and with heavy use...

Battery life suxs too.

BTW, it's common to get a refurb, it still has the full warranty, but I have heard of some users on the Google support forum getting some seriously used refurbs.

 

[rudeguy]

Don't worry about the refurb part. I'm using a mytouch that I'm pretty sure is a refurb and it works great.

And any mentioof an android phone gets the Apple fanboys chiming in.

Wtf is Google going to do about these messed up phones?

 

[Pliablemoose]

Don't worry about the refurb part. I'm using a mytouch that I'm pretty sure is a refurb and it works great.

And any mentioof an android phone gets the Apple fanboys chiming in.

Wtf is Google going to do about these messed up phones?

That's the 64 thousand dollar question.

I know about 3 owners will chime in and say they have absolutely no problem, and it's the greatest phone EVER, but you can check out YouTube and see the problems.

IMHO, Google should do a redesign and recall the phones, I think the design was rushed and poorly thought out. Google may be the smartest guys in the room, but search/OS development does not equal being able to build or spec out a decent phone. I have no doubt HTC told them the problems that would happen and the guys at Google didn't understand what they heard or thought they could patch it with software/firmware updates.

If Google would recall the phones, I would be a serious fan, but I don't think they intend to do so. I think the N1 may either prove Google an awesome company or one that abandons hardware all together because of the complexity of retailing hardware to end users. But that's just me musing about Google and the phone industry...

I also seriously doubt we'll ever see a CDMA N1 now. Verizon was the 800 lb gorilla, and putting a phone on Sprint and South Korea's network (the only other CDMA invested country) isn't a particularly business savvy business move.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

I'll be the N1 user that says it's bad.

1) Bad RF. Compared to my Milestone it was 10dB worse. I couldn't complete speedtests in many places while my Milestone managed 1.3 down still. Granted reception sucked there but the Milestone fought and held on to 3G. The N1 either flat out dropped to 2G or just died.

2) Bad earpiece. Seriously? The voices sound TERRIBLE. Yeah, so everyone touts the N1's noise cancellation. So the receiver hears your call well. Very well. But you can't hear a thing. In a quiet room? Sure. outdoors? In a public place? Good luck. Then there's the fact that the voices sound tiny. It's like blasting the music on your iPod earbuds till the sound leaks out and pollutes the environment. Great quality huh? My Milestone sounds like I'm making a real conversation with someone else.

3) Terrible speakerphone. Yeah. Tiny speaker, same with the earpiece. I have a Youtube video of the Milestone versus Nexus One. At equal volumes you can't even hear the N1. Hell you can't hear the N1 most of the video until I move the camera directly over it. I really have to turn the Milestone down to 1 notch volume for the N1 to start really thumping. And at 100% the N1 is decently loud although ugly. Pump the Milestone to 100% and it's about to make me go deaf. At least it's not crackling like the N1.

But other than that you got a FASTTTTTTTTTTTTTT phone with the ability to run custom ROMs.

 

[gorcorps]

Don't worry about the refurb... I have a refurb iPhone that's lasted longer than friends' new ones. They test them fully to make sure it works right, which they don't do with the new ones.

 

[zerocool84]

Google pulling CDMA version...Vodafone now offering N1 for free...writing is on the wall. It's going the way of the Palm Pre/Pixi.

Umm the Sprint version is still on track. Last I checked that's CDMA.

 

[zerocool84]

G1, Droid, N1, Incredible. Seems like every other month there's "the Android phone that Google is REALLY putting their weight behind".

At least they give you choices. Other companies would rather tell you what you can do with their phone.

 

[Cuda1447]

I'll be the N1 user that says it's bad.

1) Bad RF. Compared to my Milestone it was 10dB worse. I couldn't complete speedtests in many places while my Milestone managed 1.3 down still. Granted reception sucked there but the Milestone fought and held on to 3G. The N1 either flat out dropped to 2G or just died.

2) Bad earpiece. Seriously? The voices sound TERRIBLE. Yeah, so everyone touts the N1's noise cancellation. So the receiver hears your call well. Very well. But you can't hear a thing. In a quiet room? Sure. outdoors? In a public place? Good luck. Then there's the fact that the voices sound tiny. It's like blasting the music on your iPod earbuds till the sound leaks out and pollutes the environment. Great quality huh? My Milestone sounds like I'm making a real conversation with someone else.

3) Terrible speakerphone. Yeah. Tiny speaker, same with the earpiece. I have a Youtube video of the Milestone versus Nexus One. At equal volumes you can't even hear the N1. Hell you can't hear the N1 most of the video until I move the camera directly over it. I really have to turn the Milestone down to 1 notch volume for the N1 to start really thumping. And at 100% the N1 is decently loud although ugly. Pump the Milestone to 100% and it's about to make me go deaf. At least it's not crackling like the N1.

But other than that you got a FASTTTTTTTTTTTTTT phone with the ability to run custom ROMs.

Just so you know, problems 2 and 3 are fairly easily fixable if you root the phone. There is a kernal hack that increases the volume of the phone quite substantially. I'll put it to you this way, when I talk on the phone, if the volume is all the way up it literally hurts my ear. Compared to, prior to the hack, the phone was definitely hard to hear in noisy environments.

 

[Cuda1447]

That's the 64 thousand dollar question.

I know about 3 owners will chime in and say they have absolutely no problem, and it's the greatest phone EVER, but you can check out YouTube and see the problems.

IMHO, Google should do a redesign and recall the phones, I think the design was rushed and poorly thought out. Google may be the smartest guys in the room, but search/OS development does not equal being able to build or spec out a decent phone. I have no doubt HTC told them the problems that would happen and the guys at Google didn't understand what they heard or thought they could patch it with software/firmware updates.

If Google would recall the phones, I would be a serious fan, but I don't think they intend to do so. I think the N1 may either prove Google an awesome company or one that abandons hardware all together because of the complexity of retailing hardware to end users. But that's just me musing about Google and the phone industry...

I also seriously doubt we'll ever see a CDMA N1 now. Verizon was the 800 lb gorilla, and putting a phone on Sprint and South Korea's network (the only other CDMA invested country) isn't a particularly business savvy business move.

You realize Google still did not design the hardware for this phone, right? And Google is not handling the exchange process, all of that is HTC. Google surely had a bigger hand in what hardware the phone had, how it was marketed/sold etc... but the phone was still made by HTC. As for recalling the phones, I hardly think thats necessary. The ONLY common problem the Nexus one has is poor placement of the antenna. If you have weak signal, that can cause some issues. But its not really a defective product, just poor placement of an antenna. Recalling it will do nothing, as they'd have to redesign the entire phone. In short, that'd be a really stupid thing to do.

Outside of that, every phone has some issues. EVERY phone. Just because you hear of a few people say the battery life sucks, or someone says their pixels went dead on their screen, or whatever. You think the Nexus is the first phone to have complaints of bad battery life? Hah. Try every touchscreen phone since they started coming out. Including your precious Iphone.

Bottom line is this. I suspect the N1 has the same amount of issues as any other devices. They just get a lot of media because of google's sales technique with the device.