Tuesday 2 July 2013

Nokia 808 back from repair, warranty expired :(

I have some good news for you and some bad ones for myself...

Good news first, my Nokia 808 PureView returned from repair today.
I have it right here with me, which means my work on "The One Reloaded v4.x" can now finally continue!

Thanks to everyone who tested v4.0.6 and provided valuable feedback for me.
Your reports and suggestions will help me to improve v4.x ;)

Read on for the details about my repair and the "bad" news mentioned above...

Proximity Sensor

You probably already know (if you keep following me here), that I sent in my 808 because of a broken proximity sensor.

This is the sensor, that turns off the screen when you hold your device against your ear during calls.
The Care Centre repaired this issue and my Nokia 808 is fully working again!

The delivery note doesn't specify what exactly they fixed on my phone.
But looking at it, I got a new gorilla glass screen (I assume the underlying AMOLED is still the same). Whatever they did, the proximity sensor is working :)

Bent Mainboard?

It took quite a while, 'till I got my 808 back.
Reason for the delay was (beside the fact, that the Care Centre had to order spare parts for me), that support was declined at first!

They told me my mainboard is bent and this issue violates my warranty.
After talking a while to the Care Centre, they finally agreed to ignore whatever issue there is with my mainboard and just repair the proximity sensor.

The bad thing about this: it was a one time only exception!
If my 808 breaks again, I can not send it into repair again... my warranty is invalid now.

Why is this unfair?

Remember my posts about the 3.5G bug?
Last November I sent my 808 into repair, because it kept crashing on HSPA connections...

To fix this, Nokia replaced my mainboard!

I have never opened my 808 since then and there is no physical damage on the front or back of my device.
So what is more likely, that I magically bent the mainboard myself or that the Care Centre screwed up last time?

For me that's pretty obvious... but there is simply no talking to Nokia.
The Care Centre told me, Nokia does not approve my repair. Nokia told me the Care Centres have to decide for themselves... a dead end for me.

What now?

Let's hope my 808 doesn't break again, or I am screwed.
I still have that bent mainboard inside my 808... it doesn't really matter as long as its running fine, but without warranty, I probably have to be more careful now.

At least I don't have to worry about my warranty, by replacing the black chassis with the red parts I ordered online (yeah... that's what I call being more careful) :)

4 comments:

  1. Hi Daniel,
    nice to hear your phone is back, sadly your Nokia service seems not to be the best, nethertheless hope it will work for you.
    Have a nice day, Franz

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    1. so far so good... i opened it to change the chassis to red, i didn't see anything wrong with it.

      i have no idea what they are talking about, but as long as it works fine, i don't really care :)

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  2. Hi theOne,

    Always irritating that electronic manufactures always find their customers guilty unless proven otherwise. For them, the customers are their biggest enemies....

    It's comparable to the endless problems people have with broken screens. In many smartphones, the screen is mounted way too tightly, so it will break very easily. Nevertheless, this is always put as "user fault" by the companies. Until some big TV show or newspaper writes something about it.

    So, make pictures, and raise your voice. Write about this issue on the public Nokia forum, on all about symbian etc. It's ridiculous that your phone is out-of-warranty because Nokia made a design error in the 3G module. They should prove you broke the mainboard, and they can't. Furthermore, a bent mainboard should not void warranty on unrelated parts, so if your OLED breaks, they should just repair it.

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    1. funny you mention the screen...
      my sister dropped her lumia 820, the amoled screen broke, while the glass itself (and everything else) was still intact. that was kind of an interesting combination :)

      honestly, i don't have the energy to complain about the 808 anymore...
      i tried to raise awareness when i saw the 3.5g bug for the first time.

      i contacted multiple care centres, nokia via email/online chat/twitter/forum and even tried to reach out to all about symbian... all of them ignored me.
      took me 6 months 'till nokia finally acknowledged the problem and told the care centres how to fix it.

      so how are the odds to get a bent mainboard fixed?

      it works, or it doesn't... it's not a very satisfying situation, but a mobile phone just isn't worth all that trouble again.

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