What’s my phone warranty really worth?

Removing a bit of fluff would, in principle,incur a charge if the phone was sent away to be “repaired” as it was not a phone fault – but I would hope it would be dealt with as a goodwill gesture.
If you buy a phone outright then I do not see why the Sale of Goods Act should not apply, and this, under “quality”, covers “durability”; the product should last without fault for what an ordinary person would regard as a reasonable length of time. Forget warranties – they are phrased by the manufacturer. It’s time SoGA legislation was promoted properly, and ” reasonable durability” times established for different products, so retailers clearly know they have obligations to meet under law. How long for a £450 phone? I’d say reasonable durability should be 5 years. What do others think? Time Which? got to grips with this problem that crops up time and again in conversations.

A mobile phone is likely to be subject to more abuse than most consumer items since for many users it will be used throughout the day. I find it amazing that many users do not have any protection on the front of their smartphones. A drop could jar and damage the delicate innards of the phone.

We need a warranty that is fair to the customer, but also fair to the retailer and manufacturer. Phones often contain a tell tale to indicate if any water has got into the phone. I feel that the manufacturers’ ingenuity would be better spent on making their phones showerproof, given that it does occasionally rain in the UK. Smartphones generally contain an accelerometer and this might be useful in recording how much abuse a phone has received.

Some of these HTC phones support wireless (induction) charging, but I do not know if the port is needed for connection to anything other than a charger.

Having has a similar run-around with an HTC that came with an Orange contract I separated phone and service when I ditched the Orange contract after EE started degrading the organisation.

I bought a Nokia Lumia, 24 month warranty, send or ‘walk in’ with service centres dotted around. Nearly a year old and a minor charging fault occured, booked a check / repair, took it in and new back fitted immediately and an apology that I’d been put to trouble.

I understand that this manufacturer service is available with contract phones also. If so I have no hesitation in recommending it . . . I know that phones are hard used and that most failures may result from that usage rather than component failure however I was really impressed by the service I received.

Oh, forgot to say. In casual conversation with the service centre people (in Birmingham) they said that the Nokia set up was good for them as the cost of doing the job there and then was often less than the cost of getting authorisation, writing reports, sending phones around the country etc. etc. made me pleased to be using one and it has my favourite Windows OS!

I have had four Nokia/Microsoft Lumia phones. Of these, three have developed faults within two years of my receipt of them. However, Nokia’s warranty only covered one of them. I had one through a mobile phone insurance, and, I discovered, was not covered by Nokia’s warranty when it failed between one and two years, and Carphone Warehouse, who supplied it, only had a one year warranty. The latest phone, a Lumia 930, failed after nine months from new. I bought it via an Amazon (UK) Marketplace reseller, and, when it failed, discovered that it was not covered by Nokia’s UK warranty. The reseller did send a return authorisation, but I had to pay postage to send the phone to the Netherlands, and, after two weeks have still not received it back, nor any progress update. Perhaps the murky world of phone warranties is something Which should investigate? I am not a happy bunny.

Further on my last post – I contacted the seller to complain and was told that repairs took three or four weeks! As Nokia tend to repair within days, I don’t think that is very good. I shall not be using Red Hat again.