Warranty Claim on near New Phone. What's The Normal Process?

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  [Deactivated] on 05/03/2019 - 23:00

  +6

  Retailer wants to send it away for evaluation when the fault is obvious.

  Is the fault really obvious? The phone does not look damaged, the screen works, the apps work, the speaker works, the wifi and internet works…

  I'm not claiming there isn't a fault. If it is running hot and the charge does not hold, it is faulty but if the average person cannot spot the defect on the spot, it isn't obvious nor a major defect.

  Let the store do their job. Let them send it away to be assessed and if it is running hot, let them remedy the situation.

• 

  AdosHouse on 05/03/2019 - 23:04

  +3

  Yes it is normal for the manufacturer to look at it before replacing.

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  [Deactivated] on 05/03/2019 - 23:06

  Retailer wants to send it away for evaluation when the fault is obvious.

  This sounds normal. I used to work for one of telecommunications companies and I was instructed to send phones to the headquarter for further investigation.

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  Ughhh on 05/03/2019 - 23:09

  +2

  1.The staff aren't experts, neither are you. 2. Retailers have the right to evaluate the problem, that means sending back to manufacturer.

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  Viospeed on 06/03/2019 - 01:12

  I've sent computer components back to the retailer and most of them take about a month to send to Taiwan and then come back. My most recent one was a $590 server motherboard and its 8+ weeks and counting. Still don't have an ETA.

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  Quantumcat on 06/03/2019 - 08:58

  Ask if you can get a refund to buy another one. It is a bit unfair that you'll have to be without a phone for several weeks while it is away.

  • 

    [Deactivated] on 06/03/2019 - 10:42

    +1

    If the fault is not conclusively proven when in store, good luck getting a refund or anything even close.

    A loan phone doesn't form the contract of most sales at TGG/HN/JB (or the like), so a replacement phone is on you to organise.

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  HighAndDry on 06/03/2019 - 09:12

  Retailer wants to send it away for evaluation when the fault is obvious. Is this normal for a basic phone only 3 weeks old?

  Yes. Retailer may not be authorised to diagnose faults. Also:

  As I don't have home broadband, tethering is essential for me.

  Pretty sure you're using the device in a way inconsistent with its intended use. They could deny your claim completely. A mobile phone is not supposed to function as a full time 4G modem.

  • 

    Diji1 on 06/03/2019 - 12:04

    -1

    A mobile phone is not supposed to function as a full time 4G modem.

    Oh Jesus.

    No seriously he said it.

    Hahahahahahaha.

    Also tethering is perfectly normal.

    • 

      HighAndDry on 06/03/2019 - 12:08

      For all the other pedants out there, read "modem" as "modem/wifi-router".

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  o53djz7qTPY4der on 06/03/2019 - 11:40

  +1

  Tethering is a pretty intensive process. I mean, if you're using a laptop/desktop to connect to the hotspot it may be pushing a fair amount of data through the phone. The phone whilst having the option to tether, isn't necessarily designed to do this.

  An example, I tether my tablet to my phone when on the bus. The phone gets hot and will need to be recharged earlier that if I had not tethered. What I am trying to say is, do you really think this is a fault or perhaps 'normal' behaviour of a ~$300 phone? If you were dropping 1% every ~2 minutes that would be close to 200 minutes of tethering time (3 hours and 20 minutes). In my mind, that is not horrendous and probably not a major defect.

  • 

    Diji1 on 06/03/2019 - 12:08

    -2

    isn't necessarily designed to do this.

    Yes it is.

    Using battery and heat is not a sign of something something you're not supposed to do.

    • 

      o53djz7qTPY4der on 06/03/2019 - 12:15

      +1

      Yes it is.

      No it is not. I am not suggesting you're not supposed to do it but rather that the usage as a hotspot is not its primary intended usage - perhaps perfectly fine for short-term use but long-term use will result in high temperatures and battery usage.

  • 

    uedamasaki on 06/03/2019 - 12:37

    +1

    agree with Xiongmao. Actually sounds pretty normal for battery to drain that fast and heat up while tethering. Especially for a low end phone with less computing power and presumably a smaller capacity battery.

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  Diji1 on 06/03/2019 - 12:04

  Sounds like a software issue where some process is running 100% where it shouldn't be. Probably a driver.

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  Dabbler68 on 06/03/2019 - 18:28

  Thanks for all the responses, mostly helpful.

  For those who commented about being outside the design criteria, I partly agree. I liken it to using a car to tow a caravan. It can do the job but not as well as something designed principally for that purpose.

  However I have used several different phones for tethering and this is the only one that gets seriously hot. It was normal for the first 3 weeks, then suddenly changed. Of course any phone will get hot if downloading lots of data, like a movie, but mine gets hot just being on, with no devices connected. My partner has the same model and hers works fine …. we can happily watch Netflix streamed to the TV. It hardly gets warm.

  Diji, an interesting suggestion about some process running and I tried looking into that. Before I did the factory reset, Android reported that Spotify was using excessive resources. I forced it to sleep (no benefit) and then uninstalled it. I'm assuming after the factory reset there will be no trace left. I activated Developer Options and found a setting to disable Hardware Acceleration if present … again no benefit. Looking at the app usages I didn't see anything that looked wrong.

  Android reports the main users of battery are Cell Standby and Screen.

  Anyway, following the advice here I will just take it back and hope the evaluation process works OK. If I had purchased it online, one of the benefits is I could have just done a Paypal claim and be done with it.