OT : bouncing mobiles

Those with time on their hands and a reasonable memory may recall me
mentioning recently that the lad had dropped his mobile phone from about
two feet high on to tarmac to find it no longer fully functional.

I thought it might be a bit of a long shot, but decided to take it up
with the Orange shop we (well SWMBO) bought it. What aggressive, lentil
brains.

"You wouldn't expect a TV to still work after you dropped it."
"It's not covered under the 'Sale of electrical goods act'."

I fear that, for me, I got a bit shouty. The piece de resistance was
flourishing my Samsung slide open thingy (CBA to look up the model
number) then dropping it theatrically on the shop floor. Oh, how I
laughed when his jaw dropped as I switched it on to find it amazingly
functional.

Trading Standards weren't quite as supportive as I had hoped, but they
did agree that my customer care had been not good and that I should try
the manufacturer's warranty.

If my house insurance hadn't got a £100 excess on personal belongings
claims I would go down that route.

So I contacted the customer care line for the manufacturer. A
stimulating conversation in which I opined that it was in the nature of
a mobile phone to dropped occasionally and that their products should be
fit for purpose. They put me on to their repairs and returns line. A
similar dialogue ensued. This time IIRC I said that a mobile phone that
couldn't survive a fall from a trouser pocket was as much use as a
chocolate teapot.

I pointed out that I could have simply said that it no longer worked and
kept knowledge of the dropping incident to myself. The droid did say
that they had a phone of this make which they had dropped themselves
with out busting it. Anyway, it is going back to them under their
returns procedure. If the techies find "accidental damage" (apparently
they will be able to tell despite there not being a mark on it) they
will give me a quote for repair. If I refuse the quote it will cost me
10 quid to have the phone returned to me.

Pretty sure the screen has cracked, but no clue until you switch on and
get a grey display with a fine line down it just off-centre. Otherwise
the instrument works.

My strategy is my usual recorded delivery stiff letters to the company
secretaries of the corporate bodies involved. If they want me to pay to
repair it they can keep the pile of cheap Chinese shite.

Oh, BTW LG mobile phones - avoid, avoid, particularly the Orange[1]
badged GW300.

[1] and Orange shops.

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| Pete Fisher at Home: |
| Voxan Roadster [ SPACE ! ] Yamaha WR250Z |
| Gilera GFR * 2 Moto Morini 2C/375 Morini 350 "Forgotten Error" |
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<snip>

I can't help thinking that "clumsy ****" covers every issue here.

 

I don't recall, so possibly this has been said before, but TBH I
wouldn't think you have a leg to stand on. Phones get dropped, phones
break. Sure, I've got away with some phones being dropped without
apparent damage, but I've also written off a couple from accidental
damage.

As your droid says, you wouldn't expect any other electrical item to
be so robust, why should you expect it of a phone?

 

Why shouldn't I? I've been using and dropping mobile phones since they
were first started being used by the 'general public'. Never had one
break from such a trivial incident before.

I think a high court judge might appreciate the difference in the
robustness required of a phone which is designed to be hand held rather
than a TV.

The truth is that the latest generation of phones may be inherently more
fragile. In which case, a) they should come with a carrying case as
standard and b) the lad won't be getting another such sophisticated one.

I was expecting, "get a less pikey phone."

--
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| Pete Fisher at Home: |
| Voxan Roadster [ SPACE ! ] Yamaha WR250Z |
| Gilera GFR * 2 Moto Morini 2C/375 Morini 350 "Forgotten Error" |
+----------------------------------------------------------------+

 

My lad, who has Tourette's and tends to give stuff a hard life had an LG
phone. It didn't last long. His current Samsung seems to be more robust and
the Nokia he had in the past was okay too.

 

In communiqué

Well quite. He will be relegated to a much simpler instrument from now
on.

Still think a phone should usually survive such a foreseeable occurrence
though.

--
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
| Pete Fisher at Home: |
| Voxan Roadster [ SPACE ! ] Yamaha WR250Z |
| Gilera GFR * 2 Moto Morini 2C/375 Morini 350 "Forgotten Error" |
+----------------------------------------------------------------+

 

"Reasonable use"??

 

Orange is a shite company. France Telecom (the parent) is a shite
company. 23 dead employees can't be wrong. I had nasty dealings with
ya.com (France Telecom also) and now am arguing with Orange over the fact
that they want to keep charging me 40 euros per month despite the fact
that I changed my adsl to Telefonica in August.

Shite shite shite.

 

Two tin cans joined by a bit of string?

 

In communiqué

Semaphore.

--
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
| Pete Fisher at Home: |
| Voxan Roadster [ SPACE ! ] Yamaha WR250Z |
| Gilera GFR * 2 Moto Morini 2C/375 Morini 350 "Forgotten Error" |
+----------------------------------------------------------------+

 

I left Orange back in 1999 over something similar. They used to have a
cheap contract called Everyday 50 which they were pushing - it turned
out that it was the only Orange contract without free insurance for a year.

The phone (NK702) went wrong after a month (some kind of hardware
problem to do with signal strengths) and they refused to replace it
until I signed up to 70 quids worth of insurance. These days I'd have
probably tried a bit harder to make them see sense.

 

<snip>

Wow.

Personally I'd accept that dropping something 2m onto a hard surface
might kill it.

Regarding the letter to the company secretary; at least with Orange a
better move would be to send it to their CEO, letters to CEOs generally
kick off a reaction. With LG I really don't know if this would achieve
anything; it'll probably lose some of the impact once translated into
Korean.

Maybe you should consider writing in green ink- this will clearly mark
you out as a man not to be fucked with.

 

Maybe not, but I don't carry a TV around in my pocket.

 

silver ink. Green is *so* passe as the mark of a cretin.

 

Where did I say 2m? Us old gimmers still work on old money feet.

I like the service of legal notices procedure that I used to follow in
my white hat days.

There is an LG Electronics UK Limited.

See another of my posts in this thread (have you been intercepting my
outgoing pigeon post correspondence ?).
--
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| Pete Fisher at Home: |
| Voxan Roadster [ SPACE ! ] Yamaha WR250Z |
| Gilera GFR * 2 Moto Morini 2C/375 Morini 350 "Forgotten Error" |
+----------------------------------------------------------------+

 

On black paper presumably, for the full "I'm mad me effect".

--
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
| Pete Fisher at Home: |
| Voxan Roadster [ SPACE ! ] Yamaha WR250Z |
| Gilera GFR * 2 Moto Morini 2C/375 Morini 350 "Forgotten Error" |
+----------------------------------------------------------------+

 

*red* paper.

I had a letter[0] a month or so back from a (presumably) self-styled
"crazy" goth[1] hairdresser ex-GF, written in silver ink on dark-red
parchment. I didn't have it tested, but I would not be surprised if
the darker patches on the paper were drool. My life currently is
starting to resemble a Harlan Ellison short story.


[0] and I'd dearly like to know which NI **** gave her my current
address.
[1] well she was in the late 90s, haven't seen her in about 10 years.

 

I once accidentally put a rechargeable bluetooth gps antenna device (for use
with ipaq) through a full wash and spin cycle. I didn't even have to dry it
out - worked fine straight away.

 

In communiqué <hd1ard$ufv$-september.org>, TMack

I did the same with a Sony Ericcson T68i phone, though it did need a
good airing and a new battery to resuscitate it. The LG service droid
was unimpressed by this anecdote.

The moral being, if you do drop your phone, drop in to a reasonable
(though obviously not 'bottomless') body of water to cushion the shock.

Googling round I found a theoretical and suitably comples calculation to
arrive at the forces involved in the all too familiar pocket to hard
floor phone trajectory.

--
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
| Pete Fisher at Home: |
| Voxan Roadster [ SPACE ! ] Yamaha WR250Z |
| Gilera GFR * 2 Moto Morini 2C/375 Morini 350 "Forgotten Error" |
+----------------------------------------------------------------+

 

They're like bones aren't they. You can have a major smack on a bike and
walk away unscathed and then you can have a trip in the garage and break
your arm in three places. Even without landing on a running angle grinder.

Possibly, but I wouldn't bet any real money on it.

You couild've got him a case before though. I never use one and I've dropped
my phone (which survived) but a previous one died almost instantly when it
got wet in a pocket in its case. No guarantees with these things AFAICS.

That's what you need to do. Or better still, let the boy child get his own
with his own money. That tends to make them take a little more care of them.

--
Beav

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