Fourth Request: What is the warranty for the FreeRunner?

Yorick Moko yorickmoko at gmail.com
Thu Aug 28 00:34:14 CEST 2008


On Thu, Aug 28, 2008 at 12:01 AM, Jim Morris <ml at e4net.com> wrote:
> Leonti wrote:
>> In my opinion having only DOA right now is a good thing.
>> Right now Freerunner is a phone for developers and they should accept the
>> fact that it can have some "imperfections".
>> I want this project to grow.
>> Do you imagine what would happen if everyone had warranty and discovered gps
>> fix issue? Openmoko would broke on repairs (more on shipping costs).
>> But when it will be in a mature stage I thing we will need a warranty of
>> some kind.
>>
>
> I have to disagree, this phone was sold as a GSM phone, if for instance the GSM buzzing issue needs
> a repair that cannot be done by the end user then I think OM is responsible for fixing that issue,
> otherwise (at least in the US) they can be held accountable for false advertising, as with the
> buzzing the phone is unusable as a GSM phone which was its primary purpose.
>
> I am sure they will take care of this issue though, and "do the right thing". When the first batch
> of gta02 phones were sold, the "Developer only" and "not usable as a primary phone" issues were not
> well spelled out (if at all), and not spelled out at all on the OM store front. They have done a
> better job now of informing potential buyers, but there were an awful lot of phones sold initially
> without that disclaimer.
>
> I for one would have waited for GTA03 or later if it had been spelled out, just as I skipped GTA01
> because it was well spelled out it was an alpha prototype for developers only.
>
> IMHO GTA02 was initially sold as "Ready for end users" or at least "Usable as a primary phone",
> which turned out to be incorrect. I think the endless discussions on this list are due to that mis
> perception by many of the people who bought the first batches of GTA02's.
>
> I only partially regret my early purchase though. I can afford to have a $400 play toy, it has kept
> me busy for hours on end trying to get it to work the way I want, however that will change if I
> can't fix the GSM buzz issue, the way I have been able to fix many of the other issues.
>
>
> --
> Jim Morris, http://blog.wolfman.com
>
> _______________________________________________
> Openmoko community mailing list
> community at lists.openmoko.org
> http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
>

I partially agree with Jim Morris. I surely don't regret buying my FR
and I'm finding it a great toy. But he's right: it was sold to me as a
phone and I expect GSM usability from it in the future. It was not
advertised as a developer only phone, but as a phone ready for mass
production. At this moment people refuse to call me on the FR because
of the buzz.

I'm very happy that the hardware engineers (like Joerg) are working on
this problem, because it really should be top-priority. I'm also still
hoping they find a sollution.
If not I will consider myself lucky that I bought it from a European
distributor and will use my warranty...

But I'm a patient man; Go Hardware Engineers! :-)


y




More information about the community mailing list