Fourth Request: What is the warranty for the FreeRunner?

[Jim Morris]

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