Product Central
Dispatches from the Reviews Editor's desk
Thursday 14 June 2007, 11:10 AM
HTC's lost Touch
Here's what happened. After a pleasantly hot weekend, I noticed that the Touch's screen had some smudging in the centre that wouldn't polish off — because it seemed to be on the inside rather than the outside. This made the device most annoying to use.
Delving in the box I discovered a clear plastic screen cover. 'Aha', I thought, 'the Touch has a replaceable screen cover, perhaps the discoloration is on that'. So I scratched away at the screen and it did indeed come away — but underneath was a sticky (and soon irrevocably fingerprint-ridden) surface that was definitely not meant to be exposed. A piece of the screen had, of course, broken off, leaving the Touch looking a lot less cool than it had fresh out of the box.
Now I had received a free sample to play with, and will get over the disappointment. But what if I'd just paid £300? Has anyone out there bought an HTC Touch and noticed similar screen smudging on the inside? Or is it just me and my special brand of product testing/mistreatment?
Do let us know.
PreviousComments on this post
Don't have an HTC - but I remember when I bought one of the first batch of PSPs I noticed it had 4 dead pixels that were very noticeable particularly on solid colour backgrounds.
I was told by the retailer it was not a sufficient fault to return the device so I had to sell it via ebay - I was lucky enough to get back what I paid for it and I understand Sony corrected the problem on later batches.. but it still affected my long term perceptions of the PSP.
My challenge to vendors - if you can't make a mobile device that is resilient (within reasonable use!) then don't make it all - it will ultimately damage your brand more than the benefit of getting to market first....
I received my Touch on Monday and so far am very happy with it, having read this I'll keep an eye on the screen but other than that I'm a pretty happy user...so far!
I bought two HTC Touch phones in June and July last year.
And BOTH of the phones have the smudge / dust mark in the middle of the screen. A 100% failure rate - well done HTC!
HTC say that I have to send then back (2+ weeks without) a phone while they check them. That leaves me without a phone and, talking to other owners with the same problem, they say the repairs are poor quality.
Why should I be so inconvenienced when the problem is clearly the fault of poor manufacturing, qc or design by HTC.
Given that ZD-Net reported the problem on the 14 June, I would suggest that HTC knew the problem existed before I bought my phones. Therefore they have knowingly sold defective phones. Which makes interesting reading when you consider the sale of good act (1978 as amended) and the fact that goods need to be 'fit for purpose'.
I've spent over £600 on these phones. HTC are supposed to have written to me more than 3 weeks ago but nothing has arrived. Having phoned 4 times since (for nearly 2 hours) they are unable to email or fax me a copy.
If I have bought a faulty phone from VirginMedia they would have replaced the phone the next day, by courier, to my front door. Not so with HTC.
[HTC, is this what you call a good customer service. But then again you announced that owners of Touch phones would be able to download the replacement keyboard back in October. Great publicitiy but ..... funny no sign of the download yet. Why does that NOT surprise me!]
I WILL NEVER BUY HTC AGAIN
I recently purchased a HTC Touch and after one month, I had the same problem, smudges on the inside of the screen.
This has now developed to a crack on the inside which is clearly visible, HTC accept that its an issue and have
asked for the phone to be returned but guess what they wont tell me where to return it to, just the usual
we will send you an email later today before 4.30pm, its amazing how you get the same response every day for 2 weeks.
I'm still waiting to receive a letter, email , fax anything from HTC.
A search on the HTC Wiki reveals that this is an infamous problem. The next thing that happened was the phone's notification Led
turning a steady red instead of the usual green or amber and it wont turn on. Apart from the screen issues nothing was wrong
with when it was left charging the night before.
These same issues have been experienced by others using HTC Phones, check them out
http://www.htcwiki.com/thread/959604/Steady+%3Cspan%20class
http://www.htcwiki.com/thread/572877/dash+screen+cracked/post/4192259/RE%3A++dash+screen+cracked
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