A couple of interesting links from IM's Stefan Constantinescu, spotted yesterday. Firstly a tale and mini-rant on Nokia needing to honour warranties globally in this global age. And secondly a super-hi-res poster showing Nokia's phone range from the very start until 2006. Well worth a download.
Read on in the full article.
That is amazing.. All the phones by Nokia in one picture..
Wonder if they have it updated with 2007 range?
What would be even better is if someone can make a collage of all the phones released by every manufacturer.. The picture will be massive - but will be pretty "cool" and kinda Arty in a way.. 😊
Oh yeah.. back on the main topic
I HATE NOKIA'S LACK OF INTERNATIONAL WARRANTIES..
I have a dead AD-44 handsfree adapter (from my N95-1 I bought in Hong Kong) and its the crappy lithium battery problem inside it. The local Nokia Care centre will not exchange without a local receipt... ARRGHHH!!!
Hi all,
This is something i agree 100% with and in this day and age is outrageous and it's not just Nokia either as stated we keep on being told we live in a global market and Global warranty should be a given. This is why i had to sell my first E90 as it came from UAE and had anything gone wrong it would of had to gone back their for any work which is just absurd. People not only travel the Globe but occasionally some times get relocated all manufacturers really need to stand by their products more so the expensive ones and give us their customers the service we deserve and have paid for.
Marc
Just out of interest, do any other phone manufacturers offer international warranties?
It's a great idea, the one complication may be that some models are restricted to certain regions (for example the N75 is US-only, and there are many Asia-only models we never ever hear about in the West, including a Nokia UIQ model).
Technicians all over the world may not always have the parts or training to fix a phone from outside their region, and to fix it they might have to send it to the region it was bought in, which is what the current guarantee forces you to do anyway.
On the subject of the Nokia phones history poster, it's amazing how fast things have developed. Just 10 years back and the phones are all monochrome, all small screened, and they all have external aerials. Goodness knows what phones will be like in another 10 years.
You can see a budget model from 1997 compared with a budget model from 2006 in this video:
I agree on the international warranties point. If a company is selling standard products around the globe, why restrict the warranties to particular regions only? It should be applicable everywhere. Region specific models may pose a problem, but how many of them are there? These few models can be exceptions. And many region specific phones like the N95-3 shouldn't really pose a problem (the only difference is a bigger body, bigger battery and more RAM).
I dont think the other manufacturers offer international warranty either. A friend of mine bought the 990i in the UK months ago and brought it to India. Unfortunately (and as expected), he experienced problems with it within 3 weeks of use. The SE service centres here refused to acknowledge any warranties since the phone was bought in the UK. They treated it as a 'out-of-warranty' phone and he had to pay money which he really shouldn't have had to.
What's even odder are things like game console makers. These really ARE the same product the world over, and they usually only have maybe two or three new models over a five year period. Yet they too have region-only guarantees.
It makes me think that the question here is of regional rivalries within a company, each region doesn't want people buying the gadget cheaply outside their region.
For example, you can buy a Nintendo DS Lite for about �60 brand new in America, compared to �90 in Europe, but the American one's warranty won't cover it in Europe. This is possibly the European branch of Nintendo wanting to discourage people importing the device much more cheaply from the US.