I purchased a new Motorola RAZR V3XX in March 2008. It has a small plastic flap that covers the charger port and is held in place by two hair-thin plastic hinges. I assume the cover is to keep dust, pocket lint, facial hair, and tirade-driven spurts of saliva from entering the port.

Every time the phone is charged or the headset is used, this flap is flipped open. Clearly, this is a very frail part that was doomed from the beginning to wear out and break off through normal use. In fact, it is not even possible to avoid excess use, since the flap cannot be left in the open position.

As I anticipated, three months after I bought the phone, the flap failed. I wrote to Motorola through their website, and a helpful customer service rep named Brock O. immediately responded that he will send me a replacement. Days later, the part arrived and I snapped it into place. Problem solved. Helpful rep, simple solution, happy customer.

Well, eight months later, this replacement piece also failed and I again requested a replacement from Motorola. This time, a less helpful rep named Sebastian B. suggested I contact a service center to have the phone repaired. Quote: "With this option, they may be able to send the unit to us directly and sometimes they will provide you with a loaner phone to use in the interim. They also may be able to order the parts and or make adjustments locally."

I wrote back and included the dialogue from the previous incident, explaining how Brock O had been so helpful and sent me the part, so I could just snap it on myself. It seemed that shipping a phone for repair by a technician, requiring an 8-10 day turnaround seemed overkill.

The rep responded: "Regarding your concern, we are really sorry to tell you that no charging port covers are available to order or send. Because the charging port cover is attached within the housing of the phone, the phone must come in to repair center to have that part replaced by technicians."

Also for the second time, they warned me that, "Motorola stands behind our products by offering a minimum one-year warranty issued from the date of purchase. This warranty does not cover physical or liquid damage." This accusatory message was sent to me twice, despite me being asked in a previous email if there was any water or physical damage and the confirmation that I was within my one year warranty period. I explained that clearly this is a common wear item that fails from normal use. I was pretty sure the hinges didn't wear out from water damage?

Once again, a new rep, Eduardo, told me to send it to the service center. I checked their link for all service centers within 500 miles and found only one in New York City. NYC is a 60 mile round trip for me, $8 tolls, $30 to park, and the service center says there is a charge for service. When I spoke to them, they told me that they do not stock the part and the phones they see are always missing it anyway.

So, to wrap up our situation here, my phone, still under warranty, has a repeatedly failing part that wears out during normal usage. While this was easily replaced in the past, I am now told that Motorola no longer stock replacement parts, which seems strange since it is a current model and still under warranty. The service center they referred me to does not stock the part and would cost me a significant amount of money for them to even look at it.

1. If charging port covers are NOT available, how can a technician replace it for me?

2. If the technicians DO stock the port cover, how come they cannot simply mail one to me?

3. Since I have already replaced this part with no problem, why do they insist that I require a technician to do it? It simply snaps into a hole on the phone. No tools, no expertise, no opening of the top-secret housing, no voiding warranty.

Bottom line. My phone is a current model, it is still under warranty and has a repeatedly failing part that Motorola will not fix despite their obligation to do so. Anybody know the URL for Nokia?

(Photo: bryanbope)

This recall applies only to the 46 million batteries manufactured by Matsushita between December 2005 and November 2006. No serious injuries have been reported.

Here's a list of the affected phones:
Nokia 1100, Nokia 1100c, Nokia 1101, Nokia 1108, Nokia 1110, Nokia 1112, Nokia 1255, Nokia 1315, Nokia 1600, Nokia 2112, Nokia 2118, Nokia 2255, Nokia 2272, Nokia 2275, Nokia 2300, Nokia 2300c, Nokia 2310, Nokia 2355, Nokia 2600, Nokia 2610, Nokia 2610b, Nokia 2626, Nokia 3100, Nokia 3105, Nokia 3120, Nokia 3125, Nokia 6030, Nokia 6085, Nokia 6086, Nokia 6108, Nokia 6175i, Nokia 6178i, Nokia 6230, Nokia 6230i, Nokia 6270, Nokia 6600, Nokia 6620, Nokia 6630, Nokia 6631, Nokia 6670, Nokia 6680, Nokia 6681, Nokia 6682, Nokia 6820, Nokia 6822, Nokia 7610, Nokia N70, Nokia N71, Nokia N72, Nokia N91, Nokia E50, Nokia E60

"Nokia" and "BL-5C" are printed on the battery. In order to see if your battery is part of the recall, you'll need to locate the "battery identification number" and type it into a form on Nokia's website. The site will then tell you if your battery has been recalled. From the NYT:

Akira Kadota, a Matsushita spokesman in Osaka, said all of the suspect batteries were made at a Matsushita factory in Zhuhai, a port city in southern China.

"There was nothing wrong with the design of the batteries. The problem was the result of a flaw in the manufacturing process," Mr. Kadota said in an interview. "That problem has since been solved and we have had no complaint from any other users of our batteries."

46 Million Nokia Cell Batteries Defective [New York Times]
Product Advisory: Nokia BL-5C battery [Nokia]

He's still paying for service with T-mobile, but also picked up a pay-as-you go plan while he waits.

After a string of failed tries with Nokia's joke of an executive customer service team, "Jay," "Adrian," "Milton" and "Jessica," Bob is pleading his case to Nokia CEO Robert Andersson.

Read his letter inside, and oh, Nokia, how about giving this poor man his phone back? Fixed, preferably. — BEN POPKEN

Bob writes:

April 7, 2007

Robert Andersson

Nokia Head Office
Keilalahdentie 2-4
P.O. Box 226
FIN-00045 Nokia Group
Finland

RE: Cellphone S/N [redacted] ; # [redacted

Dear Mr. Andersson:

You are holding my Nokia N90 hostage, and I want it back. Well, not you personally, of course, but your minions at the Teleplan repair facility in the U. S. They have had it now for three months.

The external display on my phone started to fail in December, with pixels starting to gray out, and the area continuing to spread. When I got back from vacation in Mexico, I checked on your website to see if my phone was still covered under warranty. According to the website (5 Jan 06), it was. I sent it in with the form generated by the site. (See attachment #1; note that it has an RTA number, indicating that it's presumed to be covered under warranty. It's interesting to note that when this form is printed, the RTA number is truncated. That leads to several questions: If the repair facility needs this number, do the workers there then have to cross-reference the RTA number with other information on the form to find it? Or do they not need the RTA number, in which case why is it on the form? And why hasn't someone reformatted this form - say, moving this number to the left edge - so the entire number prints? It's easy enough to do. But this is not really germane to my complaint, except insofar as it points up what appears to me to be the general inefficiency and haplessness of Nokia customer service.) According to the report from your Repair Status page on the website, it got logged into their system on 10 Jan 06. Despite the sunny prediction on your repair web pages about ten days for turnaround on repairs, apparently nothing happened with my phone for over a month.

In response to an inquiry that I made by email from the web page that allows inquiries about the status of phones being repaired, I got the first of a series of saccharine, idiotic and unhelpful responses from the "Executive Resolution Team." I got responses from Executive Resolvers calling themselves "Jay," "Adrian," "Milton" and "Jessica." [An aside, Mr. Andersson: You really shouldn't try to buffalo your customers: That kind of title for a bunch of gofers just makes your customers at least cynical, if not downright angry. Executive Resolution is hardly what I got. And having had a recent chance to speak with one of your Executive Resolvers - more on which later - I am even less convinced of their Executiveness. Their execution certainly leaves something to be desired.] Shortly after that message, I got a response by email from the repair facility (see attachment #2). That message indicated that my phone was not under warranty, in contrast with the initial determination on the web site. Neither did it indicate that the failure was a result of any physical damage. It further indicated the steps that I could take, one of which was to pay a $100 repair fee and a $15 shipping fee. It gave a web site through which I could make the payment, which I promptly did. According to that message, dated 2/28/2007, I was required to take action within fifteen days. My credit card statement shows the payment on 3 Feb (Ref. # 24492157062820026567791, to "TELEPLANWIR 925-279-5757 MN"), well before the fifteen-day deadline. A couple of days after making that payment, I received a phone call from someone at Teleplan, inquiring as to what I planned to do about my phone. I informed the caller, whose name I neglected to get, that I had made a payment and the choice that that payment entailed: repair the phone. He seemed surprised by that, and said that he would have to check.

Shortly after that call in early March, the status shown on the repair website for my phone changed to "Awaiting replacement device." It has stayed at that status up to the present, 7 Apr. Is the replacement coming from the far reaches of the Empire on the Millennium Falcon with Han Solo? You now have had my phone three months. I have been paying for three months of service through T-Mobile for a phone that I don't have, and I have resorted to using a prepaid phone, which I am also paying for. The cost to me is mounting.

On Friday, 6 Apr., around midday Pacific Daylight Time, I took time out of my workday to call the "Executive Resolution Team" to see what was happening. Not much time to be sure - not enough to justify a chargeback - but enough to raise my blood pressure. The Executive Resolver with whom I spoke was not entirely clueless, but the quality of the response was marginal. After hearing the details of my case, she put me on hold to check on some information. When she came back, she said that I could either have my phone back as is, or she could look into having it repaired. I told her that she should have it repaired, and that I had already made a payment for that. She seemed surprised by that, and put me on hold to check further. (Left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing?) When she came back on the line, she said that she would have to do some more checking, and would call me back later that day or the next. (Presumably she meant "business day," because to date, she has not called back.)

If one were cynical, one might hypothesize that this series of events is a strategy on the part of Nokia to avoid having to repair the phone, and have me take it back as is. Almost certainly, the economics argue in favor of this strategy.

This is a very unfortunate blot on the Nokia escutcheon. I think your phones are great, or at least they serve my purposes very well. Your customer service, if this experience is anything to go by, deserves a goose egg.

I remain your sincere, disgruntled and humble servant,

Bob A.

— BEN POPKEN

"When we reinstalled the battery, the phone still booted up," said Vallejo fire department investigator Tweedy. "If the battery had malfunctioned or the phone had short-circuited, it wouldn't have worked anymore. And it did, so we could rule out the phone as an ignition source."

Investigators think matches, a lighter, or a cigarette started the blaze, which was so intense, it consumed them. Matters were made worse by the plastic chair the dude was sitting in.

Let's recap: polyester and nylon suit + cigarette + asleep = fire hazard. Either that, or this was a clearcut case of disco inferno. — BEN POPKEN

Cell phone didn't ignite California man [News.com via Gizmodo]

Previously: Cellphone Ignites In Pocket, Burning Man's Body And Hotel Room

Nokia, Cingular To Try MasterCard Phones in NYC [Gear Log]
NYC Mobile Trial Sign Up, If You Dare...

First of all, according to PC Magazine, "if you've had a T-Mobile phone for 90 days, or you've run out of time on a Cingular contract, you can get an unlocking code just by calling your carrier. Tell your carrier's customer service representative that you're traveling abroad and want to use a foreign carrier's SIM card. If they don't give you the code, stick by your guns and ask for a manager." This is awesome, but if it doesn't apply to you, and you'd still like to unlock your phone, things can get trickier. The neat part about all of this is: You can transform some prepaid phones into regular cell phones.

More inside.

If you have an old Nokia phone, check out the "unlock code calculator."

After that it starts to get tricky. You're most likely going to have to buy something: A cable, some software, or even pay for a service. Some phones need hardware mods or are not unlockable at all, and some cell phone shops do "postal unlocking", where you send away a phone, the shop unlocks it and sends it back to you, charging around $25 for the service. As long as you can locate a reputable dealer, this seems like a good deal—especially for newer fancier phones that might require you to purchase equipment. Cell phone unlocking tools can cost more than the phone is worth.

Unfortunately, all this phone unlocking fun is only for T-Mobile, Nextel, Boost and Cingular phones. Other carriers use CDMA phones, which have more "security" and can't be unlocked. "Representatives of Sprint and Alltel said that banning other carriers' phones protects the user-experience on their networks. "We think it's important to optimize the customer experience by making sure all of the handsets on our network are optimized for it," said Sprint spokesman Travis Sowders." Losers. The rest of you can check out the linked article for more specific advice on your type of phone, then free your phone from its chains. —MEGHANN MARCO

How to Unlock Your Phone [PC Magazine]

Photo by Geektronica

The recent Copyright Office ruling on unlocking GSM phones puts some much-needed power back in the hands of you, the wireless consumer. This means you can now bring your Cingular phone over to T-Mobile, or vice-versa. You also have the right to switch between prepaid and postpaid service on the same phone. And when you travel abroad, you can pop an international SIM card into your phone for much lower rates.

This last bit is especially important, because international cell phone use is crazy expensive. So what are the best unlocked phones? ABC likes the Samsung X820 (pictured above) "a perfect example of a terrific product that the carriers tried to block out of the U.S. market for no perceptible reason. It's less than .3 inches thick, with a 2-megapixel camera, gorgeous screen, and fun interface." They also have high esteem for the Nokia N80, Palm Treo 680, Sony Ericsson W810i and the Nokia 7380.

They advocate buying directly from the manufacturer, suggesting that rebel phone purchasing is akin to making a political statement. We've all been under the thumb of wireless companies for too long! Break free with an unlocked phone. —MEGHANN MARCO

Best Unlocked Phones [ABC News/PC Magazine]

Tipster Chris writes, "I found this yesterday, and last night I was able to upgrade my Nokia 6682 to the most current firmware version. It's a big deal for Nokia owners because up to now Nokia has required that you send in your phone to a Nokia service center (or worse, some Cingular storefront?) to upgrade the firmware."

The answer, as always, is bling. Turn your cell phone into a lump of solid gold encrusted with a rainbow of laser-refracting jewels. But who can sell you such a cell phone? The Vertu Lounge, a store-within-a-store at the back of the Nokia Store in Michigan. Although Vertu phones — fitted with "virtually unscratchable sapphire crystal, polished ceramic, ruby bearings and housings made from gold, stainless steel, titanium, carbon fiber and other unusual materials" — can go as low as $5,000, the snooty French shop owners will sell you Nokia variations costing upwards of $90,000.

$A $90,000 Cell Phone? [Sun Times]

Jon needs a very trustworthy person in the UK so he can get his Nokia cellphone repaired.

He bought his European model Nokia cellphone from newegg and Nokia US won't fix it. When he called the UK office, they said they can't ship outside the country. Aggravating!

Now he's stuck with a floppy necked cellphone unless there's a honest Brit left in the world...

Read the rest of Jon's "gotta open the safe but the key's locked inside" chonicle...

Jon writes:

"In mid-December I purchased a brand-spanking new Nokia 6170 from newegg.com for about $225. I'd spent at least a month looking for a phone I wanted, which is getting harder and harder to do when all you want is a phone that doesn't have 82 useless features crammed into it. So I went for the 6170 because it looked cool, it was unlocked (so I could pop in my Cingular SIM card, or switch to T-Mobile at a later date if so inclined), and it was a Nokia. I like Nokia's UI it's clean and transparent.

Sadly, the company isn't so well designed. Recently my girlfriend's cat decided to swat the phone off of a table onto a hardwood floor, screwing up the odd hinge that the 6170 uses. The phone still works perfectly, but now when you flip it open, there's about 30 degrees of flop in the hinge. It doesn't lock into position like it should. It's not a huge problem, but it's definitely annoying. I want my pretty phone to work right.

So I call newegg and say I need the phone replaced. They tell me the warranty's through Nokia, so Nokia has to fix it. They tell me to go to Nokia's website, where I can begin the process of getting the phone repaired.

I go, and enter the serial number on my phone so that they can be sure it's still under warranty. I put it in, and get an error telling me that the number's not in their system. Whaaaaa?

I call a support number, speak to a soft-voiced gentleman, and explain my situation. He asks for the warranty number, and puts me on hold for a few minutes. Then he comes back and says, "Let me explain the problem. This serial number is for a European version of the 6170. Where did you buy the phone from?"

(Now, I knew it was a Euro-version as far as I knew, the 6170 was never really offered stateside. Nokiausa.com did have it on their website as being for sale, but when I tried to put it in my cart back in December, the website would ask for my zip code, and then on a subsequent page the 6170 wouldn't be available anymore. I probably could have called Nokia and ordered it over the phone, but I didn't. I'm impatient, and it was cheaper at newegg.com anyways.)

I explain that I bought it from newegg.com. He tells me that Nokia USA can't honor the warranty, that my version of the 6170 is specific to Europe, etc. "But I just need the hinge fixed. It's the same hinge, Euro or not," I plead. No go. "Well, can you at least give me a number to contact the European offices?"

"No, I don't have that. We're two different companies."

The suckitude continued after I logged onto nokia.com and e-mailed the U.K. office. They told me that I could send it to them, but that they couldn't ship back outside the country. It ended with this line: " We suggest that if you have a contact in the UK then you ask this person to act on your behalf."

I barely have friends in the US, and I surely don't have any friends in the UK.

As it stands, it looks like I'll be stuck with my floppy-necked 6170, until I decide to buy another phone that I can't have serviced."

Angel, angel, spin me a dream, won't you, won't you, help this poor bloke get his bloody phone fixed?