Alcatel open market 4s

[Iain_S]

Just an update : Alcatel has replied to my DM today.

Alcatel, or at least the guy who has replied to my DM, didn't understand the issue. I've replied this :

lol I got the same reply word for word today also

 

[nate0]

lol I got the same reply word for word today also

Oh man that's messed up. I guess it buys them time...

 

[paschott]

*grumble* Looks like they "fixed" my phone by shipping me back a new T-Mobile unit. Different IMEI and everything. Popped in my ATT SIM card and was told it didn't work. Will be calling them later, but seeing if I have any recourse w/ Amazon in the meantime. :-/


Edit: And Amazon is being gracious in allowing me to return this phone even though it's past the return date and Alcatel shipped me a new phone. I think I'm moving over to the HP model. It's more expensive, but to my knowledge they're still supported. (And I do like WM despite the crazy low market share and it likely dying.)

 

[nate0]

*grumble* Looks like they "fixed" my phone by shipping me back a new T-Mobile unit. Different IMEI and everything. Popped in my ATT SIM card and was told it didn't work. Will be calling them later, but seeing if I have any recourse w/ Amazon in the meantime. :-/


Edit: And Amazon is being gracious in allowing me to return this phone even though it's past the return date and Alcatel shipped me a new phone. I think I'm moving over to the HP model. It's more expensive, but to my knowledge they're still supported. (And I do like WM despite the crazy low market share and it likely dying.)

It is not the same looking device by far...but buy an Elite X3 if you need a better customer experience.

 

[paschott]

Totally agree, but with no telling how long Alcatel will drag their feet on providing a working ROM for open market phones (or even acknowledge that they exist), the HP just makes more sense. It's likely to get a little better long-term support, especially if some people are running hacked C-Shell builds on one. If Alcatel had just shipped me back a working open market phone, I would have been okay. I specified that repeatedly in the ticket, in the RMA, and even put a link to this thread. I still got a T-Mobile locked device that I can't use.

I liked the look and feel of the Idol, but if it's not going to be supported by the company that produced it to the point that I can reset it, I really can't keep using it. I like WM, but still need a mostly-working phone.

Anyone want to buy some Mr. Shield screen protectors and a plastic case for the cost of shipping?

 

[nate0]

Totally agree, but with no telling how long Alcatel will drag their feet on providing a working ROM for open market phones (or even acknowledge that they exist), the HP just makes more sense. It's likely to get a little better long-term support, especially if some people are running hacked C-Shell builds on one. If Alcatel had just shipped me back a working open market phone, I would have been okay. I specified that repeatedly in the ticket, in the RMA, and even put a link to this thread. I still got a T-Mobile locked device that I can't use.

I liked the look and feel of the Idol, but if it's not going to be supported by the company that produced it to the point that I can reset it, I really can't keep using it. I like WM, but still need a mostly-working phone.

Anyone want to buy some Mr. Shield screen protectors and a plastic case for the cost of shipping?

Agreed. If they had a mini Elite X3, I would have bought one a long time ago and would still have it. I made some reviews from my perspective on the Elite X3. Excellent build and HW, just too much girth for me personally. Was awkward trying to pull it out of my pocket and such. Makes sense more why it is business/enterprise focused for that. They are fairly cheap on Swappa or Ebay now, and I almost considered getting another just based on price alone...

 

[nate0]

@paschott
Post the case and protectors here if you want.

 

[Luke Rossini]

@paschott

How did you go about getting Amazon to accept a return for this device after the return period ?

 

[Iain_S]

got yet another reply via DM on twitter today from Alcatel, saying their engineers are working on the issue and stay tuned.

 

[nate0]

That is actually reassuring so long as their engineers know what they are doing. Wonder if they are the same group that over saw the current open market ffu :-|

Will wait and see what happens.

 

[anthonyng]

Hope they are for real for you guys!

 

[Iain_S]

Time will tell I guess, that was the first DM over the last 2 weeks that I got from them that actually seems like what they are talking about, when I see engineers it looks like that it has been passed along to their software engineers to look at. BUT time will tell.

 

[nate0]

FYI: While still waiting for my IDOL4s to come back from Alcatel, I forked over some change for a used T-Mobile Idol4s, but I bought it from the seller with the unlock code. I figured I could hand one or the other to my wife soon to give W10M a whirl, if Alcatel ever gets me the other phone back...

Anyway, I made no progress from what we have found so far flashing the Open Market model. Even though I have the T-Mobile variant, they share the same Platform ID. But each day that goes by we learn more and also Alcatel seems to be making something happen on their end. I guess only time will tell.

 

[paschott]

@paschott

How did you go about getting Amazon to accept a return for this device after the return period ?

I had a very helpful and understanding rep who heard my complaints that Alcatel wasn't supporting their device and had shipped me back one I couldn't use so was now sitting with a useless phone. Probably helped that I don't tend to abuse Amazon's returns and have placed quite a few orders with them consistently over a long period of time. It was also < 1 month past that date and likely they would have issues w/ trying to get a replacement sent. It wasn't like I was calling on something I ordered a year ago.

While I probably could have somehow gotten a T-Mobile unlock code for the phone, I know it would have been really, really hard to do as I've never been a T-Mobile customer. No idea how one goes about getting a legit unlock code for a phone that shouldn't be locked when the company selling said phone was the one locking it. :-/

For what it's worth, I did like the device overall. Putting a case on greatly improved it's ability to not slide off surfaces. The speed/picture/storage/RAM were all better than my 830. I just can't justify holding on to a device that isn't well-supported and is returned to me in pretty much a non-usable state. I have an x3 on order and hope that it doesn't show some of the issues that have been reported w/ them (SD cards most notably). They seem to be relatively well-received otherwise, if a little large.

 

[fishsniffer2]

Both my 4's got flashed with the T-Mobile ffu, one was T-Mobile originally and the other the unlocked/unbranded variant bought from Amazon, they now are both T-Mobile ffu but the unbranded one is still SIM unlocked so I don't quite understand how yours went from unlocked to T-Mobile locked? Anyway still hoping for a solution from Alcatel soon!
One interesting thing is that Both my 4s'phones got the bad Microsoft download without being on the windows insider program! Anybody else had that issue?? and should Microsoft bear some responsibility since the update got downloaded automatically! Thanks!

 

[nate0]

Both my 4's got flashed with the T-Mobile ffu, one was T-Mobile originally and the other the unlocked/unbranded variant bought from Amazon, they now are both T-Mobile ffu but the unbranded one is still SIM unlocked so I don't quite understand how yours went from unlocked to T-Mobile locked? Anyway still hoping for a solution from Alcatel soon!
One interesting thing is that Both my 4s'phones got the bad Microsoft download without being on the windows insider program! Anybody else had that issue?? and should Microsoft bear some responsibility since the update got downloaded automatically! Thanks!

He did the same as you and flashed his unlocked variant with t-mobile fw. However working with Alcatel, they offered a way through RMA that he could have it restored back. They sent him a replacement instead and it too like myself in same situation, was a replacement that was factory locked to T-Mobile.

 

[paschott]

He did the same as you and flashed his unlocked variant with t-mobile fw. However working with Alcatel, they offered a way through RMA that he could have it restored back. They sent him a replacement instead and it too like myself in same situation, was a replacement that was factory locked to T-Mobile.

Pretty much exactly that. They didn't fix my old phone - they sent me back a completely different one. I had a new IMEI and everything. It was locked to T-Mobile. I popped in my ATT SIM and SD card before powering on and was told almost immediately that I needed an unlock code for that SIM card to work. I had detailed several times in the support ticket and the RMA notes that this was not a T-Mobile phone and that a T-Mobile phone wouldn't work for me and they didn't pay any attention to that or didn't care.

 

[fishsniffer2]

Thanks for the info! Have you heard of anybody else that had the bad MS update downloaded without being in the Windows insider program like the second part of my previous comment says? If so what recourse they have taken to remedy the problem! I strongly feel it should be Microsofts responsibility when I did not choose to download the update on either of my 4's>
I have not contacted them about this as I feel the we would have a better chance at them helping out if we were several with the same issue launching a complaint.

 

[nate0]

I have been calling them twice a week for the past 2-3 weeks escalating on my rma and why the status has not changed. Today I decided to ask the support rep to hand me over to the supervisor on duty. She analyzed the notes on the tickets and then I explained more about the situation I have. She said the status says waiting on sw. They were waiting for the Unlocked FW to be ready to flash. I then noted that it was a locked imei/T-mobile facory locked model and why did they not just send me an unocked device and be done with it. She said that no matter if the imei or sw is an issue that they would send me a device that works even if they have to send an unlocked device. I then requested she ask the repair center for the latter solution of sending a device now and not waiting any longer. I checked just now and there is UPS shipment on its way from finetechwin inc. scheduled to be delivered before Friday.

 

[aj173]

I have been calling them twice a week for the past 2-3 weeks escalating on my rma and why the status has not changed. Today I decided to ask the support rep to hand me over to the supervisor on duty. She analyzed the notes on the tickets and then I explained more about the situation I have. She said the status says waiting on sw. They were waiting for the Unlocked FW to be ready to flash. I then noted that it was a locked imei/T-mobile facory locked model and why did they not just send me an unocked device and be done with it. She said that no matter if the imei or sw is an issue that they would send me a device that works even if they have to send an unlocked device. I then requested she ask the repair center for the latter solution of sending a device now and not waiting any longer. I checked just now and there is UPS shipment on its way from finetechwin inc. scheduled to be delivered before Friday.

If you're dumb enough to accept the wager, I'm willing to bet you a grand that you receive a locked T-Mo phone. Probably the easiest money I'll ever make.