What is wrong with my Nokia 1020?

[locutus6]

I bought a second hand Nokia Lumia 1020 a few months ago as my last 1020 was locked to O2 UK and was not able to unlock it (64GB edition).

On this secondhand Lumia the battery was not holding the charge (probably why they sold it off), and as soon as you start using it the battery would drain really quickly. I lived with it for 3 months, then my USB port on my 1020 broke (I think the ribbon connection might have been disconnected). Contacted Nokia NZ (as I'm living here now, UK originally) and Nokia said they didn't want to know because it wasn't a NZ stock phone and the warranty is only for the UK.... I said it's a mobile phone - do you think people are going to stay in one country with it?? They just said that was there policy.

So I searched for someone in NZ to repair the phone, came across this guy who had a very professional setup, and gave me a quote to fix the Nokia and it was acceptable so I went with him.

The battery and USB port comes down, he fixes the phone, I take the phone back and later in the day I realise that I can't hear messages, phonecalls, music from the speaker. I can hear everything through the headphone port. The earpiece speaker works fine (I can hear everyone).

I contact this guy again and he says bring it in and will correct. After he looks at it, he says that he doesn't know why the speaker is not working, but is going to order a new one for me for free.

Then since he looked at the speaker, the microphone has 'stopped' working, meaning on a phonecall, no one can hear me, BUT, it seems to work. For example, if I use the speech-to-text function on the phone, it picks it up, if I Shazam a song, the microphone works and Shazam gives me the song!!!

So the two problems I now have with my phone are the speaker doesn't work, and the microphone doesn't work for phonecalls. BIZARE!!!

Any one here that can give me some help? I wanted to take it to Nokia to fix, but they didn't want to know about it as it was an UK stock phone!!! Who would have thought people buy mobile phones in one country, and use it another country??? Wow. Never occurred to me.

It's like calling Microsoft (USA) for technical support in Windows, and them asking what country you bought the Windows from (UK), and say, sorry since you didn't buy it in the USA we cannot help you. ??????

One of the reasons I buy UK phones is the firmware. It's not modified to the extent as some markets such as the USA (looking at AT&T). I bought a Nokia N8 in the US, and since it was US stock everything was done to US formats/standards, which was difficult to remove, and it was difficult to get Symbian updates.

Thank you, and I apologise for the rantness of the post, but it just frustrates me that Nokia are being cheap.

 

[Zachary Boddy]

I'm sorry that Nokia didn't give you the support, but you have to realize the risks of buying a second-hand phone. Also, you can't blame Nokia's support team for corporate decisions. The people assigned to help you can't because Nokia can't take any risks.
I think this phone is going to cost you more to fix than it's worth. Chance is it goes down to a programming level and it'd be easier to buy a new 1020 on eBay and switch the SIM cards than bother with these problems. I apologize that I can't help more but without knowing every little detail of this 1020 I can't say anything for certain. It's probably something no one on here has a sure solution for. I may be wrong, but I sure don't have a solution. Again, I apologize.

 

[locutus6]

I have bought secondhand phones in the past without problems. If it was the battery that had just been the problem, I doubt I would be having these problems now as the repairer wouldn't have needed to dismantle the entire phone (apparently, he had to take everything out to fix the USB port).

Sadly, I think you're right it would be cheaper and easier to just buy a new one as I don't see the problems ending with this phone. Any one want to buy a musical paperweight? What is even worse, my previous 1020 is back at home, doing nothing because it's locked to O2 and only O2 can unlock it - and since I bought that secondhand as well, O2 will not unlock it unless I can bring in the receipt, which the people I bought from lost!!! The last time I checked (4 months ago) there were no unlocking services for the 64GB version.

How do you mean Nokia can't take risks?

Thanks for your help so far! Appreciated.

 

[Zachary Boddy]

Nokia is a business, and even though they do their best to try and support their customers, they can't take risks. Meaning, they have no idea where this phone came from, and no idea what's wrong. Without proof of where it came from, and its history, they can't guarantee anything.
Also, they can't help with anything, unless you send the phone in. That costs money for both Nokia and you, and since the phone is secondhand any money Nokia made on it...they already made. Now they're losing money on a phone they don't know the problem of, and their employees have to spend valuable paid time analyzing this phone and trying to fix it. At this point it's costing YOU more money than you paid for the phone and possibly taking away support for people who have technical problems that can be fixed over phone for no cost. Do you see what I mean?

 

[Zachary Boddy]

Secondhand phones can be an affordable way to buy a phone, but like I said there's always the chance you get a bad phone.