Usable Cracked Screen but Other Unrelated Hardware(?) Issues - Warranty Support?

[dancfuller]

Samsung Focus 1.3 running Mango on AT&T US.

I have six days left on my Samsung factory warranty (November 8).

In June, I dropped my Focus from about 2 feet. It landed on a corner and there's a very slight, but noticeable crack along the left side of the glass, starting at the corner where I dropped it, ending about 1.5" up the glass, into the bezel. It was perfectly usable afterwards; the crack doesn't interfere with the touch aspect (no roughness on my finger), no loss of touch sensitivity in terms of the electronics, and it's way off in the bottom right corner, so not even in the line of site for most uses of the phone. Pretty ideal, all things considered.

Since I updated to Mango, I've had a few hardware issues. The biggest (and worst) is that the phone is prone to overheating which triggers a reboot. It usually happens when I'm using the phone while still plugged in, and after ~10-15 minutes (whether plugged into a computer's USB port or the supplied wall charger). Apps (built-in or 3rd party) that utilize the GPS receiver are especially problematic for causing restarts. The phone is physically very warm (not "hot" per se) when this happens, but I'm confident it's a thermal trigger. This never happened before the official Mango update. I had run the 2 Mango pre-release versions and never had the issue. (I'll note that those pre-release versions didn't include/run the updated Samsung hardware drivers.)

Another issue which never happened before final Mango is that the Windows button sometimes gets "stuck" on its own, without even me pressing it. The haptic feedback is felt as if the button's been pressed, the OS returns to the home screen, then the "Listening" box comes up because the phone thinks the Windows button has been pressed and held, triggering the speech function. VERY annoying. It doesn't happen all the time, but it's absolutely maddening when it does happen. I've tried multiple different grips, and I can't really find a correlation anywhere. I've had the phone since November of last year, and the Galaxy-chassis phones are notoriously flexible (and only gotten more so in the year since), so in a non-scientifically sound way, it seems like flexing/twisting the phone slightly causes the stuck button to get "unstuck," as if I'm doing something to re-orient the digitizer with respect to the touch surface above the buttons. (I'll admit this may be completely coincidental.)

Being that both issues occurred after the official Mango update, I'm tempted to just write them off as software (and not hardware) issues, but I'm not seeing a lot of reports of either of these issues (especially the stuck button one), and I've tried a full-on factory reset (the VOL-, PWR, Camera button method, not just the in-phone "reset"), but there was no improvement.

The phone was 100%, perfectly functional before and after I dropped it (it was running NoDO at the time, then the two Mango pre-builds), but with the combination of these two (very?) rare issues and a hard reset, I'm kind of at a loss for explanations.

The moral of the story, if I go into the AT&T store about these (unrelated to screen) issues, are they going to laugh me out of there because I have a cracked screen and assume I'm trying to pull a fast one on them? AND, both of the issues appear at random (the stuck Windows button) or only after ~10 minutes of use (using while the charger's plugged in), so I can't even guarantee that they'd see the issues at-hand when I went to the store.


In advance, thanks for your help.

 

[selfcreation]

well honestly this could depend on the sell`s rep /store you go too / repair center…

i use to be a store rep for BELL in Canada and we have had these situations before. some times with different outcomes. let me explain.


NORMALY , the SECOND you have physical or water damage on the phone .. your Warranty is VOIDED right away. even if the problem started before , they won’t care cause you can’t prove it.

the reason for this is because YOU dropping the phone and cracking the screen could have damage other electroniques in the phone ( that you can’t see until its opened up )

SOO , the sell rep COULD refuse to send your phone out for repair.(or could make you pay a Deposited if he’s not sure. if its covered they refund you. )

OR he could do it (if it’s not that bad ) and then the repair center could send you a bill saying it wasn’t covered under Warranty after all.

Or everything could be OK!!!

The way it works here , if your Warranty is VOID we call our clients and tell them it will COST you XXX to fix it and you can chose to refuse it. (we give back phone as is ) not sure if its like that in the USA.

UNLESS!!!
(Importent)
they simply REPLACE your phone with a re-furbish phone. But still send your broken phone out… if the repair center determines its not covered by warranty. Expect a bill for FULL VALUE of the phone. Which will suck for you.

so its sorta of a HIT and MISS situation.

One thing i can GURANTY . if you send your phone out they WILL NOT fix your screen. ( or change it in this situation ) but they could overlook he crack and just fix other things....

for the problems happening at RANDOM which is called a INTERMITENT PROBLEM ( in the cell world ) normally the rep will send the phone out EVEN if they cant reproduce the problem in store. ( if its under the INTERMITENT PROBLEM section )

The way it works here , if your Warranty is VOID we call our clients and tell them it will COST you XX to fix it and you can chose to refuse it. (we give back phone as is ) not sure if its like that in the USA.

As for the phone heating up . mine does ALL the time as well, I always figured it was normal ( mostly only happens if im playing a game while its charging )

But you can use the home button bugging out on you , or try to use the overheating as well… I can confirm the overheating aspect , mine does it too when its charging./and being used

Considering your cracked screen DOENS SOUND THAT BAD. i think you will be ok...
but it would be easier for me to confirm it if you showed me a picture of the damage.

Before you do ANYTHING informed yourself on AT&T`s repair policy. Very important cause you don’t want any surprises.


I hope this helps, let me know if you have any more questions

 

[dancfuller]

Thanks for the reply.

I'd be perfectly fine with them not repairing the screen at all; I definitely have gotten used to it. Of course I'd rather it not be cracked, but I know it's my own fault, and that aspect of the phone still works perfectly well. Sounds like I need to stop in the store and see what they say.

You said you've noticed the heating, too. Do you also see the random restarts when it gets hot? Or do you just notice that it gets quite warm?

 

[selfcreation]

i haven’t noticed any random resets yet. maybe once or twice in over 1 year witch to me is perfectly normal. (considering my Wm and Android phone did it every day lol )

i did notice the overheat... it gets REALY HOT on my lap when im sitting at home playing a game or something. but it ONLY does it when its charging. (normally right in the back where the battery is)

 

[dancfuller]

Update: I took it to an AT&T store, explained the situation, and once the rep took a look at the crack, he said that the warranty center would reject it immediately due to the obvious physical damage to the phone. He was polite but straight-forward that the warranty center would deny it unconditionally. He said that I could go to the warranty center directly (~1 hour each way, unfortunately) to see if I could talk them into it by reiterating that I didn't want the cracked screen replaced, but that even then, they'd probably reject the claim per their rules. Again, my own clumsy fault, so that's fair.

He did say that I could pay $125 for an early upgrade so I could get new phone without paying full retail price. Of course, the challenge was that both the Focus S and Titan were coming out "soon," so paying $125 (early upgrade) + $50 (on-contract price) for a replacement Focus when I had a generally working phone in-hand would be a waste. (for the Focus S and Titan, I'd still have to pay the $125 "early upgrade" fee on top of the what-I-assume-to-be $200 on-contract prices, but still better than the non-contract cost for a even a Focus)

BUT, a few days later (Friday the 4th), I managed to drop the phone into the sink, but not just into the sink, into the one corner of the sink that had the one dish with water in it, "chip side" (top of the phone) down. So... I went from having a generally working phone to one that hangs at the "SAMSUNG" boot logo to a friend's old Nokia E71x (wow, Symbian is awful, especially considering this phone came out in May 2009 on AT&T).

I tried the various tricks for recovering a "baptized" phone, but no dice. It's too bad that I never was this clumsy with my definitely not-as-nice phones before the Focus so I could've gotten all this phone maiming out of my system before having a "nice" phone.

One nice part is that I'm now legitimately in the market for getting a new phone and there are two very interesting new ones... but the Focus S still hasn't shown up in the stores in my area (west suburbs of Philadelphia), and the Titan still doesn't have a release date. That said, I've rapidly become a Symbian power-user, truly a life skill in this day and age.