I Heart HTC: Episode Deuxième
So the other day I recounted a beautiful experience I had with an HTC rep, a Southern belle named Nicole, in which I inquired about buying a replacement headset and one of those protective sleeve things with the Android robot on it for my Nexus One and how by a bizarre but fantastic twist of fate my sweet, sweet Nicole hooked me up with both for free and got them over to me right quick with FedEx instead of slumming it with the more proletariat parcel services, also on the house. This pleased me. I was pleased. I was also satisfied and you know exactly what I mean by that.
Well I thought I’d push my luck a bit and see if I could get a fresh Nexus as I had worn out my volume-down button which I press nonstop while using my Google Reader reader to skip from article to article hoping to find something someone else reported on of interest so that I could star it, get off the toilet, pull it up on my computer along with WordPress to report about that guy’s report for you guys as a couple of you probably didn’t read the original one. Really, I pressed the hell out of the thing, of course it would wear out so don’t blame my phone. I’m one of these “power users” except with the volume down button, all right? I called back HTC, initially saddened not to get my darling Nicole on the line as I had hoped fate would bring us together in spite of the heavy odds against that kind of coincidence coinciding. Instead, a young and comforting — comforting in kind of a maternal way (I’m talkin’ a Freudian way, dig?) — lady named Isabelle picked up and ooo-wee let me tell you she is a sweetheart too (don’t tell Nicole please).
Maybe you’re thinking, Wow big deal this guy got an exchange under his warranty, I did that like fifty times, whoop dee doo, why is this friggin’ news and what the hell do I care about this woman’s name and blah blah blah. Think again buster because my Nexus One was rooted, overclocked and bootloader unlocked. Now when you do that sort of thing to this phone, it warns you really articulately and engagingly, unlike reading some dull Microsoft EULA (which actually is a bad comparison because no one has ever read one of those anyway), that you’re voiding your warranty in the process. One would conclude based on that warning that if you go ahead and hit the OK that, for example, were you to wear out your volume button, you’re screwed.
With AT&T, from whom I proudly did not buy this sucker, I would normally just say yes, yes, no, yes to the dull array of requisite questions they ask when they give you your informed consent about how they’ll charge you $500 if they get your phone back with the worn out button and they discover you flashed a custom rom on it and cross my fingers that they wouldn’t follow through with their threat, and as a brazen FU on top of that I wouldn’t even bother flashing back the stock rom and locking the bootloader. But because, as Nicole once did, Isabelle touched my heart so softly yet profoundly at the same time and without asking me to tell her the color of the liquid reactive snitch strip under the battery, I decided to go with the honesty and full disclosure policy with I her and said, “Listen Isabelle, before we let things between us progress any further I feel it is time that I warn you that the phone, while in otherwise mint condition, is fully unlocked and rooted; however based on my expertise and heart I can assure you that said rooting and bootloader unlocking did not precipitate the warn out volume down button. I don’t mean to scare you but it’s important to me to know how that makes you feel.”
She replied softly that I mustn’t worry, that she knew from the minute I said “your voice is as beautiful as your name, Isabelle” that it was not only not software related, even if it were she’d let it slide, that she’s open-minded to overclocking/undervolting kernel mods, and said that there was no need to attempt to restore the phone and that I should spend my time on things that matter, like testing batteries for all of you. She further noted that in the event of my sending them back a phone through such an exchange to which for whatever reason they took exception that, in stark contrast to AT&T’s policy, they would not sting me with some stupid fee but get in touch to talk about it, to make sure everyone is both on the same page and happily on that page, a page which would include my having both a fresh phone with my bank account untouched so that I could send these women some flowers. Easy Isabelle, you’re blowing my mind honey.
We wrapped up the call. I hated to stop talking to Isabelle but I knew she had other people to help and out of love, letting her go was the right thing to do. Yes, yes, I could have tried quickly to break my new headphones to keep her on the line longer but can you seriously look me in the eye and tell me that’s what a man, a masculine man of journalistic integrity would do to a woman? It was time to move on. Over the course of the following few days I managed to get over our separation with all those fond memories, primarily though not entirely auditory, running through my head day and night just in time for my man Steve the FedEx guy to show up at my door with the fresh Nexus One. Right on Steve, you the man. Were it not weird to tip the mailman I’d hook you up with some scratch.
You know what I don’t get about you people, at least from my blogging experience after telling you about Nicole? Why do you have to automatically assume that whichever female rep I’m going on and on about is “probably [pejorative adjective].” How do you know that? Do you walk around customer service center of HTC, wherever they are, and case the joint for fat chicks to talk trash about on my article threads? Just say you’re happy for me this time. Happy for me and Isabelle. And Nicole.
Doug Simmons
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Doug Simmons
Biographical info.. hmm. I have a history of not being able to strike the balance between what is "safe" to put into these forms and what is, in my mind at least, funny. Can't do it.
But of course with my brand new trusty Nexus One protective sleeve Nicole sent me! Even has sexy robots on it.
Your an odd man Doug,,,,,, funny, but odd and stop giving so much ammunition to DavidK and his sex graph of shame. Obviously if you are having suggestive phone conversations with strangers, people are going to start asking you if you are wearing protection. Well,,,,,, are you?????
AHHHHH!!!!! but does it glow in the dark? (LOL)
Oh come on, really jimski? I open up my heart and trust with very intimate details of not one but two warranty exchanges, exposing my emotional vulnerabilities and a nifty FYI that you can apparently exchange rooted/unlocked phones, and you come at me with a trap like this?
Argh.. Okay. So one time I rented a car from Hertz, sprang for the Corvette. Cost a lot of cheddar and I wanted to see what it could do. Hit the gas, nice straightaway down in the Keys, water on both sides of the stretch a very rare zero threat of law enforcement, loving how those Gs sucked me back into that bucket seat (my fiancee maybe seeing things from a different perspective) and then bam, sudden stop of acceleration at only 130mph without even redlining. Obviously the car could go faster but apparently it had a governor.
Now even though I tend not to want to drive at speeds in excess of 130mph (though when I do, I use Trapster for Android), if I knew as much about cars as I do phones, and if it were my car and not a rental I suppose, the first thing I would do is get under the hood and remove that governor which, while I appreciate is for safety somehow, I could arguably live without, even though it wouldn’t affect the average time it takes me to get from point A to B. No flaws with the Vette (other than the yellow paint), likewise none with my phone.
But that’s my nature with cars, that’s my nature with phones. Open that sucker up, yank out the governor for speed of the vehicle and the speed of the processor.
Now do you see?
I am happy for you Doug and hope to have the pleasure to speak to Nicole or Isabelle should I ever need to contact HTC. But just wondering why you found the need to “root” your (nearly) perfect Nexus One. Purely scientific purposes or did you feel compelled to correct an underlying, dare I say, flaw.
It was perfect in that 1GHz is the reasonable clock speed for this hardware and just in case any of their customers are of the unreasonable persuasion, me, they make it easy — they even host the tools — to modify it accordingly.
Damnit would you guys stop hijacking the essence of this article.
so it wasn’t perfect out of the box?
Yes I do. And further, I would probably would do the same thing in both instances. Now back to your regularly scheduled article.
Glad to hear HTC did the right thing. People (well, maybe not everyone) are going to tinker and as long as they don’t start removing screws or dipping their phone in a Margarita, the warrantly should still cover defects and failures, assuming overclocking does not burn up a processor.
Think its time HTC figured a way to make those volume buttons non-mechanical so failures become a distant memory. My new Jabra Stereo BT Headphones have a non-moving volume control. Slide your finger down to lower, slide up to raise. Sliding your finger would be the same as pressing up or down, so functionality wouldn’t change. But life expectancy of the buttons would probably increase x100. Maybe you will inspire them, especially after your next call to Isabelle for the same problem.
HTC is the 2nd best phones and best customer service next to RIM BlackBerry phones.