Talk about a hot mic: Dodgy Pixel mobe audio lands Google in court Google has been hit with a class-action lawsuit over hardware failures in its Pixel smartphones. The complaint, filed in a US district court in northern California, accuses the Chocolate Factory of breach of warranty and unfair competition for its handling of faulty speaker and microphone components in the handsets it sold …
No... the average brainwashed consumerist changes there phone (and other things) every time something new a shiny comes along that claims to be better, shinier and more expensive.
The average, normal consumer changes their phone every 2-3 yrs.. My current phone is 2yrs old and I won't be replacing it this year unless it breaks. But after that, given it's a wileyfox, so no more support or security updates... I'll have no choice but to replace it simply for peace of mind and security.
Keeping a phone for 8yrs doesn't make 'you' normal..it makes you one of a very tiny minority.
"I'll have no choice but to replace it simply for peace of mind and security."
You always have a choice but congratulations on behaving exactly the way google want you to. Baaaaa!
"Keeping a phone for 8yrs doesn't make 'you' normal..it makes you one of a very tiny minority."
I guess it depends on where you live or perhaps its a generational thing. I just use my phone as a phone, not as a toy computer to play juvenile games on or exchange inanities on WhatsApp with people I'm too lazy to actually phone.
Welp - all of those are your choice, but I quite enjoy having a small, pocket sized computer and thus have carried a smart phone for 12 years (yes, thats before Apple allegedly invented the category, but thats a rant for another day) and have found that generally the things wear over time so I replace them. Usually after 2-3 years I'll admit. I have also used them for actual productive stuff like fixing servers remotely whilst nowhere near a computer. I also like listening to music, which having one device which also resolves this problem is a boon and finally, I commute and I'll be damned if I'm going to sit and watch the world go by which I've seen a thousand times before or even talk to the other sad excuses for humanity that tend to end up on my bus route (Think taking a bus through both the poshest and poorest areas of the city I live in.. it's not the most pleasant of journeys, and frequently overcrowded on a morning or evening).
But... in Europe, we do have consumer protection laws which state that a device should be free of defect for a 'reasonable' period of time - usually 6 years with allowances given for failures caused by wear and tear etc. I'd love to see how Google would stand if they were really that bad over here.
this varies from country to country.
in the UK for electronic goods, waranty was decided to be 1 year or product was not fit for the purpose it was sold. Its the vendors responsibility to prove it wasnt faulty when they sold it in the first 6 months, after that its the users responsibility to prove that it was.
In mainland europe its mostly 24 months, in enlightened Norway its 5 years (regardless) gets to be a nightmare when you support multiple countries.
At the time i was working Consumer CS, 90 days was standard in the states, but CS teams threw freebies at everyone.
in enlightened Norway its 5 years (regardless)
So you just tack 50-100% onto the price to insure against failure.
Actually it's great for suppliers, you know a phone battery will only last 3years and the government tells you to warranty it for 5, you just build the price of a new battery into the phone and then after 3 years the consumer can't switch to another brand without losing their investment.
It's like Volvo and Merc getting together to persuade the governnent that you need to require 5* crash ratings and 500,000mi warranties on all cars - to protect the children. Oh you wanted a 10k Kia? - tough, peasant!
"England and Wales have a six-year guarantee"
Not true. There are [i]very[/i] specific conditions to the Consumer Right Act (2015), especially "If a fault develops after the first six months, the burden is on you to prove that the product was faulty at the time of delivery" and "This doesn't mean that a product has to last six years - just that you have this length of time in which to make a claim if a retailer refuses to repair or replace a faulty product."
What [i]really[/i] makes retailers angry is people making demands based on inaccurate reporting by journalists who don't verify what they write.
'I guess it depends on where you live or perhaps its a generational thing. I just use my phone as a phone, not as a toy computer to play juvenile games on or exchange inanities on WhatsApp with people I'm too lazy to actually phone.'
Obviously your decisions make you morally superior to anyone who has a use case for a smartphone. And a joy to meet at parties too I'd imagine.
There are 101 things people use smartphones for that are neither Juvenile nor inane, and you know it.
I won't list out all of them but what's wrong with playing games anyway? I generally don't on my phone but I do occasionally.
And WhatsApp is like SMS in many ways (or it can be used that way), with the bonus of being able to involve several parties. Do you shun SMS on your (presumably non-smart) phone, because you don't want to be seen as "lazy"? Do you ever use email? Do you ever listen to music, radio, etc?
Mr Boltar, if your behaviour is shared by, say, 5% of people, then it's not normal by definition, because it's not (does not conform to) the norm, no matter how commonsensical it may be.
I do wonder, are people using modern phones for juvenile things, or are you just a little bit closed minded? Quite similarly to what you are saying about WhatsApp, someone could make the statement that people yap on their phones with people they are to lazy to see.
And what is more juvenile, grown up people entertaining themselves with video games, or the attitude that everyone else is sooo wrong on all accounts (that you actually have to use sound effects like "Baaaaa!" to express your contempt for what they are saying), and you of all are right on everything?! I quite honestly wonder how much older than your phone you are. If not by all that much, then it's quite fine.
I like tech. I like that, when a regular SMS is only 60 characters if using diacritics and the telco only gives me a few hundred of them per month, there is Viber. Also, call it an inanity, but, while calling someone to say that you've got the tickets for the play you both wanted to see is fine, I sometimes like to just snap the photo and send it for effect. And I plea guilty on the charge of juvenile delinquency for shooting some weird aircraft in Sky Force Reloaded on the bus this morning, and I'm ashamed, I know I should have used those moments for something much more adult. And I plea guilty on the matter of the ultimate sin: when the piece of gadgetry I currently have becomes obsolete in a couple of years, I will go and buy a new one. Baaa and out. :)
Keeping a phone for 8 years just puts you near the far end of the Bell curve. If that somehow makes you morally superior, good for you. My 8yo phones don't work any more.
As for me, I own one of the aforementioned Pixel XL phones. Works fine so far, knock on wood. I use it to read and to respond to smarmy patronizing comments on an online IT rag.
I upgraded my 4 year old Motorola G (with Cyanogenmod) for a Samsung S8. I expect to keep this one for 2-3 years and am waiting for the Samsung S10 or SX or whatever they call it - although it's been great so far.
My S8 will go to my son (as he's currently using the 4 year old motorola phone).
Owning a flagship phone doesn't need to be expensive and so far, since my first Nokia 6310i, I've avoided the Apple-like upgrading of devices.
No - I'd suggest that it is made up two general groups.
- Those who are in the 24 month upgrade cycle
- Those who wait after their contract ends before deciding what to do.
And even then it ignores the second hand market entirely...
I plan to upgrade my phone this year, whether I need to or not, because it will then pass down to my daughter. The phone she currently has is:
a) old enough that many useful apps (such as libby - which gives library access to both e- and audio- books) don't work.
b) starting to have the screen fail (glitching up on the RHS at various times)
But given that it is now 6-7 years old I think that's not unreasonable. It's had one replacement screen in that time.
Then my wife and I will be in sync - with one upgrade per year, alternating which kid gets an update as well. Scheduled phone life - 4 years, publicly visible 'upgrade cycle' 2 years...
John Robson - That's quite a good point! But what's also interesting is that all the people in your household do end up upgrading every two years, it's just that you and your wife buy new devices and the less affluent family members get theirs "second hand". But it fits in with the usual "people keep their mobes for two years" statistic. :)
> But it fits in with the usual "people keep their mobes for two years" statistic. :)
Do kids phones without SIMs count? ;)
The point I was making that we now upgrade more frequently, used to be 4-5 years, because the ‘second lifes’ of our devices now have value to us.
I am shocked. Shocked!
Wait. No. Wrong word, sorry.
I am underwhelmed!
Imagine that, yet another mobile phone that is totally useless at making phone calls. By design. I'm not sure when or why this became normal, but I do really wish we could get back to the core function of a phone being to make phone calls. That would be nice. Can you hear me now?
....all of you smug bores who just use there phone to make phone calls.... you really are missing out, since I discovered Kik my phone has become a gateway to endless pleasure.... who knew so many woman in thier 20's and 30's had a thing for 50+ men, man life has never been so fun.
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