Database Info

Can We See If It's Dying Before Scheduling the Funeral?

I have been reading the same information as the rest of you about the VS G-Tablet, Staples and now Sears.
And I wonder how everyone is coming up with such wild suppostions based on almost NO really factual information.
Staples recall of inventory is a fact. I noticed that they are returning stock to VS because of some kind of flaw. We don't know what it is. We don't know if it is terminal or fixable. We don't know anything about remedies.
But whatever it is, it's not serious enough for them to start calling or notifying customers to return units and get their money back?!? If it really is a fatal hardware flaw, surely they will not get by without taking care of customers who already have purchased tablets.
Seems to me we need more info about why Staples did what they did and what is wrong before anything realistic can be determined.
Also, someone reported Sears is following Staples' path. Not trying to flame the poster, but we have (1) a report of no stock in that area (No Big Deal -- we never had any here!! ); and (2) we have an employee (not likely management at the level that would cover Sears corporate operations) saying they've had a lot of returns and don't know when they'll get any (again, nothing new there). Certainly not a stock recall like Staples.
I was in one of the area Sears stores here today and the little cardboard display they put up when they don't have VS G-Tablets in stock was still there. In fact, it had been updated to show the $379.00 price available today.
My point is that until we find out what the problem is that Staples is using as a reason for their action -- we really are just wasting our time speculating. And I certainly think the news media and the A**** fanboys are just spewing the garbage I would expect of them.
Am I the only person around who has noticed that a pile of us -- ranging from devs and hardware experts, down to just every day good old folks -- have been using, programming and flogging the G-Tablet for what (five-six weeks now?) and not one of us has raised a report of a fatal flaw????????????????
Sure. Grant that VS and whoever didn't do an adequate job of development and rushed the G-Tab to market. Grant that the software is not what we think is needed nor what we want. I can see that if it worked faster and better, it might be okay for some basic users.
Those of us who want more seem to be doing all right.
And one by one we have been fixing things.
Speaking for myself, I am not writing off the G-Tablet yet. I have two -- one from Sears and one from Office Depot. I could run down and return both right now.
But I'm not. I'm going to use the stuff that is available to me now to make both work like I want. Whatever else someone may say, it will do what I want it to do with the resources we already have on hand. And unless everyone else gives up, I see no reason we can't go right on and stay ahead of all the folks who are not smart enough to see the potential and go after it.
I am the minister -- so please don't start on plans for the funeral until the patient is pronounced dead for real. I don't see anything remotely close to that yet!
Rev
P. S. -- Sorry this rant got so long, but I just felt someone had to put some balance into what is being said about all of this. And I intended no flames for anyone who may disagree with my point of view. I am a minister and I am redemptive -- it's my job to try to "save" things!!

100% agreed...

As long as they release the kernel source, I don't really care whether Viewsonic recalls all their G Tablets or not. Because I am 100% certain there will be lots of other Tegra 2 tablets which will ship with updated firmware, which will give us a base image for Gingerbread and for Honeycomb down the road. As long as there's somebody willing to compile kernels and glue a kernel into the ROM images from very similar devices, well, we'll be just fine here and the G Tablet will continue to provide us with plenty of useful life over the next few years.

From what I can see from an earlier thread about a poster mentioning using the fact that several of the abilities the gtablet has on the cover do not work out of the box to return the tablet without having to pay the restocking fee. I believe that Sears and Staples are sending the units back to viewsonic and demanding that the touted abilities actually do in fact work before they get them back. (this can only help the tablet unless Viewsonic decides to give up.)
I really hope it stays around, Bought one for the wife, now I want one. (I got a nook color that behaves even worse out of the box. but I figure i'll root/rom it until it does work as the smaller size is definitely more portable.)

Even if Viewsonic were to give up I don't see our tablet caring much. The Zpad firmware works pretty well, the VegaN that I am running now is working very well, and TnTLite works pretty well.
I feel for the customers that bought this and are not techies. I recall the first time I turned mine on it was a barrage of force closes. Everything you touched would force close. It took a factory reset from the settings menu to make it stop. Flash was non-existent, clock had amnesia on wakeup, wifi lost it's mind.... If I was a regular customer I would have been PO'ed... Not known what to do, and it would have gone back with a "I will NEVER buy another Viewsonic product ever" mentality.
If all the above had not occurred out of the box this tablet may have been kept by more people. I'm sure lots of folks would have been plenty happy if it just worked. Most would not have known the real potential that was being strangled by the software overlay, and most would not care.
I think the biggest issue has to do with how things are sold in this country nowadays. Back when America made things, they had control of them. They touched them, tested them, and had a lot of pride in making sure they sold a good product. Viewsonic gained it's reputation by selling one of the best products.
This tablet is not made by Viewsonic. I don't really know how much Viewsonic had to do with it besides just signing on to have there name on the device in hopes of name recognition boosting sales. It reminds me of how companies sign athletes to endorse crappy products in hopes people will buy it because of the name. That is going to bite a lot of companies in the behind. Unless my perception of how American companies desire to do business is completely wrong then this path needs to stop.
Everything seems to need to be done as fast as possible, and with profit being the main goal. Who cares if it is the best.. Who cares if it could be better.. Just get it out there and make money.. Support? Why should we support our product? Why should we put a restore image online? Why should we update our website with info that might help folks understand what is being done about the issues?
This same stuff is happening with lots of companies. Sylvania is another example of the outsourced spin off type of product, there are many others.
I think we deserve better, and if a company has to have there rear end handed to them to figure out that quality, and customer satisfaction still counts then so be it....

If and I mean if VS decided to bail on the gtablet I would think they open the source code to the community. This is a great device.

At this point it doesn't matter, even if viewsonic abandons it.
It's a reference tegra 2 device for current app developers in the states (at least that's how I see it), we have badass roms for it, the advent vega is getting 2.3 which is easily ported...so it's all good.

No mystery
Nice posts. But there is no mystery that VS is getting these back. It's about their profit from sales of a marketable product. Whether this tablet goes the wayof the Edsel is immaterial to us afficianados but its still been a good ride. I think other tabs may sink us but so what.
It's still fun.
Mojav

here's my take on it, and what they need to fix for Joe Consumer
I can readily guess why these are going back, and a Staples rep I talked to actually mentioned that same thing. The stock firmware is bad.
But I don't mean just the Tap N' Tap UI, I mean the boot loops and FC's that occur. We've all seen them, even on TnT Lite. There is some instability that I am convinced has to do with how these devices were imaged.
Here's the problem -- here in XDA, we have clockworkmod and a great community to get us around those issues. But Joe Consumer has neither (unless they search on their own). And due to TnT's stupidity, they can't even download an offline update to at least attempt to fix the problems. Think about it...you're a user with a reboot loop, so you call Viewsonic for help. What can they do? There's no way to wipe the cache, wipe user data or even re-flash the device using the standard tools. It's insane.
What they need to do ASAP is deploy a firmware update that 1) can be run offline with a microSD card and 2) has a more enhanced recovery like clockworkmod to at least give the user the ability to wipe the user data or cache. And, if the user doesn't have a microSD card, they should send them a 1GB card, preinstalled with the recovery image, at no charge. I think it's an absolute requirement I hope VS are reading this and rip their TnT devs a new arse to fix this debacle before they give up on the device completely.
Still, worse case scenario is that we lose VS support but still have the zPad and Vega to look at, even it we don't have source. We have options, at least.

Sprdtyf350 said:
Even if Viewsonic were to give up I don't see our tablet caring much. The Zpad firmware works pretty well, the VegaN that I am running now is working very well, and TnTLite works pretty well.
I feel for the customers that bought this and are not techies. I recall the first time I turned mine on it was a barrage of force closes. Everything you touched would force close. It took a factory reset from the settings menu to make it stop. Flash was non-existent, clock had amnesia on wakeup, wifi lost it's mind.... If I was a regular customer I would have been PO'ed... Not known what to do, and it would have gone back with a "I will NEVER buy another Viewsonic product ever" mentality.
If all the above had not occurred out of the box this tablet may have been kept by more people. I'm sure lots of folks would have been plenty happy if it just worked. Most would not have known the real potential that was being strangled by the software overlay, and most would not care.
I think the biggest issue has to do with how things are sold in this country nowadays. Back
when America made things, they had control of them. They touched them, tested them, and had a lot of pride in making sure they sold a good product. Viewsonic gained it's reputation by selling one of the best products.
This tablet is not made by Viewsonic. I don't really know how much Viewsonic had to do with it besides just signing on to have there name on the device in hopes of name recognition boosting sales. It reminds me of how companies sign athletes to endorse crappy products in hopes people will buy it because of the name. That is going to bite a lot of companies in the behind. Unless my perception of how American companies desire to do business is completely wrong then this path needs to stop.
Everything seems to need to be done as fast as possible, and with profit being the main goal.
Who cares if it is the best.. Who cares if it could be better.. Just get it out there and make money.. Support? Why should we support our product? Why should we put a restore image online? Why should we update our website with info that might help folks understand what is being done about the issues?
This same stuff is happening with lots of companies. Sylvania is another example of the outsourced spin off type of product, there are many others.
I think we deserve better, and if a company has to have there rear end handed to them to figure out that quality, and customer satisfaction still counts then so be it....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just got my g tab and am having all the issues u described out of the box. Internet crashes,WiFi dropping, force closes and all, did u just do the restart and it fixed everything? If so how do I do that and if u did more, what else do I have to do? I love my tablet and think it so much better than my friends ipad, but the issiues do bother me.....but I'll never return it, just want to fix it
Thx in advance

juda222000 said:
I just got my g tab and am having all the issues u described out of the box. Internet crashes,WiFi dropping, force closes and all, did u just do the restart and it fixed everything? If so how do I do that and if u did more, what else do I have to do? I love my tablet and think it so much better than my friends ipad, but the issiues do bother me.....but I'll never return it, just want to fix it
Thx in advance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When I got my very first device (before TnT Lite existed), it was terrible. Lots of FC's, and at least twice it rebooted on me for no reason and wiped my user data. As I recall, doing a manual data wipe helped but it was never really fully stable until I wiped it with nvflash (the bekit image).
Since then, they only time I've ever seen major instability is either when testing mods, which is understandable, or going back to stock.

roebeet said:
When I got my very first device (before TnT Lite existed), it was terrible. Lots of FC's, and at least twice it rebooted on me for no reason and wiped my user data. As I recall, doing a manual data wipe helped but it was never really fully stable until I wiped it with nvflash (the bekit image).
Since then, they only time I've ever seen major instability is either when testing mods, which is understandable, or going back to stock.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Apologies,is that an app I can download out of the market? sorry still a newb... and what mod do u use that makes it run so well now? Is that what nvflash is?

juda222000 said:
I just got my g tab and am having all the issues u described out of the box. Internet crashes,WiFi dropping, force closes and all, did u just do the restart and it fixed everything? If so how do I do that and if u did more, what else do I have to do? I love my tablet and think it so much better than my friends ipad, but the issiues do bother me.....but I'll never return it, just want to fix it
Thx in advance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well.... We have to go back in history. (Only about 6 weeks ago)
The force closes "Might" go away if you can get into settings and find the factory reset selection. It may be under the privacy tab. I can't tell you for sure because I am not running TnT right now.
The wifi issue was a problem when the device woke up and there was a patch made by a smart guy named Bekit.
The time issue was something where the time zone would not stick. It would always reset itself back to GMT if I recall.
There were patches for all of them back then, and I had them all installed at one point. None are needed anymore.
My suggestion to you, if you actually want to keep the tablet is to read the instructions in the post below and flash a new rom. TnTLite is based on your stock firmware. It just has the bad parts removed, and good stuff put in. All of the major issues should hopefully go away. As Roebeet just told you Nvflash could be in your future to do a clean wipe but I hope not. The stock out of the box firmware is really bad. It is unfortunate because the hardware is really good.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=842004

juda222000 said:
Apologies,is that an app I can download out of the market? sorry still a newb... and what mod do u use that makes it run so well now? Is that what nvflash is?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, nvflash is fairly advanced stuff so I wouldn't recommend it unless you are fairly technical or if its the last resort. You need APX drivers setup on your PC as well as the nvflash image.
Try a user data wipe, as a first step. In stock, it's under Settings and Security, I believe. If that doesn't help, I'd recommend clockworkmod recovery next and try to do a clear cache, user data wipe and a SD partition fix, in that order (do the next if the previous one doesn't fix it). I'd do nvflash last.
I personally love nvflash, but like I mentioned you need to be somewhat technical to use it.
See the FAQ area under my sig for some pointers and links, to start you off with.

roebeet said:
No, nvflash is fairly advanced stuff so I wouldn't recommend it unless you are fairly technical or if its the last resort. You need APX drivers setup on your PC as well as the nvflash image.
Try a user data wipe, as a first step. In stock, it's under Settings and Security, I believe. If that doesn't help, I'd recommend clockworkmod recovery next and try to do a clear cache, user data wipe and a SD partition fix, in that order (do the next if the previous one doesn't fix it). I'd do nvflash last.
I personally love nvflash, but like I mentioned you need to be somewhat technical to use it.
See the FAQ area under my sig for some pointers and links, to start you off with.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
NVflash is the bomb... Finding the full sdk anymore... that sucks

juda222000,
Hang in there. I have been working on my second G-Tab and when I started it up, it worked worse than the first one did!!!
But it seems to me like if you just keep using common sense and rebooting to give it time to sort things out, and then using the info in these forums to get it together -- all will turn out well and you will have a really great tablet.
Just be patient and don't get ahead of yourself and cause yourself grief like I have done a couple of times!! Best wishes....
Rev

I personally suspect that the fatal flaw is no high price contract with a network provider.
As was stated.....if there really was a fatal hardware flaw we would almost definately know about it on this forum. The stock UI was poor but still not fatal. I would tend to agree that we need far more info before jumping to a conclusion about the life expectancy of this most excellent device (after a few mods).

[Q] Warranty WARNINGS about MODS

"For this guide, it is not necessary to root the Viewsonic G Tablet in order to flash CyanogenMod. You can simply install ClockworkMod Recovery & continue on.
WARNING: INSTALLING CLOCKWORKMOD RECOVERY ON THE VIEWSONIC G TABLET WILL VOID THE WARRANTY."
(I would imagine though that all of this stuff can be erased? If it voids the warranty, then why in the world would anyone ever put it on there if it can't be undone...?)
I have to say up front, that I haven't had any of the major issues that everyone is going on and on about. I had the one time occurrence of the barrage of "Force Quits" that happened the moment I got it out of the box... But in less than 30 min, the 3389 Update was available and I haven't had one issue since.
The only 2 things that I was worried about was the ability to watch Youtube, which I found that as long as you view the original "Desktop" version of youtube then you have no problems... The Desktop version was a simple click of a link at the bottom of the Youtube Mobile Page... Fixed... Done...
(My only REAL Question)
The other problem that I had, and am still having, is simply trying to get my Gmail account to unload in the "E-Mail" application that came with the G Tab. It says to check my incoming mail settings, which I did, and still can't quite figure that out... Any ideas?
Other than that though, this thing has given me nothing short of a good experience. I'm not too savvy with the MOD aspect of everything, but I would think that if I put that on my system, that I would have the mods themselves to blame for anything that went wrong..... And I certainly wouldn't want to jeopardize my Warranty just to have gmail pop up 3 weeks faster than Viewsonic can pay it's employees to pump out updates.... I'm giving them time, as I would hope any customer base would give me if I were the manufacturer.
Sit back, relax, and enjoy the cool little gadget... That's how I see it. It has a crap ton of potential, and I'm willing to watch this infant grow without boosting it full of steroids and blackmarket performance drugs... Last thing I want is a third arm that doesn't work growing out of it's face............

I want to apologize for posting this twice. I'm really new to this forum, and couldn't find where to erase this post... I filed it under a different title in this same forum, so sorry again if I offend any of you with my multipost...
~Poly

I actually use the Gmail app, not the Email app (modded Tnt Lite with gapps).
The mod warnings are for a reason - we have to assume that not everyone understands the implications of modding their device and they should know that it is a risk. And if you call Viewsonic after doing a mod like this and need help from them, they aren't going to support it (and I guess I can't blame them for that).

Can this be uninstalled?
Can clockworksmod be uninstalled? If so how?

GaryHypnosis said:
Can clockworksmod be uninstalled? If so how?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you flash stock, and specifically recent stock, it should wipe clockworkmod recovery as well.

Thanks you for your help!

Does this mean if there is a hardware failure on the tab, and you have installed any of the updates found HERE, you have voided warranty and Viewsonic will not repair?
I'm still trying to understand the flashing et al.
So ANY of the mods from this site would then be a warranty void?
Is there a reversal to the mods that would allow warranty?
Thanks

I don't think they would honor the warranty, that's correct. It's a risk... all the mods are a risk.
Granted, they may not be able to see the mod unless they go into APX mode and pull your system.img, but anything obvious could be something they might latch onto (like if you modded the bootloader screen or have VEGAn's "GTabDevs" bootup screen).
Imo, the best reversal before RMA'ing for a hardware problems is nvflash - it will get you back to a clean vanilla stock setup, with all the boot images fixed as well as the system image. It's called "covering your tracks".

Modding
I look at it like this.... I paid roughly $400.00 for my tab(with tax). I understand that technology is moving SOOOO fast that my tab will be completely out of date in a matter of months. I bought my tab to have fun with, and part of the fun I want to have is to push it to see how far it will go. I guess in the end if I destroy my tab I will only be out the 400 bucks, but the other side of it is I can learn a helluva lot about rooting and flashing ROMS on an android device that I will(hopefully be able to) replace within a year.

Without Vegan and TNTLite, the GTablet would be worth roughly $0 to me... Well that might be overstating it, but maybe $100-200. With Vegan, my tablet is worth more to me than I paid, and currently lacking other options for a decent Android tablet that fits my needs, that makes it a pretty easy calculation.
I'd love a tablet with stock frogingercomb on it, but it's not an option. Basically I think it comes down to this: If your tablet gives you everything you want with Viewsonic's default software on it, by all means, don't go changin' anything. If you need more, try out some ROMs at the (slight but potential) risk of having a $400 paperweight. If you need more but can't take the risk, return the tablet for a refund and wait a couple months for the next wave.
Afterall, the XDA in XDA-Developers.com stands for "eXtreme Daredevil Alligators" I think, or something similarly awesome. It's not for the lighthearted!

In depth with the bootlooping "gingerbread" caused bricks

Does it only boot up to the HTC screen and bootloop? Basically what I'm asking is, can Verizon Wireless tell if the phone is rooted or not? ;]

Yes.
Sent from my ThunderBolt using XDA App

So if I get someone stupid at the store, if they miss it and hand me a new device, I'm in the clear? And if I do it via mail, and I get the replacement before I mail my device in, how do they protect themselves that way?
edit: Take out the pronouns and add "one". I'm more interested for curiosity's sake, not frauding out VZW, I already went back to froyo, ha.

I don't know how they would know, but I believe they can, I think you may get a new/refurb but may see a charge for your bricked phone.

I can see it now... all these people turning in bricked phones for replacements under warranty.
Next thing you know Verizon will be checking every single phone returned to make sure there was no "tampering" that will void the mfg warranties.

Verizon employees are just regular people with regular 10$/hour jobs. The technicians aren't any sort of certified or even necessarily technologically inclined (not that they should be, they're not professionals with careers, they're working for an hourly paycheck). Hiring skilled technicians for these jobs would cost WAY too much dough so I dunno how they could feasibly do it.

miketoasty said:
Yes.
Sent from my ThunderBolt using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I see what you did there.
-sent via 1.21 giggawatts of android.

Yufice said:
Verizon employees are just regular people with regular 10$/hour jobs. The technicians aren't any sort of certified or even necessarily technologically inclined (not that they should be, they're not professionals with careers, they're working for an hourly paycheck). Hiring skilled technicians for these jobs would cost WAY too much dough so I dunno how they could feasibly do it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Let's see, most of the people on here are just "regular" people as well. You don't think that if Verizon wanted to, they could not write up a simple script for any employee to follow to check obvious tampering (i.e booting into hboot and checking for s-off?)
I mean, sure they wouldn't catch all of them, but don't you think they would catch some? Not that they would do it, but I'm sure they keep track of what goes on over here in no-no land (at least for Verizon).
Let's face it, trying to get around the "system" is what causes cell phone companies to keep trying to lock us down. When it starts to affect their bottom line, don't you think they may take some steps to mitigate the problem?
Just my two cents.

Dnakaman said:
Let's see, most of the people on here are just "regular" people as well. You don't think that if Verizon wanted to, they could not write up a simple script for any employee to follow to check obvious tampering (i.e booting into hboot and checking for s-off?)
I mean, sure they wouldn't catch all of them, but don't you think they would catch some? Not that they would do it, but I'm sure they keep track of what goes on over here in no-no land (at least for Verizon).
Let's face it, trying to get around the "system" is what causes cell phone companies to keep trying to lock us down. When it starts to affect their bottom line, don't you think they make take some steps to mitigate the problem?
Just my two cents.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
At least one reported bootlooping in hboot also so not sure if it's long enough to see S-OFF. Another said he was able to get into hboot and flash stock firmware and S-ON but it wouldn't boot and stock recovery bootloop'd everytime it was accessed.

The bootloop itself would be a red flag. Employees in stores would not have to do anything but note: bootloop issue.
Since the phone is tied to you, maybe they send phones exhibiting the issue to a special group of (trained) techs, who will go into more indepth diagnostics.
If it is obvious the phone was rooted (not saying they can tell or not), 1 month later you see a charge for 500 bucks for a phone!
Yikes!
Again, just my two cents.

funkybside said:
I see what you did there.
-sent via 1.21 giggawatts of android.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
At least someone did.
Verizon can't tell. Well they probably could if they wanted to but the time it would take to check the amount of phones they receive every day because of warranty replacements would not be worth it.
If I were you I would call and get a replacement the people on the phone just have you battery pull and try again then ship you a new one.
Finally, in the time it would take to tell that 1 phone was rooted they could have probably fixed 50 phones at that point and would void out any money they could charge you.
If it makes you feel better, I sent in a Droid 2 that was rooted and could still boot, got a new one with no charges.

I know this community is just "Regular" people, that's why I used the word regular; you have tons of arrogant posts of people saying "omg the verizon guy didn't even know what a kernel [email protected]!!!" when the verizon guy has no reason to care.
The problem is a lot of people in our community overestimate verizon/other carriers. Working at a verizon store, i've seen many of my less honest co workers do a warranty exchange over the phone/mail just because they didn't like the scratches they had put on the phone. A simple call to warranty saying "my phone reboots into a white screen sometimes" would get a new phone once every few months (up until the end of the one year warranty). Watching that go down really really really makes me doubt that there is some tech booting into HBOOT making sure it says S-ON. Even with a script, it's still a bunch of high school kids playing with a corporate giant's bank account: if they decide not to care and just give you a replacement, it doesn't effect them at all. I'm just curious if anyone working in a tech center can confirm that there is some second level testing going on.

Dnakaman said:
The bootloop itself would be a red flag. Employees in stores would not have to do anything but note: bootloop issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is just wrong. When someone comes up with a phone with a problem, the procedure is pretty short:
pull battery.
Check settings.
Factory Reset.
RSD Lite is no where near our dell computers. There are no fancy screwdrivers with fancy technicians. I check settings and see if there is anything out of the ordinary.
If the phone is bootlooping/white screen/otherwise inoperable there are two choices:
1) Pull the battery. If there is no water damage, try to turn it on. If it doesn't work, tell them to call 1-800-922-0204 and talk to Verizon Customer Service
2) Pull the battery. If there is water damage or obviously physical damage, call Asurian and give them 99 bucks for a new phone. That's it.
What I was asking was am I the last link in the chain? Or is someone double checking my "work"?

PJnc284 said:
At least one reported bootlooping in hboot also so not sure if it's long enough to see S-OFF. Another said he was able to get into hboot and flash stock firmware and S-ON but it wouldn't boot and stock recovery bootloop'd everytime it was accessed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This was me...as a last resort I used the first two files in this thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1009423 and when I flashed the second file I did not receive the secitury warning so I'm taking it as the first one flashed.
When done flashing the frist two files in that thread my hboot version was S-ON

Yufice said:
I know this community is just "Regular" people, that's why I used the word regular; you have tons of arrogant posts of people saying "omg the verizon guy didn't even know what a kernel [email protected]!!!" when the verizon guy has no reason to care.
The problem is a lot of people in our community overestimate verizon/other carriers. Working at a verizon store, i've seen many of my less honest co workers do a warranty exchange over the phone/mail just because they didn't like the scratches they had put on the phone. A simple call to warranty saying "my phone reboots into a white screen sometimes" would get a new phone once every few months (up until the end of the one year warranty). Watching that go down really really really makes me doubt that there is some tech booting into HBOOT making sure it says S-ON. Even with a script, it's still a bunch of high school kids playing with a corporate giant's bank account: if they decide not to care and just give you a replacement, it doesn't effect them at all. I'm just curious if anyone working in a tech center can confirm that there is some second level testing going on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ya, I see what you are saying.
This is my take on this. I've had an Android device since day 1 when I got my G1. All of the phones I had got rooted at some point.
In the "early" days, you had more, shall we say for a lack of a better term... technically advanced people rooting devices.
Fast forward a bit...many "regular" people are wanting to root, seeing all the benefits that the "chosen" few have been enjoying since rooting was possible.
As a community, we accommodated these "regular" people by creating a Staples "that was easy button", in the meantime, the Android user base is growing by leaps and bounds.
Fast forward to now...technology has changed, the OS has become more sophisticated. Companies see the huge profitability in Android, so they want to hold on tightly to their treasure (locked bootloaders, etc). So now the "easy" button, is not as easy to push anymore, yet us "regular" people still want the "easy" button..."Why can't I just do a one click method???!!!!"
As Android continues to grow and get a larger base of users, there is becoming more and more exposure to the "dark side" of rooting devices for customization. Now although it sounds like things may be changing here in the future as far as how easy it may become to build customizations, at this time, it is still kind of a no no, in the eyes of corporate America. That being said, sure right now Corp America is not too concerned, but as the user base grows, it is possible that the economy of scales may tip the other direction.
Ok, stepping off my soap box now, LOL

All I know is that MANY people here (XDA) are talking about committing fraud.... Then the SAME PEOPLE complain about encrypted bootloaders.

[Q] Stock Inspire constant Shut Down

So my wife is out of town and i just got a frantic call from her on her moms phone telling me that her Inspire is constantly been shutting down.
We live in Texas and she's visiting family in Ft. Lauderdale since before Christmas. She's said since she's been there that the phone has been acting wonky, but starting today the phone will not stay powered on when not on the charger.
When it's on the charger she says she has 80% battery life, but when she unplugs it and tries to do something with it the phone powers down.
She's done the battery pulls, she's cleared the cache and removed unnecessary apps. I'm really not sure what to tell her other than go to AT&T and get a different battery, and fi that does't work - plug it into your laptop, copy all of your pictures and necessary data then do a factory reset.
Any other advice from more experienced members?

Sounds like your on the right track. You could try downloading the ruu from HTC as well and do a clean install. If all else fails just do a warranty.

I had the same problem. It was the battery, bought a new stock HTC battery and it works perfectly don't try a reset or any of that. You will lose you're stuff, tell her to just charge it until she can get it replaced I kept mine on charger for 4 days until I bought it and got it in the mail. Phone works perfectly now
Sent from my Inspire 4G using xda premium

We had to get the screen replaced so AT&T wouldn't help her because hey could tell it's been opened
It was opened about 4 months ago, and has been working fine until she went to Florida. She has had battery issues though since she go the device back in February.
She said the AT&T person tried to do a factory reset and that "it wouldnt take" which i found was odd. More than likely the AT&T person was doing it while the phone was on, rather than doing the volume down + power button to load into recovery and do it that way.
Anyone know why a factory reset wouldn't go through?

Selecting it through the phone just boots into hboot to finish the process, but if the phone is freezing and powering down it would probably keep it from completing. Try it through hboot. Did the att guy at least test a different battery in the device? Some of those att employees really shouldn't be helping people troubleshoot. Too bad they aren't all as educated as zel.

Gizmoe said:
Selecting it through the phone just boots into hboot to finish the process, but if the phone is freezing and powering down it would probably keep it from completing. Try it through hboot. Did the att guy at least test a different battery in the device? Some of those att employees really shouldn't be helping people troubleshoot. Too bad they aren't all as educated as zel.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They didnt even entertain the idea of a different battery. They took the battery door off and could tell that it had been opened. Right then and there they basically sent we can't help you because it's out of warranty and HTC will charge you full price for a new phone, but then whispered to her that she could go to a local shop.
Needless to say i was a little pissed that they wouldn't even let her try a different battery.

MikeIsCore said:
They didnt even entertain the idea of a different battery. They took the battery door off and could tell that it had been opened. Right then and there they basically sent we can't help you because it's out of warranty and HTC will charge you full price for a new phone, but then whispered to her that she could go to a local shop.
Needless to say i was a little pissed that they wouldn't even let her try a different battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is one of the risks of Modding your phone or someone else's. All support now relies on the phones owner.
As for the rep. He couldn't do anything without possibly losing his/her job. I used to work for them so I really can't blame the employee.
Now for her prob the only thing I would suggest is that she get another battery which may or may not be the issue.
Why was it opened? If you don't mind me asking?

zelendel said:
That is one of the risks of Modding your phone or someone else's. All support now relies on the phones owner.
As for the rep. He couldn't do anything without possibly losing his/her job. I used to work for them so I really can't blame the employee.
Now for her prob the only thing I would suggest is that she get another battery which may or may not be the issue.
Why was it opened? If you don't mind me asking?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The screen was replaced.

zelendel said:
That is one of the risks of Modding your phone or someone else's. All support now relies on the phones owner.
As for the rep. He couldn't do anything without possibly losing his/her job. I used to work for them so I really can't blame the employee.
Now for her prob the only thing I would suggest is that she get another battery which may or may not be the issue.
Why was it opened? If you don't mind me asking?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tx Redneck is correct. As I stated the screen had to be replaced.
I understand about the rep not being able to do anything because of potential job loss, but does that mean they can't even let her borrow a battery to test it?

MikeIsCore said:
Tx Redneck is correct. As I stated the screen had to be replaced.
I understand about the rep not being able to do anything because of potential job loss, but does that mean they can't even let her borrow a battery to test it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
By the rules as much as I hate to say it. Yes. If they see that the phone was modded they cant even allow the use of another battery for testing. I normally kept a few extra personal batteries to help people out but had to do it off the clock. ATT is very strict about it.
I was written up once when I was helping someone with an issue and my boss looked over my shoulder and noticed the sticker was missing. HE asked me if I noticed and I said yes i did but it had nothing to do with what I was helping with. He took the phone, handed it back to the owner, said sorry there is nothing we can do for you. Then sent me home and when I came back in I was written up with a final warning.

zelendel said:
By the rules as much as I hate to say it. Yes. If they see that the phone was modded they cant even allow the use of another battery for testing. I normally kept a few extra personal batteries to help people out but had to do it off the clock. ATT is very strict about it.
I was written up once when I was helping someone with an issue and my boss looked over my shoulder and noticed the sticker was missing. HE asked me if I noticed and I said yes i did but it had nothing to do with what I was helping with. He took the phone, handed it back to the owner, said sorry there is nothing we can do for you. Then sent me home and when I came back in I was written up with a final warning.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well that sucks. Appreciate the information though. Thanks Zelendel.

MikeIsCore said:
Well that sucks. Appreciate the information though. Thanks Zelendel.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah it does. No prob.

Once she's returned from her trip i'll come back and post whether or not i was able to fix the issue or if we need to procure a new phone.

[Q] returning an unlocked tablet?

hi,
i bought my tf700 at a bestbuy in portland. i still have this whole month for returning the tablet and i am looking for potentially deal breaking defects... one thing i am worried about is that if i unlock it, i cannot "technically" return the tablet anymore because it cant be relocked... so how likely do you think it is that best buy will notice that i am returning an unlocked tablet?

How about checking it for these deal breaking defects before you unlock it?
Edit:
Also, it's not about whether or not they'll notice it, it's whether or not you should return an unlocked tablet. Which you shouldn't.

Einride said:
How about checking it for these deal breaking defects before you unlock it?
Edit:
Also, it's not about whether or not they'll notice it, it's whether or not you should return an unlocked tablet. Which you shouldn't.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i understand this. but i am not going to argue about ethics when a $500 product has been conveniently pushed into the market with rampant cases of defects/software issues/ota failures. besides afaik best buy will not lose anything on the replacement. a defective tablet is the vendor's fault. further, unlocking the bootloader hardly does any damage to the tablet itself. asus can easily relock it if it wants - such cases are well known for primes gone in for repair.
i am just asking for experiences of people. it does not make me happy to do this either. but its $500 afterall

You're talking about returning it within a month, which seems to be the store's return policy. If you then return it, Asus plays no part in that since it's the store taking it back. Not Asus. I doubt that the store will contact Asus to check whether it's been unlocked or not.
That would be a problem since they'll sell the tablet to someone else, maybe with a $20 discount since it's been returned. That customer will then end up with a device that doesn't have a warranty from Asus since it's been unlocked.
If you're RMA-ing it, that's different. Asus handles it then.

The way that I understand it, when you return something to Best Buy (or any retailer for that matter) and tell them that it was defective, they simply return it to Asus and they get their money back as well. Now, if you tell them that it works fine and you just didn't like it, they *may* re-sell it as an OpenBox item.
I'd suggest that you claim it is defective so that nobody else ends up with an unlocked bootloader when they didn't want one.
In my eyes, if it can't be unlocked, it's defective. While the unlock app does void the warranty and Asus won't support the app, it should still work! By releasing the unlock app, they are essentially saying that it's possible to unlock the bootloader on the device. If you can't do so, then it's defective.
At least thats my opinion on the matter!
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk 2

silenced3 said:
hi,
i bought my tf700 at a bestbuy in portland. i still have this whole month for returning the tablet and i am looking for potentially deal breaking defects... one thing i am worried about is that if i unlock it, i cannot "technically" return the tablet anymore because it cant be relocked... so how likely do you think it is that best buy will notice that i am returning an unlocked tablet?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you receive the ota
Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk 2

gmfeny said:
Did you receive the ota
Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
nope no ota for me. im stuck with the .21 firmware. plus i am getting an impression of the speaker burning smell too
the reason i posted the OP was because i was expecting something like the speaker burning issue to crop up. now that it has, i am not going to unlock it. its going back X(

silenced3 said:
nope no ota for me. im stuck with the .21 firmware. (
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is probably a moot point since apparently if you can not get OTA updates you probably can't unlock.

silenced3 said:
hi,
i bought my tf700 at a bestbuy in portland. i still have this whole month for returning the tablet and i am looking for potentially deal breaking defects... one thing i am worried about is that if i unlock it, i cannot "technically" return the tablet anymore because it cant be relocked... so how likely do you think it is that best buy will notice that i am returning an unlocked tablet?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First I would check to see if you can receive the OTA update. If you can't, then you can't unlock. I would make a case that the unit is defective because you can't get updates, but normally BB doesn't ask any questions (I'm in Portland too and have done plenty of returns/exchanges).
FWIW, I exchanged my unlocked TF300 for the TF700 and they didn't notice. Normally if it is something that is defective, they'll send it back to Asus anyways and they would re-lock it.

I unlocked my TF700 mainly to see if it would since so many people could not and will be returning it to B&H this week as i'm not happy with the performance of the tablet. I'm within the return window and don't anticipate any problems doing so.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using XDA Premium HD app

I see no moral issues with returning a device that is defective or not as expected due to bugs and performance issues. Now I would not mod the heck out of it for 29 days then take it back, but a detached screen, terrible lag, failure to update, and other issues have no bearing on whether its unlocked or not unless you have done something to cause these issues. I have returned several devices over the years to retailers and none have ever been checked for root/roms except at a T-Mobile store where the guy asked how I liked the ROM as he was trouble shooting before boxing it up and giving me a new one. He didnt care one bit. Most Best Buy employees don't know a thing about how to check for this and wouldnt even know a custom ROM by looking at it, there are exceptions however so no offense to anyone here that may have this type of job. Most of these folks just want to get you taken care of so they can move to the next person so they will check receipt, check that the serial number matches and so on then do the refund/exchange.

Returned an unlocked TF300 to Bestbuy and picked up a 700 in return. No issues at all.

Are returns to BB fairly easy? I kinda want to give the tab a test run, but don't want to commit right away.
689 dollars is a small fortune.

upstandingcitizen said:
Are returns to BB fairly easy? I kinda want to give the tab a test run, but don't want to commit right away.
689 dollars is a small fortune.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Get the 32gig version for $500 + tax. As far as return policy they are about on par with anyone else out there. Expect a line and other inconviences, but they did away with their re-stocking fees on everything except special order items, and thats a hefty 25%. Regardless, I wouldnt recommend modding anything untill you know your going to keep it. Here's the link to the return policy.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Returns...es/pcmcat204400050025.c?id=pcmcat204400050025

upstandingcitizen said:
Are returns to BB fairly easy? I kinda want to give the tab a test run, but don't want to commit right away.
689 dollars is a small fortune.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just erase/format the tablet before you return it. The BB employee will turn it on, see that you already erased everything and then give you your money back. Super easy.

richB7 said:
I unlocked my TF700 mainly to see if it would since so many people could not and will be returning it to B&H this week as i'm not happy with the performance of the tablet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm curious: What, specifically, are you unhappy with? I assume that it's not a physical defect?

I had the original 101 and liked it. Then got the 201 and even though it performed nicely I couldn't get past the WiFi and GPS defects. Returned two. Then went with the Samsung 7.7 and liked it well the responsiveness really took of after installing jelly bean. When the A700 came out tried that but it was way too slow. Waited for the tf700 got it and even though it was less choppy than the acer still pretty lame in moving between screens,browsing or just about anything. Heck Netflix on my $75 mk-201+ device works far better than it does on the 700 for $700.
This weekend I upgraded my phone to a Sammy sgs3 and I was blown away by how responsive it was. Yes they are different devices but it just made it very clear to me just how sluggish the 700 was in comparison. I won't criticize you who love the device, to each his own, but I expect better for this kind of money. Hope you get jb soon....
Sent from my SCH-I535 using XDA Premium HD app