Well, this is a pretty disgusting thread.

I build audio amplifiers as a hobby, not as a vocation, and I don't attach I/O ports to my PCBs like this nonsense.

This is my 4th "Big Money" Nokia device. Previoisly I had a 9210 and 2 9300s, Communicators. All three had catastrophic hinge failures and died.

So after dumping some $1900 or so in a 2 year period, I left Nokia really pissed off. I bought a Palm TREO 680 Deadend device that was not what I wanted, but was solid as a rock mechanically.

Last year i wanted a new Phone. iPhone didn't do much for me and neither did Android. I always liked Symbian, but felt it did not get much attention as far as development was concerned, but thought it was the only player for me. I saw the N97 and was thinking about it, but was very leery of the hinge mechanism as a point of failure. So I decided to wait a while after the release and watch fr problems. That put me into the N900 timeframe which was REALLY what I wanted OS wise.

I was still worried about the Slider mechanism though and thought I was maybe taking a chance with it. The Nokia Clamshells made me feel like Monica Lewinsky with a bad taste in my mouth!

But I went for it anyhow. Soon as I received the N900 I didn't like how much force had to be used to engage/disengage the usb plug.

That brings us to the point we are at now. Mine does not have a problem yet. I am very careful with the plug and have been since day one. I also am very easy on the slider as well. I never "snap" it.

Thanx to this thread, I'm going to be using the files and bench grinder, and air compressor tomorrow to declaw my power connectors. Thanx for that tip!

Sorry for the long post, but my issues with Nokia mechanical issues has been irritating and expensive.

This phone has high energy requirements if you use it as intended/designed. It would not be unusual for someone to have to engage the USB plug 3-4 times a day. Nokia should have made this port ROBUST IMHO.

The Jack should have used thru holes on the PCB and should have been "captured" by the case plastic. Then there would be no shear forces transmitted to the board and if there was any, the thru holes would make it very solid to boot. They could have solved this problem with "capture" alone.

365 days X 4 plugins per day = 1460 plugin cycles during the 1 year US warranty period. I would certainly think this plug should be spec'd to do better than 1 year's worth of performance?

I don't have much confidence in the repair. For the folks that had this happen in 2 weeks time, what's that get them, 2 more weeks?

I won't be pre-ordering another Nokia device, that's for freakin' sure!

The Potential on this device was awesome, execution on so many levels has been incompetent.