I am absolutely fuming at the moment. I thought Nokia was terrible but did not realise just how terrible they were. Well here is my story. And for illustrative purposes I will also add my wife's blackberry story as a comparison to illustrate just how bad Nokia is.

I have had a broken usb port on my n900 for about 4 months now. I could not get it fixed because Nokia refused to repair under warranty. I got the N900 from the US but live in the UK. When the fault developed I called Nokia and they said they could not fix it because they do not do international warranties.

I wrote Nokia a very strong email a couple of months ago complaining about their refusing to fix my faulty device caused by their design defect. I got an automated response saying I would hear from them within two days. Two months later and I still have not been contacted.

I was therefore left to just continue to manage without the usb port. I was connecting to pc for file transfer via WinSCP and bought an external battery charger and spare battery to get around the inability to charge via usb.

Unfortunately I bricked my device about 2 weeks ago and so need to reflash the device but of course cannot do so due to the faulty usb port.

I gave the N900 to two phone repair shops to fix but neither got any joy. At which point I was left with no choice but to go back to Nokia. Even though they were refusing to fix it under warranty I was ready to pay them whatever it cost to have the device fixed.

Called two Nokia care points and was told that they could not do anything for me as they only did warranty repairs and if I wanted an out of warranty repair I had to send the N900 to Nokia directly. One of the care points said that Nokia does not fix N900s with faulty usb ports they simply just give replacements.

I contacted Nokia to ask where I could get their free post return form. The care points had told me I needed this to send the device to Nokia. I spent ages searching on their website but could not find the form so had to call Nokia to ask where it was. To my shock I was told that they would not fix the device as it was not under warranty even though I was willing to pay for it.

How incredible is that? If your device is not under warranty it cannot be fixed?!!! Ignore the fact that it is of course really under warranty and Nokia is just being hopeless.

I could understand this sort of stance with cheap phones. However, how can they take this approach with an N900? Something I paid $625 for. So if you buy an expensive phone from Nokia and it dies after the end of the warranty period that is the end for you. So I am now left with a $625 brick. Do Nokia know anything about customer retention? I have only ever had Nokia phones but how can I ever buy another Nokia product after such an experience?

I am now writing to the BBC Watchdog and trying to find the relevant consumer watchdog such a matter should be reported to. Any ideas would be much appreciated. Searched on google for consumer watchdog but did not really get anything useful.

Also I think I read somewhere on this site where someone mentioned an announcement by Nokia that the usb issue was their fault or a design defect.

Now compare Nokia's attitude to what my wife experienced with RIM. Her blackberry stopped working about 3 weeks after the end of her warranty (how typical). She had the device sent off to blackberry and was told they will look at the problem and will be given repair cost. However, about two weeks later she was sent a new blackberry at no cost.

So on the one hand you have Nokia refusing to fix, even at a fee, a device which is still under warranty and on the othe other hand RIM giving a new device for free to replace a faulty device which is out of warranty.