Here's the latest email I have had to send Nokia as they are still unable to provide a date when I can expect to receive a returned unit. I have also been asked to see if there are other residents of the state of Texas who have been similarly inconvenienced to determine if broader action is necessary:

To Whom It May Concern:

Having already paid $400 for a Nokia Tablet on March 16th, having received said Tablet on March 20th, having turned in same tablet on March 30th with certified delivery on April 4th to your authorized repair depot, and having waited over two weeks with no notification of when I will receive either a repaired item or a replacement item, I am afraid that your inability to provide a date certain when I will receive said item is in violation of the consumer protection statutes here in the state of Texas.

I would prefer not to have to begin legal proceedings to assert these rights, but I must insist that you either provide a date certain when you will deliver a repaired or replacement unit of at least equal value to the item I sent to be repaired, or that you provide me the name, address, and phone number of your legal representative who my private council, and the Office of the Attorney General of the State of Texas may be able to contact to begin such proceedings.

If I do not receive an adequate response with 24 hours of this email being sent, I will understand that Nokia would prefer to handle this matter through the courts, and will make sure to instruct my attorney to take all actions necessary to protect my rights under the state statutes.

Respectfully,
Ewan Grantham

cc: {Name Withheld}, Texas Attorney General's Office
{Name Withheld}, Esq.

Best of luck EwanG! I hope you get your device back soon, but I'd also like to see Nokia get a legal kick up the @rse for the appalling level of service they are giving you guys.

And surprise surprise, my repaired N800 yet again did not arrive today. Maybe I need to consider threatening legal action myself for the return of my property as Nokia seem unwilling to return it to me!

And here we have Nokia's response:

Dear Ewan ,

Thank you for your response.

We apologize for the delay in responding to your e-mail message and greatly appreciate your patience.

We understand your concern in regards to the repair status of your Nokia N800 Internet Tablet.

Ewan, we do apologize, however, we are not able to determine the exact date your Nokia N800 Internet Tablet will be available. Your Internet Tablet has been ordered. Please continue to monitor our web site at www.nokiausa.com for updates.

As stated in the user guide under the warranty section:

"Nokia will repair the Product under the limited warranty within 30 days after receipt of the Product. If Nokia cannot perform repairs covered under this limited warranty within 30 days, or after a reasonable number of attempts to repair the same defect, Nokia at its option, will provide a replacement Product or refund the purchase price of the Product less a reasonable amount for usage. In some states the Consumer may have the right to a loaner if the repair of the Product
takes more than ten (10) days."

If you have any additional questions, please contact us. To ensure proper handling, please continue to use the current subject line.

Thank you for choosing Nokia for your mobile needs.

Tiffany
E-mail Specialist
Nokia Inc.

---

Yeah, I know, I'm in one of those states that has the right to a loaner. In fact, in Texas the current behavior by Nokia could be prosecuted under either "Theft by Conversion" or as their not abiding by several consumer protection statutes.

Evidently they didn't take me very seriously, and I guess I shouldn't be surprised. We'll see if they take a letter from my lawyer seriously - but he's pretty sure that they won't pay attention until we get a ruling in the appropriate court here in Texas and then put a lien against some of their offices. It's amazing how a sheriff standing in front of a locked door gets people's attention

Since it looks like I'm going to have to go the court route, I will have to stop posting on here (or elsewhere) on this matter since that could affect the case. I'll let y'all know what the final outcome is, but if any of you have contacts within Nokia, you might want to let them know that they are about to have some problems that they could have easily avoided by just bothering to answer some polite questions with actual answers.

Oh - and y'all may remember I was reluctant to turn the N800 in for support in the first place since I'd had poor experiences in this area before. Well, I hate to say I was right, but...

I'm sorry to hear about your experiences, Ewan, and really hope the situation is eventually resolved to your satisfaction.

And I know you don't want to hear it right now, and it may sound like apologetics, but the following remain true nonetheless:

1) The device is new
2) What isn't new is this sort of adventure. Early adopters have historically borne the pain of a cutting edge product. The N800 is no exception to this trend.
3) Without people returning their devices and fighting the inefficiencies of the poor reverse logistics process, it won't be fixed.

That may sound unsympathetic, but it isn't intended that way. I'm simply pointing out the unvarnished truth. We all take a risk when we're the first to buy a product, whether it's an Edsel or an Xbox. That fact doesn't in any way mitigate Nokia's responsibility, though. They either need to right the wrongs or get out of this market segment. And in my opinion, the early adopters should be treated MUCH better than they have been-- but you are the victim of corporate bureacracy, another time-honored tradition. :/

the only issue i had was when i touched the screen with my finger, i would get the small keyboard instead of the BIG keyboard.

Hurrah - my N800 arrived back from repair yesterday (almost 5 weeks elapsed) and I've just gotten the time to update it with the latest firmware and install Maemopad+ for a visual test.

The good news is the vertical scroll bar region is no longer an issue - sensitivity in that region is now very good.

The bad news is that there seems to be a minor calibration issue in the very bottom left hand corner extending diagonally down to the right corner of the screen. In this area, Maemopad+ will draw the pixels about 6-8 pixels further up the screen than where I am clicking with the stylus. I've uploaded an image of my screen, with the addition of a red border to make it obvious where this new problem is. The weird thing is that the touchscreen detects events just fine in the white area - the device clicks when I touch the screen - but the pixels are being drawn further up the screen!

I've recalibrated 3 times and it's made no difference, very strange.

This must be a firmware (or Maemopad+?) issue as the touchscreen is detecting the stylus events OK... has anyone else got this in 3.2007.10-7? It's only a minor issue and a vast improvement on what I had before so I'm not grumbling, but I'll just have to remember not to waste my time trying (and failing) to click a 6-point hyperlink in that part of the screen!

Hi Milhouse

I'll try later this evening, I'm about to update my firmware.

I'm on my 2nd N800, the first had a faulty home button. The new one is fine for the buttons, but has a more prominent shadow on the right hand side and may have a touch sensitivity issue.

Interestingly Texrat mentioned the touchscreen click prob was picked up and fixed, my device arrived with firmware version 2.2006.51-7 an increment on the firmware available for download at the time, 2.2006.51-6 (I think), so I was hoping all issues would be solved. However last night I noticed the right hand slider is not always picking up stylus clicks. Thus I'm going to try the new firmware to see if that is better, so I'll test the left hand corner at the same time and let you know.

Cheers
Rich

I can't claim that it was fixed in all cases-- just that it was discovered and addressed. Sorry if I misled anyone on that, but do note that the software version on your device, rich, still places it in a very early time frame. And there's no realistic way to achieve 100% perfection, so even if the root cause is corrected and prevented you're still going to encounter anomolous defects.

And again, even though I've seen no correllation proven, I'm not very surprised to note right-side shadow and right-side sensitivity issues occurring together.

Thank richie - much obliged, if your results are inconclusive I might even flash back to 2.2006.51-6 to see if that makes any difference - there were some touchscreen related improvements in 3.2007.10-7.

2.2006.51-7 appeared on shipping units within a few days of launch, not sure what it fixed though - the firmware was never released for download.

I think it can be said now-- it is my understanding 2.2006.51-7 was released to correct power and/or flash issues. Note that I could be wrong.