I have had my Nexus One for about a month now. Before the N1, I have owned iphones, ipod's, the G1, and various other phones, including quite a few HTC phones like the Dash. Never before though, in all my drops of phones have a experiences a small drop and ding on a phone causing a major usability issue.
What happened was that while using the phone, it slipped out of my hand and fell about 3 feet onto a tile floor. My main concern obviously was a cracked screen, but aside from a small dent in the metal case right near the on/off button, it appeared to be fine. That was, until I attempted to open the battery door. When the metal from the case deformed slightly on the impact, it wrapped over top of the battery door a bit, and now made it impossible to for to open the battery door, no matter how much force I applied.
I could not believe that such a minor drop caused such a major problem. I have dropped nearly every phone I have ever owned repeatedly, including the G1 many times, and the iphone, which has the dented case to prove it, but never has this resulted in a major usability problem with the phone. It amazed me that seemingly HTC/GOOGLE never found or thought of this issue during the design and testing process. People do drop phones, it happens, and you don't expect any drop to be something that requires the manufacturer if you don't want to further damage the phone. It is like a shopping cart hitting your car door, and needing the jaws of life to get you out. Basically my phone had just become an iphone, but without the swappable SIM.
I called HTC and explained the issue, and said that I felt this was a pretty big design oversight. I feel that if the phone is this susceptible to major issues from small dings, that they should probably include a rubber case, instead of that stupid sleeve no one uses. After talking for a while, the HTC rep said I could send it in, and they would make sure my SIM and Memory card got back to me, but that I would be charged for a repair. Honestly, I had hoped to get a bit of a break since I was an early adopter, with a strange, and what I feel design oversight issue.
I personally couldn't care less about dings and scratches on my phones, I like to use phones the way they were designed, but never have I had it cause a problem I could not rectify without a very small metal file.
So to those considering a Nexus One, I just want to make you aware of this issue. The metal on the bezel is really soft and will easily bend/dent, which seems to have the ability to cause some major problems. Even the metal on the phone 2G was not like this, I dropped it many times and only had a small dent from one drop that affected usability in no way. Maybe this is why apple is so anti replaceable battery. I have also dropped phones like the Dash, Treo's, iphone, and G1, and never had a problem.
It is a great phone for the most part, but sometimes the design seems a little half baked.
What happened was that while using the phone, it slipped out of my hand and fell about 3 feet onto a tile floor. My main concern obviously was a cracked screen, but aside from a small dent in the metal case right near the on/off button, it appeared to be fine. That was, until I attempted to open the battery door. When the metal from the case deformed slightly on the impact, it wrapped over top of the battery door a bit, and now made it impossible to for to open the battery door, no matter how much force I applied.
I could not believe that such a minor drop caused such a major problem. I have dropped nearly every phone I have ever owned repeatedly, including the G1 many times, and the iphone, which has the dented case to prove it, but never has this resulted in a major usability problem with the phone. It amazed me that seemingly HTC/GOOGLE never found or thought of this issue during the design and testing process. People do drop phones, it happens, and you don't expect any drop to be something that requires the manufacturer if you don't want to further damage the phone. It is like a shopping cart hitting your car door, and needing the jaws of life to get you out. Basically my phone had just become an iphone, but without the swappable SIM.
I called HTC and explained the issue, and said that I felt this was a pretty big design oversight. I feel that if the phone is this susceptible to major issues from small dings, that they should probably include a rubber case, instead of that stupid sleeve no one uses. After talking for a while, the HTC rep said I could send it in, and they would make sure my SIM and Memory card got back to me, but that I would be charged for a repair. Honestly, I had hoped to get a bit of a break since I was an early adopter, with a strange, and what I feel design oversight issue.
I personally couldn't care less about dings and scratches on my phones, I like to use phones the way they were designed, but never have I had it cause a problem I could not rectify without a very small metal file.
So to those considering a Nexus One, I just want to make you aware of this issue. The metal on the bezel is really soft and will easily bend/dent, which seems to have the ability to cause some major problems. Even the metal on the phone 2G was not like this, I dropped it many times and only had a small dent from one drop that affected usability in no way. Maybe this is why apple is so anti replaceable battery. I have also dropped phones like the Dash, Treo's, iphone, and G1, and never had a problem.
It is a great phone for the most part, but sometimes the design seems a little half baked.
I was like not another story about how I damaged the phone and it's Googles fault.. yezz
