Defective Headphone Jack

[craiglester]

Anyone else having a problem with a crackly intermittent headphone jack?

Mine has progressively gotten worse over the last month or so, to the point where the slightest movement causes crackling and sometimes intermittent loss of the sound. This is in no way related to the "left speaker pop at max volume" issue that has been previously reported. This is a purely mechanical issue, and having seen the teardown pics on the web, I think its due to the fact the headphone socket isn't actually soldered to the board, but uses 5 contacts and contact pads to make the connection. I wonder if this might be a weak spot in the design.. I hope not I use my Phone every day for music and if this is going to happen again I'll be VERY disappointed.

I'm going to take the droid back this weekend to Verizon, any Idea's what my options are regarding a replacement, its after 30 days, but the motoroloa warranty should cover me for a year, right?

 

[messenger13]

I hesitate to ask ... but ... did you check it with other cables?

 

[craiglester]

I hesitate to ask ... but ... did you check it with other cables?

Of course, I tested with 3 different headphones, all of which exhibited the same symptoms. All 3 pairs were tested on 3 other MP3 players / Stereos and none crackle or cut out on anything other than the Droid.

With any pair of headphones I can replicate the crackling at will with a slight movement of the plug in the jack. Sometimes the player will pause, change tunes (!) or cut out one or both channels completely.

What's Verizons policy on replacing gear after the initial 30 days?

 

[Jerm13]

http://androidforums.com/motorola-droid/23201-need-clarification-about-30-day-return.html

 

[craiglester]

http://androidforums.com/motorola-droid/23201-need-clarification-about-30-day-return.html

Kinda sucky that I'll get a refurb, most likely.. I think quite a few people will be replacing these for this issue in the future. Hopefully they'll fix it in a later revision.

 

[shademar]

I had to exchange for this same issue (after my 30 days was up.) For what it's worth, the refurb unit they sent was completely indistinguishable from new and has not had any similar problems with the jack after a few weeks of heavy use. I'm still hoping that it's just a few bad units rather than a design weakness, but it's covered under the manufacturer's warranty at least.

 

[ssantan2]

had this issue and took it to the verizon store. they switched it out for a "new" one right there (not sure if it was really new or not but it looked new). so far the new one hasnt had any problems knock-on-wood