maemo.org - Talk - Does your N800 have a touchscreen issue?

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- - Does your N800 have a touchscreen issue? (https://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=5320)

Re: Does your N800 have a touchscreen issue?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frankowitz (Post 46051)

Though this shouldn't be blown out of proportions, I think 'not enough to be statistically significant' is a bit besides the truth also. Potential buyers have a right to know what problems -might- occur should they decide to buy one.
To potential buyers: try one in the store before you buy and don't buy online to prevent getting a device with the above mentioned problem(s).

I'll watch this thread with great interest!

I don't lie. I have no reason to.

Are there touchscreen issues? Yes. Do they affect more than 5% of devices manufactured? Highly doubtful. It's fine to speculate either way but I've seen the evidence first-hand.

I'm not going to go on another spiel about quality assurance practices and probability. I think I've done it to death. But people would do well to remember: happy customers don't complain. The silent majority isn't experiencing these issues. Even if this thread was filled with a majority of owners reporting touchscreen problems (50% at the moment) that STILL does not mean that the majority of devices manufactured exhibit the reported problem. It simply means a group has aggregated on a dedicated forum.

I quite frankly don't understand why this is so difficult for some to understand.

I'm not trying to be a jackass but please-- a little intellectual honesty goes a long way. I also don't appreciate insinuations that I'm lying about the scope of this issue.

And of course potential buyers have a right to know about problems they might encounter-- but there's no relationship between that obligation and the magnitude of the problem... so I'm confused why you strung those sentences together.

Re: Does your N800 have a touchscreen issue?

Quote:

Originally Posted by manux (Post 46070)

I would say that most of the devices on the market may be more or less affected by the touchscreen issue. I currently live in Finland and I know at least 10 person owning the N800 here in Finland as well as in other European countries. So far I met no one whose device's touchscreen was free of the issue we're discussing in this thread. But most of these people weren't aware of the issue until I showed it to them.
Also, as I mentioned in one of my previous posts, I tested a few devices and Nokia Flagship store and every single of them had the pressure dead zone on the right. Could it be a coincidence that I could not meet even a single fault free device? It must have been a very big coincidence. Otherwise it's against any statistical rule I've ever learned.

The problem is that the issue may appear after a couple of days/hours of even light use. Yesterday I received my device from repair. The touchscreen worked perfectly fine... for a couple of hours (I managed to flatten one battery, starting from two bar level).

What I am sure about now is that Nokia, at least in Finland, may be aware of the problem but they did not identified its reasons. What service does is just replacing possibly faulty part. I understand it's the only they can do until the real cause is discovered. Let's hope it's going to happen soon.

The problem is your sample size is still WAY too small, so no, your experience isn't violating rules of probability. You're making the common error that what you view represents the whole. Same goes for "testing a few devices". You are conveniently ignoring what I've said about the problem occurring in batches.

As I've also said before, I've touched thousands of these devices at this point (just a few more than 10). Out of that number released for sale, less than 5% have exhibited touchscreen defects. Most devices that exhibited the problem were removed from sale lots.

I'm curious as to how you're sure that Nokia has not identified the reasons. ???

EDIT:

As long as we're talking personal experience-- I own several N800s. Not one has any sort of touchscreen issue. In addition to those, I worked with about 15 devices for testing purposes. Out of that number, one exhibited problems with the scroll bar and that was corrected with a firmware update. In addition, 1 pre-production device had a problem with the touchsreen frame (I documented that one here) that did not make it into production devices. So... about 20 or so devices with 1 hardware touchscreen issue out of that number.

Again, I'm not trying to trivialize the actual problem for those experiencing it-- just trying to introduce some perspective. The issue itself isn't overblown, but the discussion around it sure is IMO...

Re: Does your N800 have a touchscreen issue?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Texrat (Post 46080)

I'm curious as to how you're sure that Nokia has not identified the reasons. ???

I am not trying to say I am sure. I am making this assumption based on the way they do repairs. Can't they identify faulty batch of touchscreens and try not to replace one faulty piece with another? And if it is something else than a touchscreen why even try to replace the LCD? Isn't it so that identified cause ~= known solution (exceptions apply)? Or isn't that knowledge company-wide? I know that also 3rd parties do repairs for Nokia but at least this kind of information should be shared to repair networks. Why don't they have this knowledge here in the very heart of Nokia land?
I've always believed that internal information interchange works fine inside Nokia as I've worked for them since 2001 (or I did work until moved to newborn Nokia Siemens Networks). That's why it sounds so unreal to me that they identified reasons but they actually do not implement their knowledge.

Re: Does your N800 have a touchscreen issue?

Unfortunately, there tend to be disconnects (in any large corporation) between development and repair-- especially with new devices. Corporate bureaucracies are a normal (unfortunately) situation that inhibits the spread of information within an organization.

I'm surprised to hear you say that information exchange works fine in Nokia, given what I've experienced. Information flows down well, sure, but the upstream situation... could use serious improvement. Same for outward dissemination of info, especially where field defect discoveries are concerned. I can't say any more on that.

This does not excuse the situation, just explains the biggest stumbling block to resolving the current flawed N800 repair/replacement process.

EDIT: I've repeated this ad nauseum, but the recent reorganization within Nokia and especially the closure of the last US production facility have had a SEVERE impact on reverse logistics.

Re: Does your N800 have a touchscreen issue?

This has been an interesting thread. I see that the poll, which was at first overwhelmingly negative, has finally pulled into being even. This goes to show that what has inadvertently amounted to a lengthy campaign can tilt an issue significantly,

And I see that the person boasting about legal action has come to the sensible decision not to sue after all.

Re: Does your N800 have a touchscreen issue?

Well, I can't blame EwanG for being angry. He deserved better treatment, as does everyone experiencing problems of any kind. The part that worries me is, how many other tablet purchasers feel the same way? I don't think Nokia can afford to anger a new user base if the tablet platform is to survive.

Re: Does your N800 have a touchscreen issue?

Quote:

Originally Posted by neiljerram (Post 41901)

As it happens, there is a Nokia service centre less than 5 minutes walk from my house, so I'll try taking the issue there and see what happens.

...

I'll report back what actually happens!

Well I don't have a fixed screen yet, but the guys in the service centre were familiar with the N800, and seemed confident that all that was needed was to replace the screen component. They don't yet have this component for the N800 right there, so they gave me a choice between sending my N800 off for repair - taking one to two weeks - or waiting until they get the replacement components in the shop. Since my N800 is still far from unusable, I chose the latter.

They couldn't give me a precise timescale for when the components would be available, but they seemed confident that it would be pretty soon.

Any comments? Is that consistent with others' experiences?

- Neil

Re: Does your N800 have a touchscreen issue?

Texrat, I examined your posts on this forum a bit more closely and came to the conclusion that you are (at least on some occasions) somewhat biased. Any remark that could be harmful the N800 (sales) in some way or another, is bashed. Understandble, but hardly constructive.

This is not a Nokia 'sales rep' forum, so I think it's not helping this thread to comment on your remarks other than what I've said earlier. I stand by my post.

Re: Does your N800 have a touchscreen issue?

I think Texrat sees the problems from a different perspective to the rest of us, and his comments shouldn't necessarily be taken as bias, perhaps he is more informed or differently informed than the rest of us.

Texrat is probably right that this problem is affecting only a small percentage of units actually sold, and you have to remember this is a user forum and people will post most about their problems thus making a problem that affects only a few units look far worse than it really is.

Texrat is openly critical of Nokia Customer Service, while he also defends the hardware when perhaps we as users over inflate the scale of a particular fault. I'm not sure he's biased although he is a Nokia employee, he certainly doesn't defend Nokia blindly and I welcome his input. :)

Re: Does your N800 have a touchscreen issue?

Oh, it just gets better...

So I got a padded envelope from the Nokia repair folks this afternoon where the flap on the envelope was sealed to the inside - IOW, the envelope was sealed OPEN. There's a letter inside apologizing for the delay in replacing my device, but THERE'S NO DEVICE INSIDE.

I give. Seriously, I can't imagine a more f'd up handling of a situation in my life than what has happened here. I really can't decide whether to laugh or cry at this, but I know that I will NEVER, NEVER, NEVER buy another Nokia product again...