Work, life and other detours [II]

Digitech publish warranty and return information based on their customers (Switzerland, Germany, Austria, AFAIK):


There is no per-device breakdown, only per-brand.

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Can you share a link to this? (I would bookmark and use it later when I am buying a phone).

It’s available on most (all?) product pages, e.g. https://www.digitec.ch/en/s1/product/fairphone-gen-6-256-gb-forest-green-631-sim-esim-5g-smartphones-57937990

Look under

They are not as large as e.g. Amazon, but they are one of the largest (if not the largest) such companies in Switzerland. A sister site is galaxus.ch, which is not geared such much towards computers and consumer electronics (there are overlaps between the two, but the latter also sells kitchen equipment, beauty products, cleaning supplies, pet food, books, clothes, and so on).

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I am a bit confused, do they show the prices in Euro or CHF? It looks cheaper than the official store, at 530 “moneys”.

I noticed those statistics at galaxus Germany as well, and have started double-checking my purchases with them for this reason. It’s an immensely useful statistic.

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The Swiss site would be in CHF, I think.

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Yeah, I was a bit doubtful because it was in english, some sites like Thomann automatically adjust VAT, currency, etc, based on your location. The prices were too good to be true :smiley:

The Swiss don’t feel that way, comparing with German prices. :smiley:

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Interesting. This would suggest Samsung is one of the best brands out there for warranties/returns. They are in the top 3 in all categories. But as @paperdigits pointed out, forums and online discourse can really paint a different picture.

Google does not come out well in those rankings, but my Pixel has handled lots of drops and still runs like a champ. In fact, I think I’ve been fairly lucky with phone purchases because I’ve never had a serious problem that’s needed warranty repair. I’ve owned Nokia, Sagem, HTC, LG, Xiaomi and Google. Most of my issues have always been software related.

They only have data on warranty case etc. reported to them.
If users break their phones by dropping them (not a warranty case), or don’t care to have them fixed after some time, or if the defects come after more than 24 months of purchase, they won’t be shown on that chart.

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What may skew statistics further is that most users probably buy Samsung and Apple devices via the phone providers (at a discount, in exchange for a binding loyalty contract). That wouldn’t skew the reliability stats directly, though, just the actual popularity of phones in the population vs popularity with digitec customers. There may be an indirect effect, if most people buy ‘flagship’ products from the phone companies, and the reliability of those flagships is different from the average reliability of the average phone digitec sells (or the other way around: people buy lower-end devices, potentially for free or very little money, from phone companies vs the mix they buy from digitec).

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I don’t think it would affect percentages of phones returned/repaired though; I consider that pretty reliable.

I always buy big brand (Samsung, Xiaomi, etc) phones in the 100-200 EUR range, add a soft protective cover and a screen protector, and then just wear them out, for an average of 3–4 years. Batteries degrade in a few years anyway, and replacing them just does make economic sense in that price category since other components will fail too (yes, I am looking at you, USB-C port).

But I spend relatively little time on my phone and don’t use it for photography, I consider it a nuisance device for banking etc. I don’t care how many megapixels, cores, or nits it has. So I may not be the typical audience.

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Phone covers will not prevent boards from dying, which is what happened to my last Samsung phone. Granted, it was mid-A series; lower quality?

Electronic failures happen, nothing will prevent that. But they are low-probability events. In any case, if your phone is under warranty, it gets replaced, if not, you throw it away… but with manufacturers now offering 2–3 years of warranty (at least in the EU), think of it as leasing a phone for 3–10 EUR/month :wink:

I don’t agree with that way of doing things. It’s in part why the world is how it is nowadays, ‘use and throw away’. If you bought even a 400€ phone, it would probably last twice the time and generate half as much garbage. This of course compounds over time. My pixel 6 cost me 450€ and lasted nearly 5 years.

Modern phones are obligated to offer to offer software updates for more than 5+ years, and modern batteries can handle 800-1000+ charging cycles, that’s 5 years if you charge every day, so in your next purchase might be worth to looking into something a bit more expensive that lasts longer

3 years are more than 1000 days by my arithmetic, so 5 years may be possible, just not within the 800-1000 window. Just sayin :wink:

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Sorry, meant to write “every other day” instead of “every day”

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Of course I don’t “throw it away”, I am recycling it as electronic waste. That was just a figure of speech.

Maybe a premium device would last twice the time when it comes to internal causes of failure (though I doubt it), but is equally prone to accidental damage. I live an active life, which includes travel, biking, and hiking, and after a year, all my phones look something that was digested by the Slime Monster then spat out because of its foul taste. Screens (or screen protectors) get scratched, so do camera lenses, pocket lint and food residuals get in everywhere.

Premium phones are not for me because it is an item that I just don’t want to pay attention to, let alone handle very carefully. I take good care of computers, cameras, musical instruments, and even my bikes, but frankly, I feel that a smartphone is just forced on me because in this day and age banking, travelling, and similar activities require an “app”, at least for “authentication”, which means that I have to press a “yes it is me” button in a popup window.

For me it is just a nuisance device, I cannot work on it (use a computer), I don’t read on it (got a Kindle), don’t take photos with it (I have a camera). That’s why I get the cheapest one possible, use it while it lasts, then get a new one. 400€ for a phone? I already consider 150€ extravagant. 400€ buys a decent lens (or two, used), 40 sets of good guitar strings, tons of gear for hiking, …

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This thread is still going?

Anyway, I can quit anytime I want. But I think this has cured any lingering YT addiction I might have had.

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I have been playing Shogun Showdown lately, making too many mistakes every run to obtain any new achievements.