[Nexus S General] desertflyer:
I just wanted to get this out there because I'm curious how common this is. Having previously owned a Nexus One, HTC support was excellent and replaced the phone twice under warranty, no questions asked. Unfortunately, I've had a hard time dealing with Samsung.

I bought my Nexus S on the day of release in December 2010, and had no major problems with it until May of this year. It's the best phone I've ever owned. In May, the screen started becoming unresponsive so I called Samsung and they said I could ship the phone in for repair and they would pay UPS ground shipping each way. I live near San Francisco, so this would be 5 days each way to Plano, TX where the repair facility is located. No problem, I figured, as long as I get my screen fixed. For the meantime I purchased a new Nexus One on Amazon since I would be without a phone for at least a couple weeks. So I sent in the Nexus S, it took them a week to repair the phone after receiving it, so I was without my Nexus S for three weeks.

So I get the phone back and... bam... screen still doesn't work right. it's nearly completely unusable. Turns out they updated the software, tested it as working, then sent it back. I called Samsung again and after escalating to level three and being on the phone for an hour, they agree to do two day shipping each way and replace the screen components. This is fine with me, as long as the phone gets fixed. I sent the phone in again, and while they two day shipping helped, it was still two weeks that I didn't have my phone.

I get the phone back, and of course, the screen STILL didn't work right. It was so bad I couldn't even type out a text. So I call Samsung again, escalate to level three, and pressure to get the phone switched out. The support rep agrees, and says he has to put in an appeal to get the phone switched out. He said he'd call me back within the next few hours with the result of the appeal, which he did, and my request was approved. So I send the phone in again, two day shipping, and it takes about 5 days to be processed and for a refurbished phone to be sent back to me. Unfortunately, then sent it back ground, so it was 5 business days before I got the refurbished phone.

Once I got the refurbished phone, it did have a few nicks and dings, but it worked perfectly, just as my previous Nexus S had prior to May. The funny thing was the refurb was sent to me already running Cyanogen, which leads me to believe they don't QC their refurb phones very thoroughly, but it was okay since everything seemed to be working as it should. But then a couple days later I tried to use the headphone jack and it didn't work at all. It was completely dead. Go. F'in. Figure.

So I called Samsung again, the level one rep agreed to send the phone in for repair, but he couldn't do anything faster than ground shipping and I didn't feel like wasting more time on the phone. The repair facility received the phone yesterday, so we'll see how it goes. I assume a headphone jack will be easier to repair than the screen was.

I guess what irks me the most was I paid $570 (after taxes) to buy the phone outright, and here I really haven't had it since June when I first started to send it in for repair. I've had to waste my time and their time for a problem that should have been fixed on the first occurrence. Thank god I bought a new Nexus One for the meantime. I would also like to mention Best Buy was no help during any of this either. When the problem first started, they kept saying all they could do was work with Samsung to send it in to the repair center, except I would have to pay half of the shipping. That's just crazy to me, but not surprising.

One last thing I can say is everyone I have talked to at Samsung has been friendly. Level 1 and 2 are obviously offshore, while three are within the United States, but it didn't matter, all were equally friendly and seemed to do their best to help me. They just don't seem to have the power to do much other than send a shipping label for repair.

Sorry about the long rant, but I am obviously a bit frustrated by the whole situation. Fingers crossed when I get the phone back in 10 or so days (my estimate) it will be fixed and functioning properly.