yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[HTC One X] 3axis:
I have been reading these type of posts with interest. I have a HD2 from Vodafone. I have left Vodafone for PAYG, I can have same minutes/data and buy new unbranded phone and save money (blatant plug: giffgaff).

Anyway I intend to buy a new unbranded phone. I am waiting to see what the specs are for the S3 but "was" interested in the OneX.

When I got the HD2 it had WinMo6.5 which was awful. The only solution was XDA and Android. The phone has never been fully right and I have had issues along the way but WinMo was useless and unusable. The only way was modding!

Having modded, I want to continue for the good benefits of Cyanogenmod and AOKP over stock ROMs. I never want to have anything to do with a branded ROM again.

I agree that the specific fault should be rectified (e.g. hardware buttons etc).

This attitude from HTC worries me. The software should not invalidate a hardware warranty.

I am not sure how samsung differs and what the policy will be for the S3 but I am now forced to wait to find out.
[HTC One X] Goku80:
probably unlock bootloader and easier to root but still with the same warning that if you use custom firmware your warranty will be voided..but the thing about samsung is and going by what i had with my old s2 is that you can easily reset the binary count and flash an official stock rom and they would not know you messed with your phone and warranty is still intact. so if the s3 is like that i would suggest going for that phone over the One x
[HTC One X] tids2k:
if you are under 30 day cooling off period, take a decision and return your phone back to the retailer.
[HTC One X] JSLEnterprises:
If you flash anything with the unlocked bootloader you'll have a "tampered" in grey above "unlocked" at the top of the bootloader.

Even if you reflash the bootloader itself, the flag is set and it will still say "tampered".
[HTC One X] wintermute000:
I got a no questions asked replacement with allphones in Australia with a relocked bootloader
[HTC One X] ninja.rogue:
Being the OP of the other thread, let me reply briefly.

I am not arguing against HTC, I bought the phone from Clove.

Nonwithstanding what HTC will be responsible for, or which caveat they might have included in the general clauses of htcdev.com website, the applicable law here is the EU directive about consumers' rights vs companies.

If there is a faulty product, the seller MUST comply with the law and have it repaired UNLESS THE SELLER PROVES that it was buyer's responsability.

And no proof has been made that I caused a yellow spot on the phone.

Not a general yellow tint but a specific, 5 mm yellow spot....

How come a yellow spot may be the outcome of unlocking a bootloader or flashing a custom rom, this is something that Clove has to explain.

As far as HTC is concerned, its unclear wording speaks for itself.....
[HTC One X] f4flake:
I'd also like to point out that "illegal software" has no basis in law, it is a frivolous distinction being made by HTC in an attempt to cow their customers.
[HTC One X] f4flake:
this is pretty rude fella.

I don't believe anyone has behaved with anything other than decorum in relation to this matter.
[HTC One X] abc27:
What you're ignoring is that HTCDev and its "Agreements" don't mean anything over here in Europe.

i bought product X from shop Y. If the speaker suddenly stopped working and it's within six months of the purchase date and the shop cannot prove that I caused the fault to occur, shop Y must replace/repair the phone or refund me. After six months but within two years, I have to prove that I did not cause the fault. Either way, if there is a hardware problem and I didn't cause it i'm entitled to redress. Even if HTC were to sell a phone without a limited warranty, my statutory rights would remain unaffected.

I'm astounded at the number of people just agreeing with HTC and allowing them to step all over consumers like this.
[HTC One X] Andy:
While what you posted is true, in the UK anyway(Sale of Goods Act). There is an important distinction to be made.

HTC do not sell handsets, they manufacture them, and other parties sell them.

Even HTC's "Shop" is not operated by HTC.

So the issue is with the retailer, and the retailer will need to prove it, not HTC.

HTC can refuse a repair under warranty terms as they reserved that right when you unlock the bootloader.

I wholeheartedly agree that with proven manufacturing defects (i.e Screen Flickering) units should be repaired without issue, as this would fall outside the warranty and that would form part of a quality guarantee (free from defects & quality of materials).
[HTC One X] abc27:
Well yes, but the thing is that most retailers just parrot HTC and "channel their spirit" so to speak.
[HTC One X] funhuji:
Oh great, I looked up this forum to find reassurance to get the One X and now this... :(

Regarding the discussion that is going on:

I feel the main irritant is simple: Should HTC honour the warranty in cases in which hardware is faulty even if only the software was fumbled with?

HTCs approach seems to be like this: The hardware will be repaired for free, but additionally they will also exchange the motherboard on principle and since that is not covered by warranty they will also charge postage.

That's bull****. Even if you don't want them to change it, even if it is not necessary to change it, they will AND charge you a hefty sum + postage, effectively circumventing their obligation to repair under warranty a hardware fault (like not working hardware buttons).

And that's borderline illegal*. It's definitely bad policy. So until there is this s-off thing or a court ruling, I won't buy the HOX after all... :(

*edit: borderline illegal in the EU - Taiwanese laws probably differ...
[HTC One X] abc27:
I don't think HTC actually do that. If you relock your bootloader and are running a stock ROM I don't see what reason they'd have to change your motherboard.
[HTC One X] Andy:
I agree, and if the proof the retailer needs to defend in cases of a repair comes from HTC, then whomever unlocked their bootloaders (including me) are out of luck. This is what people need to be aware of when making the decision whether or not to use HTCDev and unlock.
[HTC One X] abc27:
How?

HTC saying "They unlocked their bootloader" doesn't mean anything in this context. They need to show how exactly the customer's actions caused the fault. Unless HTC claim that unlocking the bootloader actually causes things to break in the phone then that's not acceptable.
[HTC One X] riemervdzee:
Because I have an unlocked bootloader, it doesn't mean I have run custom roms. If they accuse me of that, and refuse to repair any damages they will have back it up with proof. It is quite normal juridical procedure. Only problem is the sueing etc..

Neh, I think they state this and give us such answers so people refrain from unlocking. I see it as intimidation actually. I can understand that HTC doesn't want to check out damages due to custom roms. Giving support over something you don't control is basically a bad idea. But as consumers, we got rights as well and I think HTC knows that. They are just scarying people

Cheers, R
[HTC One X] orymd:
Hi guys! i'm an italian user, i bought my one x but after two days the screen had flickering issue, a stuck pixel and a yellow angle backlight... so i decide to send it for warranty repair... i hope there are no problems... stay tuned ;)
[HTC One X] BeciMester:
I think the only logical explanation is that during the htcdev unlock procedure they actually blow some e-fuses so the official unlock process is not reversible. That's why they have to replace the motherboard if they want to restore it to factory conditions (ie. locked). I hope I'm wrong.
[HTC One X] zvieratko:
You must clearly work for HTC.

Unlocking a bootloader does NOT void warranty under EU law. It can't. It won't.

Even if you sign it - it doesn't apply because you can't waiver your right as a consumer under any circumstances.

Whether HTC service center accepts the repair from the seller - I couldn't care less, let them go bankrupt when people stop selling and buying their phones.

The first thing I did to my phone was unlock via htcdev, root and install a custom ROM. That's what I do with most handsets and all my computers.

I noticed htcdev terms saying it "may" void my warranty, and I'm cool with that because I know it won't (because I won't use the software to destroy the hardware, messing with voltages etc. -is that even possible?).

Law is very clear in this case, whatever defect you want repair under warranty has to be repair free of charge unless YOU CAUSED IT. This can't be limited in any way, under any agreement.

Your analogies with us jumping off the cliff are just utter nonsense.

Stop making a fool of yourself, we get it - you love HTC because (you work there|get paid by them|hope to get paid by them|I being blackmailed), but please stop spreading FUD.
[HTC One X] Andy:
If you care to share your opinion that is fine.

What isn't fine is your clear lack of respect for mine. Just to clarify, I don't work for HTC nor do I have the desire to work for them. My line of work could not be further away from HTC's business.

Can you prove that unlocking the bootloader does not violate EU law? Or is that your opinion yet again? Until you or anyone else challenges HTC in court, HTC can refuse repairs based on the fact that your bootloader is unlocked.

FYI, you can waiver your rights as a consumer. You ever bought something at auction? Bought anything with a no-returns policy? Your consumer rights are affected and limited, because you agreed to them before you made the decision to purchase. Just like you agreed that your warranty may be void if you unlock via HTCDev.

If the law is very clear, care to point that out? Specifically what part of which law and in what country does that apply.

I never made any analogy to you jumping off a cliff.

Anything else you want to accuse me of or insinuate who I work for?
[HTC One X] scottspa74:
Lots of great points here. And I love the statement in OP -

Luke: HTC dev is there for developers

F4flake: of course it is, but developers shortly will not be for HTC.

Touché

I wouldn't have such issue with HTC voiding warranties IF they provided full S-off, as with full S-off there is almost nothing you can't recover from.

As for any lawsuits, I guarantee HTC would prefer to lose in some small claims court for a few hundred dollars rather than change their new model which allows them to skate out on any warranty or repair (unless you pay a few hundred for the repair).

Very very shady, HTC. Was looking fwd to Evo LTE 4g on spring in 2wks, but it appears I'll likely go galaxy nexus.

sent from 2yr old Evo on ICS
[HTC One X] SB13X:
In the UK up to 6 months after purchase you do not need to make use of the warranty even if you used HTCdev to unlock the phone. It is the traders responsibility to replace, repair, refund the handset and they cannot shirk this and pass the buck to the manufacturer. It is up to the trader to prove that you have misused the product also within the first 6 months, if they cannot you are entitled at first to a replacement or repair (funded by them) and should the same issue occur again you are entitled to request a refund. (However at this stage the trader is within their rights to make this on a pro-rata basis based upon your usage of the item.

However if you are still unhappy you can progress to Trading Standards and the Ombudsman.

Should you return your handset to the trader from whom you bought it and they send it off under warranty within the 6 month period regardless of the lock/unlock state and the traders reply to you is that they won't repair it because of what HTC have been saying, you are entitled to request a full report from HTC explaining how the lock/unlock state has directly affected the hardware fault, if their reply is that it has not, the trader must have the handset repaired at their cost. (You may however be required to pay a nominal fee to HTC for this report and they are within their rights to charge.)

However HTC are well within their rights to withdraw any and all guarantees and warranties beyond this 6 month period for which the trader is immediately responsible for use of the HTCdev unlock tool. The only argument any of you can have unfortunately is that the wording "may" is ambiguous and therefore using the Contra Proferentem Rule you can enforce the warranty through a court of law. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contra_proferentem

Anyone who watches The Big Bang Theory should be aquainted with it and it is a principal used throughout the UK system. If they change the word to will, however this changes the game entirely. In effect you're all screwed as any faults arising from 6 months onwards are only covered by the manufacturers warranty unless you can prove the fault was there at the point of sale. If you can't and HTC change "may" to will you're going to be lumped with the repair bill, unless of course others with non unlocked handsets in numbers begin to suffer the same defect but while they can have theirs repaired without argument under warranty you still have a fight on your hands.
[HTC One X] Neo XL:
They handle it in the way "if there´s no prosecutor, you don´t need a lawyer". If you go into the automotive workshop and want to have a new rim, but they change also the motor, because it´s tuned, noone let you pay the bill. So HTC can´t do, what they want. You pay for the repair, so you have to say, what they should do, not vice versa. If there´s a real hardware problem, they can´t say it depends to the usage of a custom rom. If this occurs, you have to go to the court.
[HTC One X] zvieratko:
Fast googling:

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-1677034/Two-year-warranty-EU-law.html

http://ec.europa.eu/publications/booklets/move/64/en.pdf

"A two-year guarantee

applies to the sale

of all consumer goods

everywhere in the EU."

And a direct quotation from 1999/44/EC directive:

"(17) Whereas it is appropriate to limit in time the period during which the seller is liable for any lack of conformity which exists at the time of delivery of the goods; whereas Member States may also provide for a limitation on the period during which consumers can exercise their rights, provided such a period does not expire within two years from the time of delivery; whereas where, under national legislation, the time when a limitation period starts is not the time of delivery of the goods, the total duration of the limitation period provided for by national law may not be shorter than two years from the time of delivery;"

This superseeds any local (UK) law, and any agreement you can make as a consumer, even giving up warranty explicitly doesn't work. Czech law is in compliance, the minimal warranty has always been 2 years.

It is the same as Apple limiting their warranty to 1-year. They are now prosecuted for it - because they just can't do that.

P.S. Now I'm reading they buckled and are giving explicit 2 year warranties since ~April.

Nope. Even in auction, you retain your rights - I don't know how that works in the UK, but in CZ the minimal warranty is 12 months even for used goods. New goods have 24 month as usual. It is a little confusing when the deal is made as an exchange between private persons, but I can't find anything about that right now, the last I investigated it could be limited to "just" pre-existing faults in case of used goods or something like that.

Sellers usually don't distinguish between the first 6 months and the rest of the warranty when it comes to proving the faults, but if they do it's not that complicated to get an expert to asses how it was caused and they have to cover the cost of it when you apply the warranty. That's why I got insured for legal advice so HTC can go suck it when it comes to that...

I can go and kill somebody, that doesn't make it legal.

And I can respect your opinion as long as you don't spread FUD as a fact to others.
[HTC One X] knightrocker:
Gotta agree with that lol ... or killing would have become legal a looooong time ago :D
[HTC One X] jangomango:
I believe its done for the customers protection to be honest... if you bought a car, and switched the ecu chip out, to squeeze a few extra horse power out, the. Blew the engine , who's faults that? Not the manufacturer, who had tested it and set it at a safe level for most consumers. You try unlocking a PlayStation 3 and see how long your allowed on the psn network. Same thing. Yes, you own the hardware, but changing the firmware and then winging like a little kid when it all goes tits up, will be your own doing.
[HTC One X] lostunsunghero:
after reading every post in this thread i feel like either im mis-informed or the person im quoting and many others have this completely wrong.

My understanding is that if a custom rom was to affect the hardware in such a way that it fails to the point where it needs repair then that is the fault of the person who willingly installed the rom. Correct?

However for arguments sake lets say my quarrell with HTC is that they say that unlocking my bootloader "may" (unclarified) void my warranty. This is bull****, how does unlocking my bootloader have anything to do with a button falling off the handset 2 weeks after use? They are in essence telling me i have to cover the charge for a manufacturing defect because i installed a custom rom.

That doesnt make any sense whatsoever.

Just a note, i will be unlocking and rooting my HOX as soon as i get it, knowing full well i will win in court should a manufacturing defect arise. (i won 2 cases against pc world last year over a faulty hard drive which they tried to pin on me because i used it as a server rather than what they considered "intended use". I.e. flashed custom files to the firmware)
[HTC One X] SB13X:
I have contacted Citizens Advice in the UK regarding this situation and asked for clarification on the legality of all this. For those that didn't know Citizens Advice took over from ConsumerDirect when that was abolished. I have given them links to this thread as well as the thread on page 2.
[HTC One X] kemmo123:
I love how they say that rooting and unlocking will allow overclocking, causing hardware faults... without releasing the kernel source... still... :rolleyes:
[HTC One X] jmpmjmpm:
Citizens advice are as much use as chocolate teapots. Hapless volunteers with VERY few legal experts. Having said that UK and EU law is clear. Multinationals are always going to limit their warranties. Most, though include a line that says "limited to maximum amount allowed by law"

I think where people are getting confused is with statutory rights and warranties. A warranty is not legally required. It is it addition and is separate to your statutory rights. So while you may invalidate your warranty you cannot disclaim your statutory rights. The difference between warranty and statutory rights is that the dealer/manufacturer may voluntarily repair/replace under warranty where as you may have to force them to repair or replace under your statutory rights via court/trading standards (in the UK)

*take a breath* SO.... If your power button goes faulty then this is certainly nothing to do with your bootloader unlock and as you can easily convince a court of the same then it is advisable to take legal action if need be.

BUT if the mainboard on your phone dies, how confident can we be that a court would be convinced that unlocking is not responsible? Not very I would argue and then a legal action would not be advised.

There is something to be said for the arguement that we all saw the disclaimer when we unlocked that we may lose warranty, but, I for one done it on day one before the reports of bugs and faults and shameful quality control on this handset surfaced. Had I known then that HTC blatantly cheated people by allowing their quality control process to be so lax that so many faulty handsets shipped then I would NEVER had unlocked! For me this is the crux of the matter. When I unlocked I had confidence in HTC hardware and its reliability so the risk was small, to me anyway. Now that confidence is shattered by HTC the risk seems to be much, much higher.
[HTC One X] treebill:
The owner changed something that caused the fault, in your example they turned the chip off and then the fault then lies with the owner.

Now if you turned the chip off but the floor of the car fell off, that's a fault not caused by turning the chip off.
[HTC One X] KrisPerry:
Interested to hear how this pans out
[HTC One X] scottspa74:
Here's how my response from HTC was after I told them that if they want to void our warranty , they should at LEAST provide s-off so we can fix our own problems.

........ I can understand your concern about HTC not offering S-off on our devices. Thank you for sharing your feedback. I will be happy to explain one of the main reasons we do not offer S-off. S-* blocks access to certain partitions of the device. This ensures that a carrier branded device cannot be unlocked from the branded network and put on another network by a customer. For HTC to offer this, we would be breaking FCC regulations, Scott. When buying a carrier branded device, the customer as well as the carrier has a ‘stake’ in the phone. Because of this contract between customer and carrier, HTC cannot offer the unlock via S-off or PUK code. Doing so would void the contract between customer and carrier and thus break the law as HTC does not have a ‘stake’ in the contract. I hope this answers any of your questions as to why HTC cannot provide S-off on all of our devices. As much as we would love to facilitate our Customers’ requests in this matter, we are legally unable to. I appreciate you taking the time to write in to me today. I hope you have a great upcoming week!

....

What is a PUK code

?

sent from 2yr old Evo on ICS
[HTC One X] Dacoco:
Go ahead and ask them for S-OFF for unbranded devices. Then this argument should not count... :D
[HTC One X] Goku80:
PUK code if i am correct is a code if you want to transfer say your number from ATT to Verizon. And ATT give you that code to give to Verizon and voila Verizon gives you the same number you had on ATT.:)
[HTC One X] pnnorth:
That's a PAC (Port Authorisation Code).

A PUK (Personal Unblocking Key) is basically a pin code for your sim.
[HTC One X] jangomango:
Yes, but under the warranty, HTC could not send you back a bricked device. It has to be returned in a factory condition. And by unlocking the phone, you have acted outside of the terms if the warranty. Regardless of the reason you requested a repair. Just my two cents....

Get ya swag on...
[HTC One X] f4flake:
What on earth have the FCC got to do with it?

Err.... That's right, nothing outside of the USA.
[HTC One X] Goku80:
oops:o
[HTC One X] ewok666:
You can say it any way you like.....doesn't change the fact that in most countries this will not be legal. Not for unrelated faults anyway. And I doubt Motorola's developer device would stand a legal challenge either in that respect.

All these guys (htc etc.) will happily give it a try until someone takes them to court and then that's the end of this BS.

To pick up on the example of the car and the ECU ( tuning the engine): your problem of you blow up the engine. Not your problem if the wipers stop working or the radio dies etc.
[HTC One X] BenPope:
FCC is an American organisation with no jurisdiction outside of America. My understanding is that in the UK, it's against the law to prevent you from moving to another carrier, which is why PUK code exists. The carrier does not have a stake in the phone, which is why they tie you into a lengthy contract.
[HTC One X] abc27:
The PUK code has absolutely nothing to do with moving carrier.

It's a code you enter after incorrectly entering your pin number three times in a row.
[HTC One X] enyaj:
just a question: can HTC be sued now, say in the UK, since a lot are saying they'd lose in court if they indeed get sued because of their stand on this?