[Galaxy S II Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] pdydeva:
I bought a brand new Galaxy S2 in December 2011 and have been enjoying it for a week till I found an Audio jack issue. The issue must have been there right from the moment I unboxed the phone, as I didn't find time to test all features of the phone in a week time. wherein if I remove the ear phones, loud speaker won't work. Later, when I took the phone to service centre, they concluded that the audio jack wasn't triggering the ear-phone removal signal.

Since it was a brand new phone, I demanded a replacement at the service centre. But they refused a replacement, stating some unwritten policy, that phone's life exceeded 15 days from purchase date (since I ordered the phone online, it took me 7 days to get delivered + 7 days of owning it without knowing the issue + weekends). I called up the zonal manager and he too refused for a replacement but promised me to replace the mother board of the phone.

Since I insisted that the repairing work at factory is different from service centres in terms of ESD safety, he promised me that I can be present personally while the service engineer repairs the phone. He also promised that Samsung service centres are at par with the factory standards. Without an option, I had to agree for a repair on a brand new phone for no mistake of mine. When the service engineer was repairing the phone, the front desk people were roaming inside the service area (inside ESD safe zone marked with yellow lines) without ESD safe slippers or bands. I was harassed for quoting that they are not following ESD standards. Having worked in an electronic manufacturing industry for years, I know that moving inside an ESD safe zone may spoil the electronic components in long run. For having said that I was harassed badly by the service manager. When I brought this to zonal manager's notice, he promised me that there won't be any fault in the future. I demanded his promise in a written format but he refused. As any other citizens of this country (with very weak consumer protection), I have been living with the phone happily but not for long :(

After 5 months, on a Tuesday morning the phone is completely dead and wouldn't boot up :eek: while the battery if fully charged. Last known usage was on Monday night when I hooked up the phone to the charger before going to sleep. I still remember that I woke up from my sleep to plug out the phone from wall charger as soon as I heard the charge-full beep. Next day morning, the display wasn't coming up.

Diagnosis from my end:

1. Removed and re-inserted the battery. Doesn't boot.

2. Press and hold the power button for a minute after removing the battery. Doesn't boot.

3. The phone doesn't get into recovery mode.

4. Swapped batteries from my friends phones and still it doesn't boot. But my phone's battery worked in their phone.

I strongly believe it's due to the board replacement undertaken outside factory without following ESD standards or due to the replacement board itself which I suspect to be a re-furbished one. This time I didn't want to give up and demanded a fresh replacement phone but the service manager disagreed again. So, I wrote to the Samsung CEO desk and they are dealing with the case for the past 10 days without much progress.

Kindly give your suggestions if I should continue to live with a faulty phone after paying 30K or get a replacement phone since it's a factory fault. Also, suggest me if I could approach consumer court for all the losses (precious data, loss of peace and all the hardships I'm undergoing).

Thanks in advance.

Deva