[Galaxy Note II General] brusyev:
I agree with you Chileno4Liv. The build quality of this phone is by far the worst I have ever seen. I have now gone through four of these. The first was bought online from my carrier T-Mobile. The phone worked great for about a week and then the volume rocker (volume down) button stopped working. It felt loose when I got it and after a week of normal use, it refused to come back up after being pressed. I felt that $700 is not worth this defect and reported this issue to my carrier. They told me to send it back so they can exchange it for a "like new" device. I learned that "like new" means refurbished. I felt that $700 was not worth a refurbished unit so I placed an order for a new unit and sent the other one back. When my new unit arrived, I was shocked when I opened the box. The bezel had a dent on it (top right) which looked as if someone had hit it with something sharp. Although the dent was pretty small it was still very easily noticeable. I believe this is a manufacturing defect. Those of you who are not aware of the bezel quality issues on the Note II, please lookup a posting about this on this site or Google. Once again, I felt that the second defective phone is not worth the $700 and returned it for a refund. Now how spent $1400 and waiting for a refund I decided not to take a third chance and went in to the local T-Mobile store to buy one from there. I paid for $750 for a third device and had a chance to inspect it before buying. I was happy that I finally bought a unit that didn't have a defective bezel and the buttons seemed to work fine. After a week of use, I noticed that the power button stopped responding as it used to when I first got it. I usually press the main button to turn the unit on and use the power button to turn the screen off. At times I had to press it 5 or more times for it to actually turn the screen off. The strange thing is that the response of the button became worse after several days of use. To make sure this was not related to any of the software on my phone I booted in to the safe mode (holding down volume button and power at the same time). In safe mode the problem still remained so I was convinced this was a device issue. I went back to the store and asked for a replacement. The rep took a look and confirmed that my device is infant defective. He brought in a new unit and opened the box. I looked at the device and couldn't believe my eyes. On the new phone he just opened the top left corner of the bezel looked like it was glued together. There was this line which looked like it was not surfaced after being molded. The bottom bezel also had a defect which looked like a small piece of plastic sticking out. The rep also looked surprised but became very angry when I told him that I do not want a defective device. He told me that he will not risk opening another phone for me as it may be defective as well (he referred to it as defective batch). He offered to give me the money back and even wave the additional $50 restocking fee. I was short on time and left the store without taking his offer. Now being down $2100, I went in to another store that day and asked for a replacement (I was still under my 30 day warranty). The rep at that store opened a new box and I started inspecting the phone. The phone looked much better than the one I refused to take in the last store but it still had some blemishes on the bezel in the bottom left. "At least the power button works right and the blemishes aren't that noticeable" I thought and decided to accept the phone. The volume rocker and power buttons still feel loose compared to the same device my wife has. The phone also had some strange white residue on the charging port and the microphone. There was so much of it that the rep had to clean it up as it looked like it was used before. The mic port still seems to be partly blocked by it. It looks like some sort of dust or paste that was not cleaned after manufacturing....So here I am with a $700+ phone that is still not in the mint condition I wanted to have it in. I am also waiting for my $1400 refund which takes about 30 days. My wife has the same phone and had used it for two months now. The buttons work perfect on her phone and there are virtually no blemishes on the bezel. So for the Note 2 owners out there I have two things to say. Either you guys are very lucky to have completely blemish and defect free units or you haven't looked closely.. After going through four devices now (5 if we count my wife’s device) I can honestly say that Samsung’s quality has gone down the drain. I am very disappointed with the experience I had so far. Don't get me wrong. I love the phone and its design but without the quality there is no satisfaction. I haven't even gone in to another issue I discovered with the stock rom on this phone. There is an app bloatware that came with the phone called T-Mobile My Account (other carriers will have different name for this app) When I try to disable this app it comes back after the reboot. The app also grows in size and is collecting data. I checked with my carrier, and sure thing, there is no way to disable it without rooting the phone. Rooting the phone means voiding the warranty and I simply have no time for that right now....Sorry for the long post...just wanted to share my experience with everyone on here.:rolleyes: