yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Asus Transformer TF700] Tek_No:
Just my thoughts on this

I think a lot amongst us would never even consider to unlock their device if Asus would be delivering the same speedy rom and kernel as the CleanRom and kernel combination available here (XDA).

As TF700 users we all read these forum topics on a daily basis and realize that things are much better when using a non Asus delivered rom and kernel: what we expected from the beginning by buying such an expensive tablet.

If Asus would deliver the same quality rom and kernel there would be no need (again for most of us) to unlock our device.

By not doing so a lot of us are breaking their waranty just to install something we were expecting from Asus in the first place. Sometimes I start thinking that Asus may be doing this on purpose so that they not only get big bucks from us when buying the tablet but also later when something breaks down (even when it's not your own fault) and they only fix it for a paid fee.

Hope Gary (Asus) is still reading these forums...

Tek_No
[Asus Transformer TF700] Aviator47:
Tek_No

From a business and contractual standpoint, ASUS provides what ASUS provides. By law, in most developed countries, ASUS must then support what ASUS provides. By law, in most developed countries, ASUS must also deliver, within reason, what ASUS advertized. ASUS has no legal obligation to deliver what a given, and probably minor, segment of the consumer population "expects". That android forum members (maybe 5% of the total ASUS buying population) expect more than is contractually delivered is a problem for the android forum population to deal with.

ASUS offers what it can support - financially, technically, logistically, contractually and globally. The Transformer is a mass market product, and like panty hose, one size does not fit all. You typically pay extra if you are too big or too small. You can get an ASUS Transformer with a no questions asked warranty if you are "bigger" or "smaller" than the vast majority of the market. You just have to pay extra (e.g. third party coverage) to do so. (IIRC, the size is now more like "One Size Fits Most", to avoid being deceptive).

If ASUS's current contractual stand starts hampering their business, I'm sure they will rethink it. Meanwhile. they stay in the "one size fits all (or MOST)" mode and let other vendors make the outlying sizes.

Do a bit of reading on "Implied Warranty". The basics for mass market products are what "the ordinary buyer's expectations". If you are not "ordinary", expect to be overlooked.
[Asus Transformer TF700] Mathman85:
This is key. The vast majority of electronic device users leave them stock and are happy to do so (this is why the iPhone is so popular--most don't realize the benefits of going further). And ASUS does better than most manufacturers with making those people happy. My HTC EVO 4G LTE still doesn't have an HTC-released Jelly Bean build, and it came out before the TF700.
[Asus Transformer TF700] cbmech:
Originally Posted by Tek_No

"I think a lot amongst us would never even consider to unlock their device if Asus would be delivering the same speedy rom and kernel as the CleanRom and kernel combination available here (XDA).

As TF700 users we all read these forum topics on a daily basis and realize that things are much better when using a non Asus delivered rom and kernel: what we expected from the beginning by buying such an expensive tablet.

If Asus would deliver the same quality rom and kernel there would be no need (again for most of us) to unlock our device."

I stated earlier that I learned my lesson regarding unlocking my device before the end of my warranty, but after reading the cleanrom thread, I threw caution to the wind and unlocked it anyways with 9 months left in the warranty. While I do agree with you that Asus should be releasing same quality roms, there will always be a community of modders that can squeeze better performance from a gadget than the original company. For example, I have a 2005 Mustang GT. Ford spent millions of dollars designing that car to be fast, but there is still a huge amounts improvements that can be made on the software side to squeeze out even more horsepower. Of course any changes will void the warranty. It is just the price we pay for being performance hogs.
[Asus Transformer TF700] Thats OK:
Fascinating point made by Tek_no.

On our previous Android devices we just put up with the quirks and deficiencies.

Never had any thoughts about emerging development making improvements to a slow cruddy OS named Android.

If I had not been a commensurate forum rat bored with his device I probably would have never searched out any retuning options.

So far as I'm concerned with the Infinity it's unlock or die...
[Asus Transformer TF700] mike216:
Bull ****. If you brick your device, your fault. If display goes out there fault. Don't tell me what I can and can't do with my device. Just my opinion however I feel if they don't have an honest view then ill take my business somewhere else. I'll be watching how they treat the Dev community
[Asus Transformer TF700] Aviator47:
A few years ago, the wife and I rode our Vespas to Italy (with a little help from ferries) to tour the northern area for a month. My Vespa had 12 months left on warranty. It would have been great, for mountain riding, to put a simple, performance after market exhaust on mine - voiding the warranty. Simply not worth the risk of a breakdown of any sort while on the road. My Vespa was acceptable in the Dolomiti, but could have been much sweeter, with just that one mod.

The day the warranty expired, on went the new exhaust system, and riding the mountains of our local islands is significantly better. But not better enough to have put the warranty at risk.

What all too many consumers fail to appreciate is that when we buy something, we enter into a contract. If you don't like the contract, don't make the purchase. Bad mouthing the other party when they live up to terms of the contract you subsequently do not wish honored is puerile. As contract exists for the express purpose of binding two parties to an up front agreement.

Speaking of contracts, I would note that there are manufacturers' contracts that require the restoration of their products to stock configuration (at owner's expense) as a condition of both warranty and out of warranty repair service, regardless of what is being repaired. There are also firms that refuse to provide service of any sort on modified products.

BTW, we had a hell of a time in Italy, even with the lower than desired low end torque in the mountains. Just had to downshift a bit more frequently.
[Asus Transformer TF700] Thats OK:
Was that around Aviano by any chance?

Loved it there...
[Asus Transformer TF700] Aviator47:
Ferry to Athens - Patras - ferry to Ancona - Venezia - up into the Dolomiti and across to Chiavenna - Lago de Como - Cinque Terra - Pisa - Firenze - Around Toscana - Ancona - home No Aviano

Pics here clicky
[Asus Transformer TF700] Tek_No:
Point taken on the Mustang (what a car btw) but not completely the same: suppose you bought your Mustang brand new and from the beginning the motor was stuttering. You fixed that by making some modifications to the engine: problem gone: no more stuttering and the car is even accelerating better and has a higher top speed (the way it should have been from the beginning).

One day, while driving, the passenger seat breaks down. Although your car is still under waranty Ford doesn't want to replace the seat on their expense because you fixed your engine.

Take care,

Tek_No
[Asus Transformer TF700] mike216:
They under estimate how valuable treating people can actually be. What if you received a personal message from Samsung saying. (we recognize that you've been a faithful customer for some time now and to show our appreciation were sending you out a 200$ credit towards your next samsung device) or some kind of personal thanks recognition! There are so many close specs in the tab and phone family this might lock you in for your next 7 purchases over the years. I'm certain companies would do better focusing on the consumer in a personal way. Just my unimportant opinion
[Asus Transformer TF700] trustinbobbo:
Best Buys got me covered, as they did with my prime also.... they didnt touch my prime for anything more than to see of the charger was under the tablet itself and i was unlocked and rooted =) i was even offered another great hassle free warranty for another year on my Infinity for no extra charge!!! so asus voided warranty is the least of my worries and not to mention the tf700 is pretty dissapointing untill you start tinkering with it, ie rom, oc, data2sd. im in love with my NoN warrantied INFINITY
[Asus Transformer TF700] Aviator47:
Mike

You miss the point. If your display goes out and you have done nothing to void the warranty, they take full responsibility. ASUS is contractually clear on that, as well as what one might do to void the warranty. If the vast majority of their customers accept this and are satisfied, why should ASUS change their practices? To hold on to a small number of users who cost them extra?

My experience with user forums is that they represent a relatively small, and typically more demanding segment of the population, who tend to inaccurately generalize their desires to the population at large.

Since it appears that ASUS is getting satisfactory (at least to them) results in delivering a product and applying warranty conditions that are not onerous enough to alienate the bulk of their customer base and hurt their business, get over it or move to another vendor's product.
[Asus Transformer TF700] jtrosky:
I can actually understand Asus' point about voiding the warranty if you unlock your device. On some things, it would be apparent if the unlocking the device could have caused the damage or not (such as a power button not working), but for a lot of items, unlocking *could* be the cause of the failure, even if it's not evidently apparent. Even in the case of a screen not working, it's very possible that an overclocked GPU could have damaged the GPU, making it look like a screen problem, when the problem is actually a damaged GPU - which could very well be the result of the GPU being overclocked (just as an example).

Asus should not have to spend time trying to determine if the source of the problem was caused by something that the user did after unlocking their device. It's not always a cut and dry determination, so they simply make it very clear that if you unlock your device, the warranty will be void - period. This way there is no question. Makes complete sense to me...

Let's face it, while custom ROMs do generally perform better, stock JB is certainly not unusable by any means. I actually didn't have any serious performance problems even while on the stock ROM (after the first JB OTA update at least). Really, the only issue that I had was when installing a bunch of apps and trying to do other things at the same time - and even that wasn't horrible - it just caused some brief pauses while the apps were installing. 99% of the time, people don't have a bunch of apps installing in the background, so it's really not a huge problem. The issue has been *way* overblown, in my opinion.

EDIT: When you think about it, what Asus is doing is really no different than what the CM10 developer is doing right now - basically, if you are running the Clemsyn OC kernel in CM10, he won't even accept or review *any* bug reports from those users because he just doesn't know what the Clemsyn kernel may be doing. Even if the problem seems not to be related to the kernel at all, he just doesn't want to see *any* bug reports unless you are using the stock kernel. Just thought that it was a good analogy to what we are talking about.
[Asus Transformer TF700] danger-rat:
It's called business. They set up a business model, including predicted risk and profit margin, and then they set up rules to stay within that model.

Yes, they could "up" their risk by being a bit more flexible with the rules, but that would probably translate into a higher price for the end user (because share holders expect the same profit).

The problem is the rogue people out there who buy a tablet with screen lift, with the intent that if the brick it they can always RMA it based on the screen lift...

Black and white rules keep this in the clear...
[Asus Transformer TF700] BarryH_GEG:
Exactly. Which is why HTC and Motorola are doing the same thing. The "enthusiast" community (us) is estimated at about 5% of device purchasers which means this policy doesn't affect 95% of the customer base who don't know what a bootloader is. If the 5% that were unlocked were causing 20% of the repair burden the policy, from a business perspective, makes sense. But if that's true it's curious that Samsung, the largest Android manufacturer, can get by with a much more liberal policy. I think Asus, HTC, and Motorola saw this as a chance to reduce their warranty costs not protect themselves from some type of abuse. Just MHO.
[Asus Transformer TF700] danger-rat:
Agreed.

However, Samsung produce much higher numbers and so they have other options for keeping costs down. HTC on the other hand are performing pretty poorly from a financial level.

It's a new era for a lot of device manufacturers, and they're still finding their feet.

You don't like it, don't buy it...
[Asus Transformer TF700] mike216:
Actually no I got it. I'm sure I'm wrong but this is the way I feel. I know Asus doesn't have the time to divide warranty groups up depending your scenario. My only point is, if it's clearly hardware related then please fix it. If something is burned out because of bad code then I know this will most likely be on me for not being on custom software. I know they will never accept anything but stock software I was just giving an honest opinion on the right way to treat people
[Asus Transformer TF700] _that:
I do not like Asus' policy, but I always remember what a wise man once said: Big companies do not succeed because of their good products or customer service, they succeed by sucking slightly less than other big companies.
[Asus Transformer TF700] Aviator47:
How many different warranty groups would one propose? Would there be a price differential? If "Yes", then that already exists in the marketplace in the form of third party insurance.

My nephew had an analogous experience . He accidentally cut the power cord on an electrical power tool. Rather than splice the wires back together (which manufacturer called an "acceptable user maintenance action), he opened the case and installed a complete, new power cord. Opening the case totally voided the warranty (as stated on his warranty papers), even though the component that failed was mechanical and outside the motor casing.

Most warranties are written to be simply stated, so that there is no time and expense invested in arguing how many angels are dancing on the head of a given pin. If a manufacturer were to try to enumerate each and every possible exception to a warranty, it could become the basis for endless confrontation. Thus, you are going to find they tend to be like ASUS's. Any mod results in voiding.
[Asus Transformer TF700] huy_lonewolf:
Even though I do agree that this unlock = void warranty makes perfect business sense, what I don't understand why this practice is only prominent in the mobile hardware. Take a computer as an example. I can install any operating systems I want on it (Windows, Linux, FreeDOS, Hackintosh, etc..) and I am still covered under warranty for any manufacturing defects. There is no encrypted bootloader on my computer and I am free to play around with the software inside. If the same logic applied, laptops should only be able to run the OS they are shipped with. To ensure the best user experience plus keep warranty cost minimum, companies like ASUS should also lock down their laptops to the point that no other OSes can be installed. Am I missing something here?
[Asus Transformer TF700] jtrosky:
Good point! I don't have an answer for that one...
[Asus Transformer TF700] Aviator47:
Probably an "evolved" standard. Early "home computers" with a ROM based OS and BASIC language installed (e.g. -PET, Radio Shack and Apple) did, indeed, void the warranty if you diddled with the stock ROM. Wasn't really until the IBM PC that operating system was separate (in disk) from the installed hardware, however, the BIOS/KERNAL ROM was still off limits.

AND, IBM's initial purchase contract for PC (yup, for the first several months, you had to sign a contract) was draconian as to third party hardware and/or user mods. Warranty was voided if there were identifiable mods, so any add-on cards, etc, had to be removed before sending it in. If you brought an out of warranty PC to an authorized IBM service location with 3rd party cards, etc, you paid time and materials to restore it to stock before they would service it. So, if you had left any essential card via 3rd party (e.g. - video or printer driver), they pulled it out and installed IBM and charged you for it. Non-essential cards were simply removed and returned with the repaired computer. When a buddy showed me the contract a few weeks before the PC came to market, I nearly choked. I though it was a joke (a seven page joke), but he assured me it wasn't, and the major retailer he worked (Computerland) for was concerned it would limit sales, but was in no way going to turn down their chance to be first to put it on the market. When the company's sales mgr asked their IBM rep about it, the rep said, "We did not want to sell to tinkerers, just serious users". Of course, the definition of "serious users" changed after a while, as IBM was only able to interest corporate users and missed the mass market.
[Asus Transformer TF700] BarryH_GEG:
Look at it this way. One brave airline got the idea in 2008 to start charging for checked bags. Soon they all did. Southwest held out because they felt it was a competitive differentiator. In the beginning the travling public was outraged. The network carriers haven't lost much business because of it and Southwest hasn't gained a lot. So far this year the airlines have collected $1.7B in baggage fees and three airlines have begun charging for carry-on bags. Moral of the story: you can't stop a moving train. ;)
[Asus Transformer TF700] saugstauber:
Today i found this german article:

http://www.giga.de/apps/android-os/...ot-und-flash-in-der-eu-gesetzlich-festgelegt/

It says that if you live in the EU you have warranty by law, even if you did flash or root your device.

According to this article ASUS acts against existing law!
[Asus Transformer TF700] lafester:
can't read the article but you can root without unlocking.

i would also guess that if you voluntarily give up warranty by using their tool to unlock they would be good under the law.

figure out a way to unlock without their tool and you might have a case.
[Asus Transformer TF700] _that:
No, because they did not sell you the device. For fixing of manufacturing defects you can go to the place where you bought it - and after 6 months you must also prove that the defect was already there when you bought it (which is usually impossible).
[Asus Transformer TF700] renaldof:
bricked mine too

Could you please tell me what did you exactly tell them before sending it? I'm just about to call them about mine bricked unit and I want to make sure I use the correct words ;)
[Asus Transformer TF700] laod:
I totally agree with the op. Android is supposed to be open. And for a company to take that away and tell you that you can have it back at the expense of your warranty is sleazy. I understand why asus does this. However the fact is that your device is not fully unlocked. They have still blocked nvflash.

What makes android great is that you can do whatever you want with your device and if you mess up then you can fix it yourself. I've softbricked my g2x many many times and I have always been able to recover from it.
[Asus Transformer TF700] Tylorw1:
If ASUS hadnt disabled NVflash it would not be an issue. They could make this a ton easier on everyone. They could make NVflash blobs of all devices. Thus making every software brick recoverable. And if they offered it to the public they wouldnt have to worry about it either. It could save them a lot of money and time having to replace main boards, etc. They take the time to trace your serial number to show your warranty is voided, but they cant make their support better by backing NVFLASH up to restore bricks. Their decision makers are not the most intelligence.

Tylor

ROM: CleanRom Xenogenesis 4.4 DeOdex

Kernel: Hundsbuah's V3.0.5 OC Kernel

Theme: Timberwolf's Blues and Jazz Theme
[Asus Transformer TF700] _that:
There are no "NVFlash blobs"; these blobs are for the unofficial "wheelie" tool, which is only a workaround because we don't get our Secure Boot Key when unlocking. What Asus should do is simply give us this 128 bit secret key and NVFlash when we unlock, so that we get full control over our devices.

Fallacy detected: It doesn't save ASUS any money - they profit from charging users horrible amounts for exchanging the mainboard when a simple NVFlash could have restored it.

Quoting Paul Graham: "Big companies don't win by making great products. Big companies win by sucking less than other big companies."
[Asus Transformer TF700] jtrosky:
Yep, the only valid reason that I can come up with (as to why they don't allow us to use NVFlash) is $$$$$$. Basically, by not allowing us to use NVFlash to recover our devices, they are allowing their "authorized repair facilities" (which are not part of Asus, from what I understand) to make some easy money.

Seriously, what valid reason could there be? If a device is already in a bricked state, surely NVFlash can't make it worse! It drives me insane that Asus does this crap. Or.... maybe Nvidia is to blame for this situation? Not sure....
[Microsoft Surface] guitar1969:
So after playing with my Surface for 5 days now, it is obvious there is a lot of capability in the back end through the Desktop. II have networked printers, and drives at both home and office going, streaming content etc. It is very capable for what it is, way beyond any other Ipad and Android tablet out there. So it seems to me it is just a matter of time before some XDAer figures out a way to unleash it and possibly load other programs (non-RT) programs some way. We know the official MS word is no, but it seems to me it is a fully capable Win8 machine that just has some goierners on it and limited processing power, just waiting to be cracked.

Am I just dreaming?
[Microsoft Surface] blackout203:
I would love to see this happen. The one thing holding me back from purchasing one. I'd love a Windows 8 Pro version tablet at the Surface RT pricing but wouldn't we all...
[Microsoft Surface] liu2002:
I dont think rt can run x86 app properly. Because the cpu is not as good as x86 core. I am interested in porting rt to compatiable device such as tergra 2 and 3 pad.
[Microsoft Surface] mk1151:
I don't think it's necessarily about the Tegra being "as good" as an x86 - the issue is that you'd need an emulator, or the source for the x86 app which you'd then need to re-compile for ARM. I believe MS made a developer toolkit available that allows simpler conversion from x86 to ARM but it's still up to the app vendors to do it.
[Microsoft Surface] Skitals:
In theory, the same code could compile for both x86/64 and ARM (RT), but VS2012 will not allow you to compile an ARM desktop app. There is no legit way to write/compile a desktop app on RT. Its an arbitrary BS limitation put in place by MS. You cannot side load apps, everything must come through the MS store, RT enterprise being an exception... which doesn't help us. And the MS store will only offer Metro apps. MS office shows that's desktop apps are fully possible, albeit recoded/recompiled for ARM, but MS will not allow it. In an ideal world, RT would be a fully supported OS, and the likes of Adobe and others could release desktop apps for RT, but sadly it won't happen.
[Microsoft Surface] mk1151:
Why do you say that?