5 brand new G2's and 4 loose hinges

[mao mao]

Okay I know a lot of people have been talking about the loose hinge issue with the G2, so I wanted to share my latest experience, it was honestly rather shocking.

The first G2 I had clearly had a bad hinge. If I flipped it upside down the screen would flop around wildly. Similarly, when the keyboard was closed, there was obvious play in the screen, and the whole phone felt loose.

I returned it to T-mo the next day and it was replaced with my current G2. The hinge on it is much better, it feels completely solid when the keyboard is closed, and the screen does not budge when i hold the phone upside down.

I was having an issue with my proximity/light sensor on the latest G2 and I took it back to T-mo today to see if it was defective.

Long story short (kinda) the store manager and I opened 3 brand new G2's and every single one had a loose hinge. When I say loose I mean extremely loose, just like the first G2 I had.

I told the manager that these were all defective, and she said that I was wrong. "That is how the Z-hinge works....It's supposed to be loose like that" I told her that there is no way that HTC intended for the screen and keyboard to be flopping around all over the place, but she decided that my G2 actually had a defective hinge.

I can't believe 4 our of the 5 brand new G2's I've played with have been defective, and its someone disconcerting that T-mo employees either don't know that the loose hinge is a defect, or a lying to customers about the issue.

 

[clue11]

That IS pretty shocking. And I'd guess the employees have no clue..

 

[Kyran]

Yeah, this is exactly what I've been talking about. Since when did expected behavior become defective? All of the dummy units at various stores act properly, but T-Mobile is actually fooling people about the real G2's intended behavior.

I've seen a number of reviews saying the G2's hinge is either "badly designed" or "extremely fragile." Neither of these are true, it's just that T-Mobile seems to be going through great lengths to make everyone think this phone sucks.

When I received my first G2 from customer loyalty, the first thing it did was flop out of my hand when I took it out of the box. I called Customer Care specifically to ask if the G2's hinge was suppose to do that, but that rep admittedly didn't know and ask me to compare to an unit in store. Of course I went out to do just that and the store rep didn't even want to show me their demo at first and just told me it was suppose to be like that.

When I finally convinced her to bring it out, she would open it and shake the darn thing to show that it would close on it's own... and then she drops it. After I convinced her to at least let me hold it I was quickly able to prove that my hinge was WAY looser even compared to the one that took a four foot dive onto a tiled floor only minutes before and with nary a scratch at that.

And then she has the nerve to try to sell me insurance on the thing because of the hinge. Yeah, way to stand by your products T-Mo. Sell me a defect, make me waste gas only to tell me it's fine... then tell me it's delicate after demonstrating its durability and then ask me to add $6/month to my bill so I can pay the $150 deductible to cover something that should be under the Manufacturer's Warranty anyway.

Oh well, I still got the evidence I needed so I just left. It was enough to convince Customer Loyalty to replace it with a G2 that has a functioning hinge.

In contrast, Nintendo was very quick to fess up about the cosmetic, hairline crack on the DS Lite's hinge and offered free replacements, even though it did not affect the functionality of the device. Why couldn't T-Mobile be more like them? If the G2 wasn't the ONLY vanilla Android device with a keyboard I would have switched carriers weeks ago.