Advice: Best Buy or HTC replacement plan?

[Vanesa Sanchez]

I purchased my HTC One M8 thru Best Buy in April because I had a $50 off certificate PLUS wanted the Amber Rose edition. Everything was going "perfectly" (some minor weird occasions with my phone that included texts not going thru, data not working on Spotify, etc) until today. I plugged in my phone with the original charger cord and left it to charge for 20 minutes or so. It was already at 50%+ percent but I wanted the extra juice for the day. When I came back, I unplugged the phone and opened my HTC Dot View case. Usually when you open the case, the phone screen will light up and take you to the locked screen. Sometimes, for some reason, my phone won't respond and I'll just have to use the "double tap" move or power button.

This time neither worked. Weird thing is that the orange "charging" notification is still on (12 hours later), even without it being plugged in. It's completely non-responsive to rebooting, master reset, etc etc. I took it to Best Buy (under Geek Squad warranty, $10 a month) and the worker said I could do the claim but pay the deductible of $150. He also mentioned the phone should be under warranty with HTC. I called HTC and the rep gave me two options: 1. Pay $19, send in your phone and we will fix it or 2. Pay $29, we'll send you a refurb phone by Monday & we'll place a hold on your credit card until you do so. I went with the second option but freaked out when he read me the terms & conditions.

Apparently, with this option, if the phone is not deemed under warranty because of cosmetic damage HTC has the right to send you a new bill for the refurb phone and you WILL need to pay that amount. You cannot return the phone nor will they send you your original phone.

A few months ago, before I purchased the case, my phone slipped out of my sweater and hit concrete. I died a little inside before picking up the phone to see the damage. There is only scratches and a SMALL SMALL dent on the back. Being a college student and all, I cannot afford to have HTC just send me a bill for $200+...

Should I call HTC up in the morning and change my warranty plan to the $19 option or just hope for the best with the $29 option? If anyone has had the same problem, do you know if you can change the warranty option once they have the original phone? Or should I just risk it and go with the Geek Squad option?

Sorry for being so detailed. I just don't want to make the wrong decision and pay for it. Like I said, I have HORRIBLE luck with phones.

 

[Vanesa Sanchez]

Update: My phone miraculous turned on. I tried the Volume Down + Power button for the 100th time today and after 3 minutes, it finally responded. The phone itself is slow but battery life is full. I'm downloading the new 4.4.3 update as my phone is getting all my incoming texts, social network notifications... This is very confusing. Can I send it in to HTC for a diagnostic?

 

[Android Optimizer]

Update: My phone miraculous turned on. I tried the Volume Down + Power button for the 100th time today and after 3 minutes, it finally responded. The phone itself is slow but battery life is full. I'm downloading the new 4.4.3 update as my phone is getting all my incoming texts, social network notifications... This is very confusing. Can I send it in to HTC for a diagnostic?

If you try to send it back HTC will still want to charge you one of the two fees you mentioned in your previous post. (If you haven't already I recommend you cancel your repair). You can do your own diagnostics by going to your phone dialer and typing:
*#*#3424#*#*

Don't waste your time or money sending in your phone unless you can confirm there is an actual problems with the hardware.

The day before Verizon released their update Google+ stopped responding and took my phone into a similar state as your phone where a volume down + power button was needed to reboot it. I have a feeling nothing is wrong with your phone, and some software glitch (like the Google+ one) was responsible. I've never had a single problem with my phone before or after that glitch.

You may also benefit from a system cache clear after your update. Here is how to do it (you don't loose any data doing this):
Turn off your smartphone
Press and hold the "Volume Down" button
While pressing the volume key, press and release the "Power" button to turn the smartphone on
Keep holding "Volume Down" until you see the three Android images at the lower part of the screen
From the "HBOOT" menu, press "Volume down" to highlight "Recovery"
Press "Power" to confirm the selection
A red triangle should pop-up on the screen
Press and hold the "Volume Up" and "Power" buttons at the same time
After reaching the "Recovery" menu, release the buttons
Press "Volume Down" to navigate to, and highlight "Wipe cache partition"
Press the "Power" key to select the option
Wait for the device to display "Cache wipe complete"
With "Reboot system now" highlighted, press the "Power" key

Your phone is probably slow due to some poorly designed app on your phone as opposed to the hardware itself. If the update and cache wipe don't make things faster boot into safe mode, and see if things are quicker (to confirm a 3rd party app is at fault).
Restart the Device in Safe Mode - The all new HTC One® (M8)

If things are faster in safe mode then go to app manager -> all and force stop (and if possible disable) apps you don't use. Your phone can also tell you what apps are using the largest amount of your cpu and battery, and you can stop (and possibly disable and uninstall) those apps to speed up your system.
If the slowness you are encountering is when you launch apps you can try switching from the Dalvik runtime (which I'm guessing you're running) to the ART runtime which will open apps faster for you.

 

[ram1220]

Also let me add that if you do need to repair the phone or get another one you probably don't want to go the HTC route. I have heard numerous people claim that HTC will deny the warranty if there are dents or scratches on the phone. Looking at your pictures I am pretty sure HTC would say that you damaged the phone.

 

[TriBeard92]

I work at geek squad currently, and that is right on the borderline between deductible and not. I would try again with a different agent, or try a different store and see what they'll do. That said, some of the refurbished phones are scary bad. They are some of the worst refurbs I've seen, so you do kinda take luck of the draw there.

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