Repair?

[Volchitsa]

I have NX80V and not long ago it broke. :( I didn't think it was such a big deal. I still have my warranty. Called sony, they sent me a box, I sent them the unit... In about 8 days I get an email saying that the repair is estimated $155 and that I have to call sony to approve it. I call sony and ask them why do I have to pay. They tell me that I had "physical damage" on the tapscreen and that the warranty does not cover it.

It didn't have any physical damage though! :mad: The tapscreen worked fine. That was not the problem. There were several problems. It could not hard reset. It did when the battery died. But when I charged it and turned it on again, it would do weird stuff. It shows a ? on the memory stick icon even though there is no memory stick. Then, it would work for a while, but in some time, it just goes to camera mode an keeps taking pictures. There is no way of stopping that. The capture light also does not work. The battery drains again and I start all over.

It is in good condition and has no damage. I got kind of mad at sony... I don't know what they found inside, but I never did anything bad to the handheld.

I really do not want to pay $155 for repairs.. Is there another way? Do you think sony overprices repairs? Can it be fixed somewhere else? Maybe that would be cheaper.

What would you recomend? Approve the estimate and let sony fix it? Or fix it somewhere else? I have a tight budget too. I cannot live without my NX80 though.. I miss it... :(

[TJ37]

Do you have a recent screenshot of the NX80V after you ask Sony for assistance? Here goes Sony again with their sneeky ways... Tell them that when you packed it the NX's screen was fine so you do not require to get it fixed. However, you might get it back with the screen broken. Either: 1. it wasn't packed correctly and got damaged by the oh-so-wonderful FedEx or Sony did it on purpose, or will do it if you don't pay.

[Volchitsa]

No I dont... :( I didn't know sony could be so nasty... I packed it just fine, It looked pretty secure...
I really don't know what to do..

[TJ37]

Your in for a dandy... I've heard someone in the TJ forum (I think or TG) say that Sony refused to return his/her TJ (or TG) unless he paid the fee... That was out of warranty though, but if you don't get it fixed you have to pay them the shipping cost I think. If you want to take a chance, you can buy a messed up NX from eBay or something and replace the screen yourself.

[Volchitsa]

So you suggest telling sony to return it without the repair?
I am not sure that they meant that the screen was broken. They did not say what exactly was wrong with it.
Can I get it repaired somewhere else? If the screen is not broken... Do stores like best buy or curcuit city repair handhelds?
I will try to find out what is wrong with the tapscreen. If it is broken, I think I will have to leave it at sony and pay the fee. I will never be able to replace screen myself. And I cannot shop on the internet either.. Unless I REALLY need to..

Hey, thanks for helping, I heard you had somewhat a similar problem..

[TJ37]

Chain stores like Circuit City and Best Buy offer Extended Warranties, only then will they take your unit back if the E.W. is still active or in the return period. If they keep insisting that you fix it, you really have nothing else to do. Either fork out an additional $155 for a "in warranty" repair, or take a risk and take it back and observe and send it back hopefully this time the techie won't look at records or won't discover anything wrong with it. I don't mean to frighten you, there might be other ways, but this is all I can think of at the moment. Sony is basically holding your beloved PEG-NX80/V CLIE hostage. Either comply with them and the CLIE won't get hurt, or suffer the consiquences for disobeying.

[zwergnase]

There are websites out there that specialize in PDA repairs and parts.
Try http://www.pdaparts.com/.

[StoneRyno]

I'd gamble on getting it back from them only after getting more detail from them on what exactly is wrong. If there are aditional things that were not broken but are now broken and that is why the $155 repair cost. And you know for certain the fault doesn't lie in the packaging you could alway take the shipping company to small claims court for the cost of repairs and whatever court fees are inccured. I'm not usually one to suggest such a thing but it seems to me more and more companies are becomming lax in their policies and care of customers. I recently got some DVDs shipped to me that were poorly packaged and almost all discs were floaters. Luckily they weren't damaged. I even had to threaten a company with going to the BBB just to get a response for a refund. I was curtious and didn't write a off the wall ranting email to them either.

[CroCo]

I shipped my unit to sony on tuesday. lets see what will happen. There is still warrenty on the device. Somehow the audirecorder is broken, hard reset didn´t help, so it must be a hardware problem. I don´t know how that could happen. I dropped the unit once, but it still worked ok after that. I am really curious now if sony will as me for money, too.

TO Volchitsa: this is really strange. I mean, the problems could have to do with the tap screen. When it is malfunctioning your device might recive input from the screen even though you are not touching it. I had an palmIII which accumulated a lot of dust inside. I didn´t notice that. So some day touchscreen stopped working. When I slapped the device it worked again. So when I opened the device, realized it was full with dust, cleaned that out, and put the thing back together everything was fine again. What I´m trying to tell you is, that sometimes its hard to understand where the real problem comes from. But if bottons don´t work properly it could be the buttons but could also be some other input, that´s constantly blocking the OS from receiving other input.

I hope your problem resolves!

[Volchitsa]

Thank you for all the replies.

"Chain stores like Circuit City and Best Buy offer Extended Warranties, only then will they take your unit back if the E.W. is still active or in the return period."

Yeah, I knew that. But wouldn't they try to fix my device if I paid them? I think my friend got his computer fixed in Compusa. He didn't buy it there, he had to pay...

"or take a risk and take it back and observe and send it back hopefully this time the techie won't look at records or won't discover anything wrong with it"

I'm pretty sure that woldn't work. Every time I call or they look at my device, they record it. It is convinient for calling back and stuff, but I would want to send it back and hope once again, like you suggested.

"And you know for certain the fault doesn't lie in the packaging you could alway take the shipping company to small claims court for the cost of repairs and whatever court fees are inccured"

What do you mean? Sorry, I didn't fully understand the wording. Do you suggest on blaming it on FedEx?

"What I´m trying to tell you is, that sometimes its hard to understand where the real problem comes from."

Yeah, I understand that... and it kind of scares me... I will call sony and find out what exactly is wrong...
Thanks again.

[StoneRyno]

What do you mean? Sorry, I didn't fully understand the wording. Do you suggest on blaming it on FedEx?


What I'm saying is Sony told you the screen was damaged and had to be replaceD (the reason they told you it would cost $155 to repair unless I misunderstood). If this is truely the case and you know that the screen wasn't damaged before you shipped it, and you packaged it properly, I'm comcluding then that the screen was damaged in transit and then the shipping company is at fault. Or the not so likely possibility that Sony damaged it accidentally or purposly and is trying to rip you off. I would be more inclined to think it was damaged in transit if you know there is damage to it that wasn't there before you shipped it.

[Edlin]

You need more details about what damage. And dont forget to ask if they are fixing the other (inital) problem. It would suck, but without a picture to show that teh screen wasnt damaged when you sent it, its going to be a hard slog to prove otherwise to either Sony or the Shipping company.
Good luck with it.