johna's blog

How my Google Pixel warranty claim went (Australia)

2023-04-13T12:00:00+10:00

I've owned a Google Pixel 2 for just over a year now -- and yes, I know it's an old phone but I wanted a compact-sized phone with a good quality camera and sometimes a premium old phone is better than a similarly-priced budget phone.

For a few weeks I was having problems charging it, and then it finally gave up charging all together. It was obviously a charging port issue, as I had tried another charger and before it completely stopped charging it would only charge if the plug was connected in a certain way.

I was pleased to find the phone had a two year warranty so set about finding out how to make a warranty claim.

After an unexpectedly long search to find the process it seemed that the way to start, for Australia at least, was to contact Google support by phone or chat.

I had a pleasant, but long experience on chat where I was encouraged to make sure that the problem was definitely the charging port but the person (or was it an AI robot?) by trying a new charger, factory resetting the system, etc, but I did convince them it must be issue and was given two options to proceed: contact my retailer for a potentially quick replacement option or return my phone to Google at their expense.

I opted to return it to Google and they started the process to arrange collection of the phone. This involved sending me an email with information needed to fill out an online form to arrange collection. I did this immediately and they then sent me some PDF forms that I needed to sign and print, three copies in the case of some of the pages.

The excess of paperwork is due to the fact that the phone is to be shipped to Hong Kong.

Next step was to call their local carrier (Toll) and arrange a pick up time, which I did for the next day.

Within half a day of the phone being picked up I received an email saying that my replacement phone had been shipped. According to the Australia Post tracking, the item was coming from Sydney.

A replacement phone arrived quickly. It was new and in a box but did not come with a charger.

The new phone works, but as Pixel 2 is an old model now, I suspect these have been sitting around for a long time because the battery is not as good as the last one, despite being new. It doesn't last as long and sometimes when it get's below 50% it shuts off.

Bought a Chinese Clone Phone (Review)

2011-04-14T12:00:00+10:00

Having been looking for a new phone on eBay I had been exposed to the many cheap clone phones from China and was curious about what they were like. Unfortunately there isn't much information online about them, although there are plenty of warnings not to buy.

Looking for perfumes and fragrances online? efragrance has it!

Anyway I really liked the thought of getting a Sony Ericsson X10 Mini Pro and thought it might be interesting to try the Chinese clone, of which there are a couple to chose from. I chose one branded "Perfect" which cost round A$75 and purchased it through aliexpress.com which was cheaper than the same seller on eBay and also offered a free escrow service which meant that the supplier wasn't paid until I said that I had received the item.

I was very impressed with the aliexpress.com buying process, and my phone was delivered from China to Australia in exactly one week. The aliexpress.com site is very good (it looks like they have cloned amazon.com) but the search facility is bad, making it hard to locate items amongst the thousands and thousands of items for sale. Also many sellers do not classify their items correctly which makes them appear when not relevant to your search.

Right, back to the phone. Basically it's pretty crap, just as warned.

It is a touchscreen phone with a slide out QWERTY keyboard. It came with an Australian charger, two batteries, earphones and a USB cable (also used for charging). No user manual or software were provided.

It does have some interesting features however. Such as the ability to use 3 SIM cards simultaneously, and a built-in analogue TV tuner.

It has WiFi which connected first time to my home network and seems to work well.

The built-in browser is okay but doesn't seem to load some pages (reports server error). The control buttons are small and hard to select and there seems to be some bug that causes the buttons to display wierdly sometimes. Opera Mini is included in the Java applications and works better, if not as quick to load.

I was disappointed that it didn't have an integrated email client. I was able to download PicoMail, a Java email client, which is quite good but there are certainly a heap of clicks required to do anything. I was able to set up my Hotmail account manually (automatic detection worked for receiving email but not sending).

I also plan to download and install an instant messenger Java application too.

Incidently I couldn't install anything until I added a Micro SD card.

I haven't tested the phone with a SIM yet as I wanted to check that it wouldn't try and use my mobile plan for data first.

The QWERTY keyboard is useful and works well however the switch from portrait to landscape doesn't always happen. I also got trapped in some text prediction mode which I couldn't work out how to get out of. Very frustrating to enter web addresses with!

The phone also has handwriting recognition which looks impressive but had about 5% success rate in my test.

The advertisement claims the phone has Bluetooth but I haven't found any settings yet.

The camera is 1.3MP and from the one photo I have taken so far... Crap!

Battery life seems good, though I understand it will be reduced drastically if using more than 1 SIM. With little to no use (and no SIM card installed) it is down to 75% after 24 hours.

I will keep investigating the phone and post on what I find.

Edit: Although the phone didn't come with a user manual I found the following manual which has a similar version of the same MTK operating system:

Cect_P168__2007_06.pdf

Chinese Mobile Phone Information Replicas/Fakes/Clones

2011-03-30T12:00:00+10:00

If you have shopped for a mobile phone on eBay Australia recently you have probably seen a large number of phones available from China, brands and models you haven't seen before with a lot of features (including some not usually available on local models) at very cheap prices.

These phones often support dual SIM cards (or triple) which means that you can make and take calls from multiple phone numbers and/or networks. A great feature if you want one phone for both work and personal calls. Please note that making use of this feature usually significantly increases power consumption, and for this reason many phones come with two batteries.

Although some of these models look unique, many are copies of popular models. iPhone replicas are very common, and there are some interesting copies of many models including the Sony Ericsson Xpedia X10 Mini Pro, Nokia X6, Nokia E71, just to name a few.

They might look virtually identical to the original but they usually differ in terms of operating system software. Some may have Android or Windows Mobile but most have software based on an open source operating system called Nucleus Plus (click here for manufacturer's site). They usually have processors made by MediaTek (MTK) of Taiwan.

There are some interesting phones available (and very inexpensive)... Fancy a wrist watch phone? How about a phone that can be used as a projector?

Chinese phones are obviously not locked to any local network. But an important point is that some models do not support all common GSM frequencies so may not be compatible with all networks, and most do not support 3G or CDMA.

Some general tips about these phones:

Many phones have an analog TV receiver built-in, with a retractable antenna (it's not digital TV so will not work in a few years time in Australia)
Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are common features
The rear camera is almost always 1.3MP and the front (if fitted) is 0.3MP
A GPS receiver is available on some models but often Australian maps are not available
Multi-tasking is not supported by the operating system
Accessories like spare batteries are generally not easy to come buy (keep hold of the seller's details)
Warranty is usually 12 months, but requires that you return the phone to China

Where can you learn more about Chinese mobile phones?

Important note: If you are in Australia and planning on buying one of these phones then be aware that it may be illegal to import some of these phones, or use them on an Australia telephone network. Some of these phones may not have passed the same testing as official locally available models and may be more dangerous to your health. You should check with the relevant government body if you are unsure.