03-02-2021, 03:32 AM
A few things:
1. This kind of customer relations situation is exactly why they now have a community and third-party price, where you are paying for these additional services. This customer support costs time and money, so it the buyers have to pay more.
2. These devices are build-to-order and in many cases are prototypes. Generally I think of it more as trying to return a Kickstarter project - it's just not going to be possible.
3. Pine don't have warehouses (as far as I know) to save costs - storing stuff costs money and that would have to be passed on to buyers. The only place you could really return the device might even be somebody's home.
That all said, I think more needs to be done to support the devices that arrive broken or break shortly after purchasing. For example, a tonne of Pinecils seem to have died through normal reasonable use and now people are stuck with almost brand new dead devices. I know of at least one PineTab that had it's battery bloat - which shouldn't be possible in a reasonable scenario.
And then of course there were all of the first gen phones that needed tonnes of mods to get basic hardware working, requiring soldering work that many couldn't do. I doubt Pine would have been capable of recalling all those devices anyway and that would have spelt the end for the project.
At the very least I think it just needs to be spelled out _exactly_ what support can be expected and in what scenarios.
1. This kind of customer relations situation is exactly why they now have a community and third-party price, where you are paying for these additional services. This customer support costs time and money, so it the buyers have to pay more.
2. These devices are build-to-order and in many cases are prototypes. Generally I think of it more as trying to return a Kickstarter project - it's just not going to be possible.
3. Pine don't have warehouses (as far as I know) to save costs - storing stuff costs money and that would have to be passed on to buyers. The only place you could really return the device might even be somebody's home.
That all said, I think more needs to be done to support the devices that arrive broken or break shortly after purchasing. For example, a tonne of Pinecils seem to have died through normal reasonable use and now people are stuck with almost brand new dead devices. I know of at least one PineTab that had it's battery bloat - which shouldn't be possible in a reasonable scenario.
And then of course there were all of the first gen phones that needed tonnes of mods to get basic hardware working, requiring soldering work that many couldn't do. I doubt Pine would have been capable of recalling all those devices anyway and that would have spelt the end for the project.
At the very least I think it just needs to be spelled out _exactly_ what support can be expected and in what scenarios.