So I went to my local Verizon..

[HarshReality]

I had made a 'shadetree' media dock since I use my phone as my alarm clock and was looking about. While there an attendant walked over and she asked me if I needed help and I told her I was getting the media dock but also looking for a skin/cover for the thing.

Of course she told me what I already knew.. you cant use anything but a film skin on the phone and have it work in the dock so I went on to looking and she was good enough to tell me to call should I need anything.

So here is where it gets kinda funny... at least to me. I was standing there and listening to the sales person give a pitch to a mom and her teeny son and using the display model as a push. Of course he was giving it his best 'Droid Does' and talking about speed response time etc. and then after they walked away I figured I'd give it a look to see if they were running the elusive 2.1 or still 2.0.1.

Imagine my suprise to see the store droid had every app in the market installed on it.. was rooted.. and yes it was running 2.1 w/SMOKED GLASS (didnt check for overclock...)

Me being the ass that I am I asked to see the head of the store and asked if they were encouraging violation of warranty. He responded "Actually no, but lets be honest.. We ARE encouraging open source experimentation and applications available on the market. And if your wise you have the insurance plan so if you do brick it its easy enough to replace. Otherwise, we sell you another phone! Win win situation."

The dipstick knew nothing about the official or next speculated roll out. But in my opinion its kind of misleading to show a 2.1 kernel with bells and whistles and then opening the box to find 'blah'.

 

[dimaj]

So, let me get this straight... You were told by a Verizon store manager that it is OK for us to hack our devices and if we break the device by doing so, they'll replace our phones with "no questions asked"?

 

[HarshReality]

Ver batum.. 'If you purchased the insurance there should be no problems getting a brick replaced.. if not they would be more than happy to sell another phone'

Sorry if I misrepresented that. I would point out that he isnt claiming 'who' would be doing the replacement but rather stating that a brick would be an acceptable warranty by his understanding.

 

[dimaj]

well, of course!
that's the only way they'll replace any device outside of the 30 day warranty. You gotta have the insurance!
Nonetheless, I think that it's funny that this manager said it and I wouldn't keep my hopes up for replacement if my device would get bricked...

Thanks!

 

[KZIWarrior]

Just further shows that most store employees (even managers) are idiots...

well, of course!
that's the only way they'll replace any device outside of the 30 day warranty. You gotta have the insurance!
Nonetheless, I think that it's funny that this manager said it and I wouldn't keep my hopes up for replacement if my device would get bricked...

Thanks!

Not really... The phone has a 1-yr warranty on it regardless of whether or not you have insurance. Even if you don't have insurance a 'bricked' phone would be replaced under the manufacturers warranty as they can't tell that the phone is 'bricked' as opposed to broken (e.g. dead cpu, memory errors ect.). As far as they know it just stopped working. The only way rooting would void your warranty is if you managed to screw up the bootloader in a way that it can still powered on (i.e. they could connect to it) and they could see you replaced the ROM and/or boot-loader. Even then though they don't really 'look' at anything as just push the .sbf to your phone (effectively restoring it to stock) and you walk out the door.

And yes, I've replaced 2 bricked devices before under manufacturer warranties. Unlike Android phones WM phones are (or used to be) easily bricked when flashing the spl.

 

[dimaj]

KZIWarrior,

I'm still kinda new to Droids, and therefore mine is still unrooted. Question for you, if "unbricking" a device is as easy as pushing some image to the device, why do people say that there's currently no way of restoring a device from its "bricked" state?

thanks.

dimaj

 

[LtKen]

KZIWarrior,

I'm still kinda new to Droids, and therefore mine is still unrooted. Question for you, if "unbricking" a device is as easy as pushing some image to the device, why do people say that there's currently no way of restoring a device from its "bricked" state?

thanks.

dimaj

Because if you damage the part of the software that controls the image push, then you're royally boned. There's always a lower level of software in computer systems, and the closer you get to the hardware, the more stable and inaccessable the software is, so you're less likely to kill it. But if you do manage to kill it, you're SOL.

 

[KZIWarrior]

KZIWarrior,

I'm still kinda new to Droids, and therefore mine is still unrooted. Question for you, if "unbricking" a device is as easy as pushing some image to the device, why do people say that there's currently no way of restoring a device from its "bricked" state?

thanks.

dimaj

For one because people use the term 'bricked' w/o fully understanding it. The term 'brick' should ONLY be used when the device is completely dead (i.e. won't even turn on, in the case of the Droid get to the Moto logo). If it can turn on (get to the Moto logo) then with the appropriate resources it can fixed and therefore is NOT bricked. Bricking a Droid is VERY hard and nearly impossible for the average user following any of the numerous guides out there. Only devs really have to worry about it and with the leak of RSDLite even then it's something you have to really try for. Again should you manage to actually brick it since NOBODY will be able to see how it happened it would be a claim filed under the manufacture's warranty. I've seen a few phones go into stores that were stuck at the bootloader (Moto logo) and I've yet heard of VZW refusing to fix it (i.e. reflash the .sbf).

The only catch is should you take a working rooted (and flashed) phone into VZW for an issue (like the 3.5mm jack not working) if they notice it they can mark your account which would void the manufacturer's warranty. Most employees aren't that observant thought.

Edit:
Aside from rumors within the Sholes team when the device first came out I've yet to see anyone that actually bricked their phone. A few of the Sholes members apparently did in the early days but that was likely when they were hacking the boot-loader to begin with. That was also before the RSDLite and the .sbf files were available.

 

[dimaj]

Thanks for the explanation guys!
That definitely clears up a lot of questions

Cheers!

dimaj

 

[nphil]

KZIWarrior,

I'm still kinda new to Droids, and therefore mine is still unrooted. Question for you, if "unbricking" a device is as easy as pushing some image to the device, why do people say that there's currently no way of restoring a device from its "bricked" state?

thanks.

dimaj

For one because people use the term 'bricked' w/o fully understanding it. The term 'brick' should ONLY be used when the device is completely dead (i.e. won't even turn on, in the case of the Droid get to the Moto logo). If it can turn on (get to the Moto logo) then with the appropriate resources it can fixed and therefore is NOT bricked. Bricking a Droid is VERY hard and nearly impossible for the average user following any of the numerous guides out there. Only devs really have to worry about it and with the leak of RSDLite even then it's something you have to really try for. Again should you manage to actually brick it since NOBODY will be able to see how it happened it would be a claim filed under the manufacture's warranty. I've seen a few phones go into stores that were stuck at the bootloader (Moto logo) and I've yet heard of VZW refusing to fix it (i.e. reflash the .sbf).

The only catch is should you take a working rooted (and flashed) phone into VZW for an issue (like the 3.5mm jack not working) if they notice it they can mark your account which would void the manufacturer's warranty. Most employees aren't that observant thought.

This. As long as you can get into Moto's bootloader (The one you get into by pressing Dpad up+power), you're fine. All ROM's released today are simply copied over to the firmware block(CG39) of your Droid's flash memory, and don't touch your stock bootloader. Think of the bootloader as your PC BIOS, and the android system recovery mode as umm.. your os selector?

HTC devices are fastboot compatible though, and I think you can reflash your baseband and other stuff not related to linux partitions directly from your phone. So the risk for bricking is much higher.

 

[titans]

I really hope that these people eventually do tell the customers where to get these roots and ROMs...otherwise I smell a lay off incoming