Help Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 repair time

[Supercar55]

Last month on the 28th I requested a repair for my Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 10.1 because 4 weeks into ownership of the unit. What happened was the screen had started flickering and showing distorted colours for some reason. Given that the device was still well within its guarantee, I contacted the retailer from which I obtained it and they redirected me to Samsung who sent packaging to send it back to them for repairs on Saturday the 1st. On that Saturday the first thing I did when I got home from football practice was I packaged up the faulty tablet and mailed it back to Samsung.

Samsung say that upon receipt of the faulty device they will commence diagnostics and a repair will be undertaken so that the device returns to its owner as quickly as possible. This doesn't seem to be the case though. Luckily they print receipts at the Post Office with a web address at the bottom of the receipt to track the item you have posted, so that's what I did on a daily basis. The tablet wasn't signed for until Tuesday the 4th this month at 10:57 a.m GMT. On a daily basis I have been checking the Product Service Status page on Samsung's website and the status has been "Waiting for Product Receive". Nearly two weeks have passed since I sent the device off for repairs now, and now when I check on that damn website an error message appears saying "Sorry... your search has failed. Please re-enter your search details again or contact our Customer Care Team on 0330 726 7864 for assistance." What's going on? The device cost me a bit under

 

[Rukbat]

When your device arrives, it usually arrives in a canvas "tub" (at least, that's how they do it in the US) about 4 ft X 4 ft X 4 ft. (Each item is scanned, and that's the "signed for" time.) Imagine how many boxes of phones and tabs are in a tub that size. And they usually get at least a few tubs a day. So it can take as much as 3-4 weeks before "your" tub gets to the head of the line and your box is picked out, opened, etc. Then it might be an hour until it's ready for testing. (It can take 15 minutes to replace the screen, but the problem could also be the motherboard, so add another 15 minutes to an hour to determine what the problem is.)

Then the device is (or should be) "burned in" - allowed to run under test conditions for 24-48 hours. You don't want a new screen with some unseen defect going out 2 days after you get the tab back. They give it the equivalent of a few weeks of normal use to make sure that something's not going to fail early (it's called infant mortality).

Once it passes the burn-in, figure another dy to be cleaned up, packaged and picked up for delivery. Then, from what you say, 3 days from them to you.

If they had enough people working on returned devices to repair each device the day it arrived, you could probably add 25% to the wholesale price of the tab. (Which would add about 35% to the retail price, probably.) Repair departments usually run behind. About the only time they catch any slack is when a device comes in, they almost immediately determine that it's not repairable, mark the ticket "replace", and they bet the allowed 1 hour repair time by 59 minutes. (That makes up for the dogs that take 3 hours to diagnose.)

I had a laptop that needed a new DVD drive take 4 weeks to repair, from the "signed for" time to the shipping out time. I can do that job, assunming I had to walk a whole block to get the new drive and back, in less than 15 minutes. That didn't bother me - I've worked at repair depots - what bothered me was that tech support had already diagnosed it as a bad drive, but the worksheet showed 2 days for diagnosis once they had started working on it. The only way it can take 2 days to diagnose a bad DVD drive is if you slept for 47.8 hours of that 2 days.

But your tab doesn't get worked on the day it arrives - it gets put into "the line" - and it can be a long line. Give them at least 4 weeks to start working on it, then a few days before they ship it back to you. I know that ... I won't use the word because this is a family forum, but you do it with a straw ... but that's just the way it is.