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Repair of my HTC Advantage Part 4

In previous episodes of the continuing saga of Virtual Man, sponsored by the Cheshire Cat, we learned that Dan’s HTC Advantage got sick (see Repair of my HTC Advantage Part 1), that he sent the poor thing off to the HTC hospital (see Repair of my HTC Advantage Part 2) and even though the shipping company said the device had arrived at the shop no one knew where it was (see Repair of my HTC Advantage Part 3).
Written by Dan Kusnetzky, Contributor

In previous episodes of the continuing saga of Virtual Man, sponsored by the Cheshire Cat, we learned that Dan’s HTC Advantage got sick (see Repair of my HTC Advantage Part 1), that he sent the poor thing off to the HTC hospital (see Repair of my HTC Advantage Part 2) and even though the shipping company said the device had arrived at the shop no one knew where it was (see Repair of my HTC Advantage Part 3). In this episode, we learn that the sick handheld made it to the repair center, HTC finally acknowledged that it arrived and repairs are underway.

After calling HTC's service and support hotline every day, the polite agents finally found my handheld in their system. It had been logged in on Monday. Calls on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday showed no change in status. My call to them today turned up the fact that the unit has been repaired. I've been told that if the repaired unit survives their testing process, it will be shipped back to me sometime towards the end of next week. The agent, by the way, wouldn't commit to a date when the unit would once again be back in my hands.

I'm constantly surprised that HTC doesn't have a better process for high-end devices such as the Advantage. When one considers the target market mobile business executives, this long delay combined with no program to provide a replacement is simply unacceptable. I've been without the device for nearly two weeks. While I dimly see a light at the end of the tunnel (they turned it down to conserve energy and lower fuel costs), it's not really clear when it'll be back in my hands. What is clear is that I won't have it for my next business trip and possibly the one afterwards.

I'd strongly recommend considering what processes and programs HTC offers in the area of service and support before purchasing one of their high-end devices through anyone other than a wireless company.

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