Cellphone saga update: back to the past
Off to PB. The M6 Note was under warranty after all, so itâs now with PB Technologiesâ service department in Wellington, after I explained it could have trouble doing readâwrite operations and the tech saw the camera and gallery hang (usually they just shut themselves down). I paid over NZ$400 for the phone including GST, and fortunately for me, Iâm only 17 months in to my ownership. (You may think NZ$400 is cheap, but I don’t.)
However, before I committed it to service, I had to find a way to get the old M2 Note going. I explained to one of the phone salesâ crew at PB my predicament: despite buying new chargers and cables, the only way to charge the phone was to drive to Johnsonville where it was last âservicedâ. And, as usual, hereâs the kicker: he plugged it in to his nearest micro USB charger and it fed it with juice, instantly. He said it was the cheapest charger they had in store. It also turned on immediately for him, whereas Iâve never been able to get it goingâremember, there are only three buttons here, and I have tried them all. âYou have 86 per cent charge,â he saidâback home it showed nil, refusing to turn on because the charge was non-existent. Your guess is as good as mine over this.
The really great thing here is that everyone believed me. I guess these techs have been around enough to know that devices are illogical things, and that the customer isnât bullshitting you, but more at a witâs end when they come in with a fault. He sold me a new charger (NZ$18), which worked. Of course, charging it on the cable that fed the M6 Note doesnât work: it says itâs charging, and the percentage keeps dropping. Again, your guess is as good as mine over this.
Tonight itâs getting fed the new Adata cable, which took it to 100 per cent earlier tonight.
Up side: how nice to have my old phone back, with Chinese apps that work and look good. Down side: my goodness, a four-year-old phone is slow. I didnât think the M6 Note was that flash when I got it at the end of 2018, but after 17 months, I got used to it and find the M2âs processing lagging. The battery isnât lasting anywhere near what it used to, either.
I originally needed the M6 in a pinch, as at the time Dad was heading into hospital and I couldnât risk being out of contact. The M2âs screen had vertical lines going through after a drop, rendering things difficult to readâand what if I couldnât swipe to answer? The M6 wouldnât have been my immediate choice: I would have preferred to have researched and found a Chinese-spec phone, even if every vendor online, even Chinese ones, touted their western-spec ones.
If PB fixes the issue, great. But if not, then I may defect to Xiaomi at this rate. Meizu cares less and less about export sales these days, and there appear to be some vendors who can sell a Chinese-spec phone out there. The newer phone was also buggier: whether that was down to it being a western version, I don’t know. The M6 Note didnât represent the rosiest of moments, certainly not for Dad, so Iâm not wedded to it getting back to full health. Letâs see how they go next week, but at least I now have a cellphone that rings againâoneâs only concern is how much charge it holds.
[…] words like Lucire and Autocade as well as my email address. Readers may recall that after I had the M2 Noteâs screen repaired, it would no longer charge, except at the store in Johnsonville (Repair Plus) that fixed it! The lads there would never tell […]