On 7/10/2012 2:24 PM, Russell Coker wrote:

http://www.kogan.com/au/shop/phones/android/

Kogan seems to have good prices, but they provide no support at all, they post stuff to you and that's it. They have the Galaxy Nexus for $339.

Honestly, .... seriously .... Kogan??????? Get serious, they grey import, you don't get AU stock, you don't get AU warranty ... they are far less than no good for "no support at all". When you buy something from Kogan, you buy the minimum AU statutory warranty and then you pay extra, sometimes a lot extra, for what should be "standard" warranty periods for equipment. Oh and like many other companies that use FB for likes so that you can comment on them, any negative comments will be simply deleted, however true and real they are as they obviously detract from the message. Needless to say the whole "like" situation on FB is way over blown and is a false way to further deceive the market (at least all the dills that think FB numbers really mean something). Cheers A.

On 7 October 2012 18:22, Russell Coker <russell@coker.com.au> wrote:

Do phones have any worth-while warranty? The three main sources of phone problems are smashed screens, loss, and theft. The sale warranty won't cover the last two and seems unlikely to cover the first one.

My brother's phone (a Galaxy Nexus) suddenly and for no explainable reason lost all 3G reception. Everything else worked fine. We proved it wasn't a fault with the SIM and standard techniques like rebooting failed to help. It had to be sent in for warranty repairs to get fixed. In the past I have purchased phones with known design defects (e.g. badly mounted USB socket on Nokia N900 that can fail, badly mounted on/off switch on the Nexus One that causes the ribbon cable to break after a while). -- Brian May <brian@microcomaustralia.com.au>

On Sun, 7 Oct 2012, Andrew McGlashan <andrew.mcglashan@affinityvision.com.au> wrote:

The other concern with non AU stock (grey imports) is that the software on the phone itself could be a problem,

That's not a problem if you plan to re-flash the phone yourself. As an aside one issue is that the OS build seems to have the emergency number hard-coded. My Samsung Galaxy S running Cyanogenmod will call 112 while locked but not 000, my telco (Virgin on the Optus network) doesn't route 112 calls. The fact that my Galaxy S was bought locally wasn't relevant, it was the source of the CyanogenMod image that was the problem.

also branding of the phone and different chips/features. I have a Samsung Galaxy S3, needless to say it is AU stock without carrier branding of any kind (not just unlocked). It has quad-core cpu and 1GB ram -- other models have dual-core and 2gb ram and different radios.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_S_3 According to Wikipedia you must have the international version, the AU version has 2G of RAM. Kogan also sells a model with only 1G of RAM. I agree that paying more for double the RAM could be a good idea, although I have yet to find a great need for more than 384M.

There are lots of variations, LTE radio is another variation.

The Galaxy S3 which is offered by Virgin mobile only supports 3G. The one Kogan sells supports Telstra NextG as well as 3G. Do you know how to get a Galaxy S3 in Australia with any LTE support? Can you suggest a good Australian supplier who has a price similar to the $499 for a Galaxy S3 from Kogan? http://www.mobicity.com.au/phones/smartphones/android.html Mobicity has the Galaxy S3 for $799 and the Galaxy Nexus for $389. Paying an extra $50 for the Galaxy Nexus might be a reasonable investment, but an extra $300 for the Galaxy S3 seems like a bad deal. http://www.mobicity.com.au/samsung-galaxy-s3-i9305-16gb.html Mobicity's Galaxy S3 supports Telstra LTE. But an extra $300 for the phone and extra expense for the Telstra network is going to cost too much for most people. If I wanted LTE I'd consider getting a LTE Wifi bridge on Telstra pre-paid for when I really need it and just use 3G the rest of the time. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/

The 2GB S3 versions also have dual-core CPUs, not the quad-core that I have. Cheers A.

Hi, On 7/10/2012 11:41 PM, Hiddensoul (Mark Clohesy) wrote:

Now, another complaint about Kogan is that you are buying from Kogan HK and therefore there is no tax invoice so you cannot claim GST on the purchase either!

As you are buying the product from Kogan HK you aren't paying GST anyway so how could you claim it ? Of course if the order is over $1000 thats diffrent but then you would have an invoice from customs for the GST you paid allowing you to then claim the GST you actually paid..

Correct, but that is another reason why their product is "artificially" lower priced and it underlines the fact that it isn't AU stock. I would expect thinkofus to provide a proper tax invoice and with them you get the 2 years standard AU warranty on the item I linked to. They also sell grey imports but Kogan ONLY sells grey imports. Cheers A.

On 7/10/2012 11:56 PM, Russell Coker wrote:

On Sun, 7 Oct 2012, Andrew McGlashan <andrew.mcglashan@affinityvision.com.au>

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I've been there, done that, right now I just want stock software from Samsung, no network branding, no other bloatware.

That's nice for you. Jason wants root access and therefore needs to flash it.

Rooting phones is over rated and it also adds risk. I know you have a use case for it (as per one of the LUV meetings for backup purposes), but I don't keep anything on my phone that isn't otherwise backed up elsewhere. Even if you don't root the phone and you open up USB debug mode (adb), then you are seriously at risk with your phone even with an otherwise secure lock screen. http://hak5.org/episodes/hak5-1205 And Kos has the app in the app store too, for what it's worth, but it isn't called p2padb there. The following search finds it though: https://play.google.com/store/search?q=p2padb

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Perhaps try: http://www.thinkofus.com.au/Samsung-i9300-Galaxy-S-III-16GB-S3-p/7186.htm

That is AU stock with 24 month Samsung warranty, a little more than $499 but not that much more.

When $71 is defined as "a little" then that's the case.

It's less than $71 when you take into account GST as most people would have to, even if it doesn't apply to you Russell. Plus you do get the second year of warranty from Samsung AU (for what it is really worth).

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Kogan has $499 with 12 month warranty, 3 years add $79 or 5 years add $109

So far in over 10 years of owning mobile phones and often having more than one phone for my personal use as well as being the main support person for all my close relatives I've only had one phone fail. That one phone is running CyanogenMod which combined with the unusual way I received it (Optus gave it to a client for free who then gave it to me) means that it's not even worth asking about warranty support.

So out of 20+ phones only one had a problem, that's less than a 5% fault rate. Paying 14% extra to cover the 5% chance of failure is bad value even if you aren't going to do something to void the warranty. As a general rule self- insurance is always better value if you can afford the worst case scenario - avoiding morale jeopardy alone assures that.

Perhaps you've been lucky, but using that logic, do you take out car insurance at all, perhaps not? It might similarly payout to not take car insurance.... but YMMV.

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Now, another complaint about Kogan is that you are buying from Kogan HK and therefore there is no tax invoice so you cannot claim GST on the purchase either!

Yes, you can get ~12% back if you are registered for GST. That would almost make the expensive local company you cited become competitive with Kogan for buyers who are registered for GST. I'm not registered for GST so this isn't a problem for me.

It's not expensive for proper AU stock, that's the point. The non-AU stock is cheap for a reason and it doesn't always work out, but sure, sometimes it does work out. Quad band GSM and quad band 3G are very common on new phones; the same frequencies used by all AU networks. Kogan can easily claim it works with all Australian networks, to a point, it does on the GSM frequencies used by every telco here. It does for the 3G networks too -- both GSM and 3G are using frequencies in AU that are all covered by the radios built-in to most newer phones these days. The difference comes when you need 4G (LTE) now..... and that has about 23 frequencies world wide, not sure how many frequencies we'll end up with, but right now I think LTE is all done over 1800MHz but I'm not sure on that. In time we'll have LTE over the frequencies currently used by the analogue TV networks.... that will be a reason to buy a new phone (maybe). Also note that whilst 2100MHz has been used by Telstra for 3G, they will (if they haven't already), only use that for LTE or Next-G. Other GSM network frequencies are being re-purposed by Optus (and I'm sure others) to use 3G instead of GSM as more and more people have phones that support 3G, the support for GSM will be much less required. Cheers A.

Hi, On 8/10/2012 12:43 AM, Russell Coker wrote:

On Mon, 8 Oct 2012, Andrew McGlashan <andrew.mcglashan@affinityvision.com.au> wrote:

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Rooting phones is over rated and it also adds risk.

What risk does it add? When you have a rooted Android phone any app that wants root access does it via a confirmation prompt that allows you to deny access.

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When $71 is defined as "a little" then that's the case.

It's less than $71 when you take into account GST as most people would have to, even if it doesn't apply to you Russell. Plus you do get the second year of warranty from Samsung AU (for what it is really worth).

I really doubt that even here you would find that "most people" are registered for GST and sending out GST invoices.

For those not able to claim GST, they _may_ be better off getting a "free" or low cost phone as part of a mobile contract. In which case, ACCC rulings have made it clear that a phone should be warranted for the period of the said phone service contract.

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even if you aren't going to do something to void the warranty. As a general rule self- insurance is always better value if you can afford the worst case scenario - avoiding morale jeopardy alone assures that.

Perhaps you've been lucky, but using that logic, do you take out car insurance at all, perhaps not? It might similarly payout to not take car insurance.... but YMMV.

I can't afford the worst-case scenario of a car crash. The loss of my own vehicle (given that 3d party is the legal minimum insurance) would be an unreasonable burden. It wouldn't bankrupt me but it would change my work plans for the next year or two to get things back on track. But I can just go out and buy a new phone tomorrow.

I believe that 3rd party compulsory insurance ONLY applies (in Victoria) to 3rd party personal; it is not compulsory to have any kind of property insurance for a motor vehicle. The compulsory part is detailed as part of your normal Victorian registration fees.

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It's not expensive for proper AU stock, that's the point. The non-AU stock is cheap for a reason and it doesn't always work out, but sure, sometimes it does work out.

So far the only phone that hasn't worked out for me and for all my relatives who get me to manage their phones is one that probably had no warranty to begin with and definitely had no warranty after I rooted it.

I don't think that rooting a phone should be grounds for dismissal of your warranty; although many people claim that to be the case.

I think that theoretically it sometimes doesn't work out in a way where the extended warranty would help even though I haven't seen that happen. But in practice I'm not getting any benefit in buying locally.

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days. The difference comes when you need 4G (LTE) now..... and that has

http://www.thinkofus.com.au/Samsung-i9300-Galaxy-S-III-16GB-S3-p/7186.htm

You previously cited the above URL for a phone which doesn't support LTE. It appears to have EXACTLY the same network support as the Kogan phones.

Correct, I never said it had LTE support, I did say that would be another variant.

If you can cite an example of a Galaxy S3 with LTE support on sale in Australia then it would help your argument. Especially for Jason who expressed interest in LTE.

It's irrelevant to the tangent that this conversation has taken.

Anyway in terms of 3G performance, the biggest problem that I've found is performance sucking in city areas which is presumably due to excessive congestion. Presumably when LTE becomes popular this will be less of an issue as the most demanding users will stop using 3G.

Yes, but I think the biggest reason is that voice has priority over data and data will always just take up some extra cash for the telcos on top of the monies they make from calls and exorbitantly priced SMS.

Early next year I will buy a new phone, maybe from Kogan, and LTE support won't matter to me. I am confident that 3G will do for me until early 2015.

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Also note that whilst 2100MHz has been used by Telstra for 3G, they will (if they haven't already), only use that for LTE or Next-G. Other GSM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_LTE_networks

Wikipedia has no reference to Band 1 use in Australia. Can you cite a reference for Telstra doing this? Presumably they will give significant advance notice to allow phone manufacturers to develop products for use in Australia, there would be no point building a network with no phones to use it.

Okay, well 1800MHz for today in AU for LTE -- add in other frequencies when analogue TV frequencies are made available for mobile. Here's a Telstra link: http://www.telstra.com.au/mobile-phones/coverage-networks/network-informatio... So 2100MHz for 3G is out for Telstra customers now (as of the 31st August 2012). So, it's 850 or nothing for Next-G services right now. Cheers A.

Hi, On 8/10/2012 9:47 AM, Russell Coker wrote:

Except that mobile phones that are "free" on contracts cost more than phones from Kogan.

Yes, of course, but some plans do work out cheap IF the phone plan itself suits otherwise -- you can get a subsidized phone. If you over buy the phone plan, then yes, you are over buying the phone and the total minimum commitment is high. You can win out with a plan though. I've previously bought a $500 phone at $20 * 24 months payments with no extra charge. Then I had $20 credit on the network to use if I wanted, but the phone cost less this way (instead of initial outright purchase). But it all depends on the plan you can use and what suits you as to whether or not buying outright is the better option. I usually buy outright now due to tax reasons. I am entitled to buy as part of salary packaging, a phone in my name. The company re-imburses me the cost of the phone in lieu of salary and claims the phone expense. I can then claim the phone expense in my personal income tax return; but I must buy the phone in my own name. Talk to your accountant to see if it will work out for you.

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It's not expensive for proper AU stock, that's the point. The non-AU stock is cheap for a reason and it doesn't always work out, but sure, sometimes it does work out.

So far the only phone that hasn't worked out for me and for all my relatives who get me to manage their phones is one that probably had no warranty to begin with and definitely had no warranty after I rooted it.

Blame the manufacturers whom price AU stock for the higher costs, or blame the AU consumer laws; it doesn't matter either way. If you want AU stock, you have to pay a price and most of that price is made up of costs from local suppliers (Bright Point are the only wholesaler whom can supply Samsung Galaxy S3 phones that are unbranded, unless you can get them from Samsung direct).

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I don't think that rooting a phone should be grounds for dismissal of your warranty; although many people claim that to be the case.

Generally when you want any warranty support you need to demonstrate that it's not something you did.

I still don't subscribe to that theory; if the phone is faulty, it is faulty. Just about the only way you can damage it [by something you did] with root access is perhaps frying a radio by increasing it's power beyond the "normal" level or over clocking the device. Aside from that, I would expect a manufacturer warranty to be 100% okay even with a rooted phone. Technically if you use ANY charger not supplied by the manufacturer, your warranty might be void, but again I see that as an unfair copout which the manufacturers should not be able to get away with. Cheers A.

Jason White wrote:

The user might, for example, overwrite and corrupt the boot loader and whatever software is needed to install an OS image on the device, rendering it useless.

As long as the software needed to load an image remains intact then one should be able to recover from a failed copying operation or a bad image, though.

On a tegra2, at least, the bootloader is bakend into a ROM and you cannot blow it away. Of course, that can probably only load from the eMMC, so if you managed to used up all your writes on the eMMC you'd no longer be able to chainload e.g. u-boot off the eMMC in order to boot off an SD or USB key, which would effectively brick it.

On 08/10/12 10:21, Jason White wrote:

The Nexus phones appear to be the closest current option, but some of the newer phones from various manufacturers have better hardware specifications.

Keep in mind with the Galaxy Nexus that although for the most part, Google handles the release of the updated OS, there are some variants of it where Samsung does quality control first and as a result, there is a delay. My Galaxy Nexus, which I bought through Kogan, is one of these models ("yakjuxw") - and I'm still waiting for an OTA update for 4.1, three months after Google released it to the regular Galaxy Nexus phones. I have no idea when it's likely to happen. Of course, I could unlock the phone and manually upgrade it myself, but I don't want to risk voiding the warranty. Cheers, Paul

On 8/10/2012 10:35 AM, Jason White wrote:

Paul Dwerryhouse <paul@dwerryhouse.com.au> wrote:

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My Galaxy Nexus, which I bought through Kogan, is one of these models ("yakjuxw") - and I'm still waiting for an OTA update for 4.1, three months after Google released it to the regular Galaxy Nexus phones. I have no idea when it's likely to happen. Of course, I could unlock the phone and manually upgrade it myself, but I don't want to risk voiding the warranty.

Is it possible to buy a phone that is already unlocked in this respect (i.e., open to having new OS images installed by the user)?

It depends on the phone, but normally this is easily done. There are the usual caveats about rooting a phone to update it, but as Russell has said, he has had trouble with his Sony phone. When it comes to LTE or other "regional" differences, there is usually multiple versions of each phone model -- even the iPhone has different versions for different regions due to radio requirements. Bottom line is that if you need LTE, you need to make sure the particular phone variant you buy has LTE, same as I had to make sure that the phone I bought was a proper AU stock model with full 24 month Samsung warranty. Samsung Galaxy S3 has quite a few variants, some do have LTE capability. Cheers AndrewM

On 8/10/2012 1:53 PM, Russell Coker wrote:

On Mon, 8 Oct 2012, Andrew McGlashan <andrew.mcglashan@affinityvision.com.au> wrote:

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Yes, of course, but some plans do work out cheap IF the phone plan itself suits otherwise -- you can get a subsidized phone. If you over buy the phone plan, then yes, you are over buying the phone and the total minimum commitment is high.

No, some plans used to be cheap. But now the plan prices have increased while the phone prices haven't.

Everybody needs to do their own research when buying and take into account their own circumstances and understand the costs of ownership. I hate it when a phone plan costs $50 and includes "value" of $700, that is all false.

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You can win out with a plan though. I've previously bought a $500 phone at $20 * 24 months payments with no extra charge.

I've previously done that too. But now it seems that no telcos offer such good deals.

I don't know of any specific deals today like that, and I'm not about to research them either; however, it's been done in the past and it _may_ be an option today. Otherwise, buy a phone outright if you can afford the amount up front. At the end of the day, it is up to the buyer to understand the pros and cons of buying whatever way they choose and weigh it up. The arguments over grey import vs AU stock is one area that should be considered and sure, there are differences of opinion as to the worth of buying either way here.... I am not saying one way is the best way for everyone, but I am saying that the buyer needs to be aware of the options and implications.

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I usually buy outright now due to tax reasons. I am entitled to buy as part of salary packaging, a phone in my name. The company re-imburses me the cost of the phone in lieu of salary and claims the phone expense. I can then claim the phone expense in my personal income tax return; but I must buy the phone in my own name. Talk to your accountant to see if it will work out for you.

You can't claim something twice. If the company claims the phone then you can't claim it.

As I said, talk to your own accountant. Teachers do the same thing with salary packaging of laptops.

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Generally when you want any warranty support you need to demonstrate that it's not something you did.

I still don't subscribe to that theory; if the phone is faulty, it is faulty. Just about the only way you can damage it [by something you did] with root access is perhaps frying a radio by increasing it's power beyond the "normal" level or over clocking the device. Aside from that, I would expect a manufacturer warranty to be 100% okay even with a rooted phone. Technically if you use ANY charger not supplied by the manufacturer, your warranty might be void, but again I see that as an unfair copout which the manufacturers should not be able to get away with.

The malfunctioning Galaxy S I posess randomly crashes, when it's not crashing it works well. The manufacturer would probably claim that the crashes are due to a bad CyanogenMod image - a bad image could cause exactly what the phone is doing now. However I had the phone working perfectly for over 6 months before it started crashing so I know that it's not CyanogenMod at fault, I can't prove that as there's no way of going back to a stock image.

One of the links I gave you previously will get you to the stock firmware and you will be able to reflash it and then present the product for warranty. However, none of the Galaxy S units ever had more than 12 months warranty -- that only started around the release of the S2 models for Samsung. When you got that Galaxy S, I am sure that the warranty period had already expired no matter where it was originally purchased from. Cheers A.

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I usually buy outright now due to tax reasons. I am entitled to buy as

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part of salary packaging, a phone in my name. The company re-imburses me the cost of the phone in lieu of salary and claims the phone expense. I can then claim the phone expense in my personal income tax return; but I must buy the phone in my own name. Talk to your accountant to see if it will work out for you.

You can't claim something twice. If the company claims the phone then you can't claim it.

As I said, talk to your own accountant. Teachers do the same thing with salary packaging of laptops.

As Russell says, you can't claim something twice. Teachers may well "do the same thing" but they're double dipping.

IAAA (I AM an accountant)

On Mon, 8 Oct 2012, Jason White <jason@jasonjgw.net> wrote:

Is it possible to buy a phone that is already unlocked in this respect (i.e., open to having new OS images installed by the user)?

The Nexus phones are all unlocked. Also my experience of the Samsung Galaxy S is that it's quite resiliant and has usable options for recovery when you do things that would brick some other embedded devices. I expect that other Samsung products would be similar in this regard. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/

On Sun, Oct 7, 2012 at 8:31 AM, Russell Coker <russell@coker.com.au> wrote:

On Sun, 7 Oct 2012, Andrew McGlashan < andrew.mcglashan@affinityvision.com.au> wrote:

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The other concern with non AU stock (grey imports) is that the software on the phone itself could be a problem,

That's not a problem if you plan to re-flash the phone yourself.

I have an S3 from Kogan, The software is fine and it works with the Telstra Network no problems although haven't tried 4G as yet as I am in a rural town with no 4G coverage and rarely come in to Melbourne. It is unbranded and unlocked and now it is rooted therefore negating my warranty anyway :)

Can you suggest a good Australian supplier who has a price similar to the $499 for a Galaxy S3 from Kogan?

http://www.mobicity.com.au/phones/smartphones/android.html

Mobicity has the Galaxy S3 for $799 and the Galaxy Nexus for $389. Paying an extra $50 for the Galaxy Nexus might be a reasonable investment, but an extra $300 for the Galaxy S3 seems like a bad deal.

http://www.mobicity.com.au/samsung-galaxy-s3-i9305-16gb.html

Mobicity's Galaxy S3 supports Telstra LTE. But an extra $300 for the phone and extra expense for the Telstra network is going to cost too much for most people.

Mobicity also sells grey imports the difference is they are not selling them direct from an office in Hong Kong as Kogan does. Therefore Mobicity has to charge GST and duty to the customer as the stock is here in Australia already, the phones from mobicity are exactly the same phone as Kogan sells, I found this out when I emailed mobicity to query why the S3 they sold had a 12 month warranty when in OS samsung offers 2 years. I was told that samsung dont do the warranty as it is a grey import. Mobicity may be better to deal with for a claim the Kogan but I don't know. Kogan has a registered business presence in China negating the need to charge GST and Duty as long as the order is under $1000 including postage All Apple/Samsung etc products sold by kogan are grey imports from china only the Kogan branded products are kept in stock in Oz

-- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/ _______________________________________________ luv-talk mailing list luv-talk@lists.luv.asn.au http://lists.luv.asn.au/listinfo/luv-talk

-- Mark "Pockets" Clohesy Mob Phone: (+61) 406 417 877 Email: hiddensoul@twistedsouls.com G-Talk: mark.clohesy@gmail.com - GNU/Linux.. Linux Counter #457297 "I would love to change the world, but they won't give me the source code" "Linux is user friendly...its just selective about who its friends are" "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a V8 station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway" "The difference between e-mail and regular mail is that computers handle e-mail, and computers never decide to come to work one day and shoot all the other computers"

Andrew McGlashan wrote:

Get serious, they grey import, you don't get AU stock, you don't get AU warranty ... they are far less than no good for "no support at all".

When you buy something from Kogan, you buy the minimum AU statutory warranty and then you pay extra, sometimes a lot extra, for what should be "standard" warranty periods for equipment.

When I buy something and it goes tits-up, the amount of grief to get a warranty honoured by ANYONE is enough that I will usually just buy another unit and throw the old one away. Granted, most people don't ever reach my levels of misanthropy, but for people like me paying 20% less for the same item in exchange for not dealing with sales or warranty people, doesn't really have a downside. Case in point: I got new glasses last week, and my insurance is supposed to cover it, but the swipe card didn't swipe so I paid the ~$150 out of pocket. That paltry sum is not worth me sitting on hold or whatever it will take. I suppose I would it if was $5000, but I've never bought anything that expensive.

On 8/10/2012 2:27 PM, Jason White wrote:

If the hardware fails while I am, for example, living overseas, does the local subsidiary of the manufacturer typically honour the Australian warranty or does the product have to be sent back to Australia for service? The latter would obviously be time-consuming and expensive (air freight in both directions would cost... it might turn out to be cheaper to buy a new device in that case).

There are all sorts of reasons why following up on warranty might be a pain or too expensive (money and/or time) to worry about. But if a manufacturer offers longer warranty then it is often an indication of greater faith in their own products which translates into greater confidence for the buyer. With a lot of equipment, a failure from a manufacturing fault will rear it's head quickly, sometimes not so; now with flash drives and the like, limited lifetime screens and other parts that just simply wear out.... well longer warranties can offer some peace of mind, but nothing will last forever. I too can't be bothered following up on warranty for some things due to all the hassle, time and money involved -- but it's always nice to keep that option open. Sometimes it really is worth going to the trouble for warranty repairs and often times you'll get a brand new replacement -- I am talking generally here, that is not just about phones. Cheers A.

On Mon, 8 Oct 2012, Jason White <jason@jasonjgw.net> wrote:

If the hardware fails while I am, for example, living overseas, does the local subsidiary of the manufacturer typically honour the Australian warranty or does the product have to be sent back to Australia for service? The latter would obviously be time-consuming and expensive (air freight in both directions would cost... it might turn out to be cheaper to buy a new device in that case).

In most cases warranty only covers the same country. For cases where the warranty is international (as IBM always did with Thinkpads and Lenovo used to do - not sure if they still do) then you can buy in any country and use in any country. I've bought a Thinkpad from the US and then got warranty support in Europe and Australia without any difficulty. IBM never even asked for a receipt if the manufacture date indicated that it was within warranty. If Samsung offers the same level of warranty support then Andrew's arguments against grey-market devices are all void. If Samsung doesn't offer the same level of support then if you plan to travel then the warranty is useless anyway. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/