Avoid iMate in the UK - Their customer service is crap

[ripnetuk]

Hi,

I posted the following message (which is all true btw!) to iMAtes offical forum yesterday, and they censored it (by removing the thread). Since then, the promised callback from sbe (their UK repair center) failed to materalize.

I think the WM community deserves to know what level of service they can expect if they are silly enough to purchase a iMate device.

george

Hi,

I bought a 9502 on release day from Clove, for around £500. It lasted all of 2 and a half months, before the buttons stopped working. Clove recommended sending it to sbe limited for repair, which I did, 3 weeks ago.

Firstly, they tried to quote me £150 for the repair. I emailed them, and got no response after a week.

So I phoned them, and was told that it would be repaired for free, and be back within a week.

Ive now waited 3 weeks, during which I sent sbe 3 more emails, all of which have been completely ignored.

I phoned them up today, and after being on hold for 25 minutes, they finally answered, and said they are awaiting parts, and will call be back with more info... I will post here if they do, but I doubt they will!

They told me they have a massive backlog of emails to get through - thats a shame for them, but its not good enough for iMate to be successfull in this market.

Ive since bought a HTC Touch Pro, and, guess what? it works...

I will never buy another iMate device again, and i suggest noone else does either.

The device itself doesnt work very well at all (keeps hanging, slow, reminds me of the failed toshiba g900, but not QUITE as bad as the tosh). The Touch Pro, despite being practically the same chipset, works very very well in comparasion.

On the iMate ultiamte, the old Windows Mobile problem that it cannot keep up with my typing occurs. I have to literally tap one key, wait for it to respond, and then tap the next key and so on. The Touch Pro has the innovation of a keyboard buffer - if it cant keep up, it remembers what I typed, and processes the keys when it can.

We were also promised an official WM61 update in august... suprise suprise, that hasnt happened either.

The battery life is also crap compared to the Touch Pro (even though the iMate has a higher capacity battery). I put this down to lack of graphics accelleration on the iMate - you can literally see it struggle to redraw the home screen, whereas on the touch pro, it just happens instantly.

If you want any support at all on your phone DO NOT BUY IMATE. They are obviously too small a company to offer proper support (disclaimer - ive never had to use HTC's support, because their devices work, so I cannot comment on it, but I doubt the networks would let them get away with this poor level of support).

I will post an update tommorow (or before if SBE actually bother to ring back).

Does anyone have an email address for iMate themselves, so I can complain about sbe - surely iMate will want to know their reputation is being trashed be SBE??? their web page doesnt seem to offer any email address (a good way to keep pesky customers off their backs i guess), and their live support is only available for a couple of hours in the morning - i will try it tommorow).

A mobile phone is only valuable for 12 months IMHO (as I replace mine every year), so I have lost at least 1/12 of the value of the iMate, just by not having it for this time.

Even if the repair is slow, a good start would be to use a repair company that actually has the staff / resources to answer emails / phones. I dont feel like a valued customer.

ps. IMate - if you delete this forum message, I will make it my business to post it on as many mobile phone related forums as possible (modaco, xda developers etc).

/disappointed

george

[Monty Burns]

that sounds a bit rubbish mate and i'm feeling your pain with you. Posting stuff like that here is definetley a good start as its read by a lot of people.

HTC stuff in my experience is just as poor build quality - so much so I avoided them for a while with my Tosh G900. My experience of my G900 has not been like your and mine was excellent... fast, responsive and built like a castle wall!:D My HTC devices have all failed at one point or another and i've yet to get 12months out of ANY HTC device I have ever owned. For example, my Touch Diamond feels like its made of paper, the paint is wearing off the back cover, the screen bezel/front cover has scratched, the screen is scratched and the buttons are scratched. This phone, like all my phones, is treated like a baby wrapped in cotton wool and has NEVER been dropped or banged, never put in a pocket with money or keys and always been treated like royalty. I have used HTC repairs and they are not actually that bad though.

Good luck with your Touch Pro and hope you get your Imate sorted :)

[wssherbiny]

I agree with you 100% they provide the worst customer support I have ever seen

Our complains in thier forum and emails are always not answered

really I regret having one of thier ultimate 9502

and we don't kow how can we punish this company but at least new customers have to think twice before dealing with imate

[mike freegan]

I think everyone knows I agree. It's coming up to 5 weeks (+2 weeks the first time) and I still have no phone back thanks to a combination of I-Mate and Clove's incompetance. Been told to sit in today and wait for a replacement direct from iMate.

I bet:

a) It won't come today.
b) When it does arrive it'll have the same problems the old one was sent away for.

Terrible product, terrible support and terrible reseller.

[josefcrist]

I am really glad i found this fourm i was about to do the same thing. buy the 9502 from clove. haha. i dont know now though.

I guess i am still on the qwest to find the perfect phone for me.

it has to have atlest 128ram gps wifi and atleast vga
i am looking at the toshiba g910 but no the touch pro because there is no softkeys in landscape mode

[ripnetuk]

... i had a g900, and it sucked donkeys balls... for many reasons...

the touch pro is great - the lack of hardware soft buttons doesnt bother me at all..
g

[mike freegan]

Lack of scroll wheel / camera buttons etc does concern me about the Touch Pro.

Perhaps wait it out for the Sony Ericsson X1?

[ripnetuk]

I thought that too, until I got it... the touch screen scrolls on finger movement (it seems to be able to tell the difference between a tap and a drag). It doesnt work on all programs, but it seems to work on mail, opera etc, which is where it matters IMHO

The camera button missing could be a PITA for some, but I rarely use the camera.

In fact, the hardware buttons are one of the most annoying features of previous phones ive owned, beacuse I was always pressing them by accident. I usually mapped them all to 'none' :)

g

[mike freegan]

Yeah. I think I'd probably end up mapping camera to the long press of 'end' key. Problem solved. My 9502 did that finger scrolling thing. SPB Pocket Plus enabled it. It's ok, but I preferred the wheel for being able to use the phone without having to poke the screen all the time.

I have heard though that it is possible to remap the volume buttons to scroll, and I think people are working on getting the zoom function to scroll instead like older HTC devices (which would be much more practical for me).

Oh, and my 9502 didn't arrive today. I'm not surprised.