I'm just a bit confused as to the sides people are taking in this thread; do people really accept defective products without question? Nowhere on the Nexus 10 product page does it say it may/does come with light bleed, creaking backs, dead pixels, software issues, nor any other issue people have with the N10.
It is up to the consumer whether or not they want to live with hardware defects on their product but this level of tolerance varies between person to person. Unless you actually paid for somebody else's device, you can't really question their level of tolerance. To me, $400-$500 is no joking matter, so I would of course want the best device as-advertised.
My mom got some cheap tablet a while back that worked just fine for her, however when I held it, I immediately noticed the LCD rippled right in the middle of the screen. Now, if the tablet was just accepted as-is, there's a high chance the LCD panel would of became damaged later down the road, a lot quicker than a tablet that didn't have such an issue. The way it sounds from most people here, they would deal with the screen regardless of the price, and accept a likely pre-mature hardware malfunction, and I can't see any logical reason why...
RMA is there for a reason. If you get a new piece of hardware and if it is defective (within your tolerance), you have every right to try for a new one from the retailer or manufacturer. As long as the RMA policy doesn't state some limit on how many requests you can do, I see absolutely nothing wrong with doing it as many times as possible, however, this is also highly dependent on your own patience and/or how much you want the device your trying to purchase and enjoy.
The RMA process for the N10 is pretty interesting. You either RMA with Google/Retail and get a new totally-different random luck of the draw tablet that may be worse than what you had, or RMA with Samsung, which is a journey on its own to even begin (it might be a bit better now, but Samsung CS Reps in the past didn't even know they made the Nexus 10... and would just "Google" information about it and then send you right over to Play Store support). And when you somehow manage to even start the RMA and get it approved, your waiting a few weeks or more to even get it back (although the time is probably standard for most RMAs)
Mass-production of products isn't really an excuse to leave such a varying level of defects in a product. All the devices cost the same (for the most part) after all. It hardly seems like Samsung is even trying in this regard. But as long as people aren't using the RMA process, why should they care? Less annoyance on their end means they may as well save some money later and lessen the QC on future devices, since it would appear barely anyone cares. Next thing you know, people will only be RMA'ing tablets that literally crumble to dust when you touch them...
