Nokia Australia continues to battle defective phone claims

The survey, which attracted over 700 responses, was conducted by ZDNet Australia as part of an ongoing investigation into the Nokia handsets' reliability, after being flooded with comments pertaining to two reports concerning the apparent high failure rate of the mobile phones' LCD, published earlier this month.

In the first report , a mobile service centre manager gave credence to claims made by several Nokia 8210 owners who alleged that the phone's display is defective.

ZDNet Australia published a second report after contacting a former employee of Nokia who alleged that the LCD's design flaws, and the extent to which it is making itself apparent in the field, had been understood by the company for six years. The former employee's claims contradict Nokia's official statements on the issue, which maintain that the problem with the phone is not widespread when compared against the volume of Nokia phones on the market.

Nokia's stance on the issue continues to remain unchanged in all but one respect: the company declined an invitation to answer specific questions regarding the survey, instead choosing to issue a generic statement.

In addition to re-affirming the company's quality and customer service policy, the statement repeats comments the company made to ZDNet Australia in earlier reports.

"It is natural to see some products being repaired during the product lifecycle. Due to our leading market position, the absolute amount of these may appear higher than smaller brands but we are confident that in relative terms Nokia products are as good as any in the industry," the statement read, in part.

Evidence supplied to ZDNet Australia by members of the mobile phone industry and numerous Nokia customers also carry a consistent character.

"Having worked in the mobile business for four years up until last year, I can honestly say that this is true," said one reader backing allegations made in earlier reports that Nokia is aware that its phones have inherent design faults.

"I worked for a major carrier and, on some occasions, personally took handsets with customers to the now defunct (I believe) Nokia Service Centre on Elizabeth Street in Melbourne. A queue of unsatisfied customers was the norm, with the fault lying in the screen of the Nokia 5110. The fault, in nearly all cases, was a fading screen."

Despite the reader's claims that he witnessed one out of every four phones sold return to the service centre for repair, he said that Nokia and its distributor steadfastly maintained that the problem is rare, publically.

"We [carriage provider staff] could almost guarantee that a phone would be returned once sold, as the distributor would not accept returns of stock that were sitting 'on hand'," said the reader, explaining that the distributors didn't want to be burdened with excess stock that Nokia hadn't officially recalled.

The reader claimed that the Nokia Service Centre also ran out of replacement parts "on many occasions".

"We had many arguments with the Nokia Service Centre, as well as the Sydney office. I have no doubt, as do my fellow colleagues that still work in the mobile phone business, that Nokia were well aware of the common fault," said the reader.

"The screen fault 'was' common, and was a running joke within the industry. We even joked about it at a big Nokia dealer launch at Crown [Casino]," the reader said.