Nokia 9210i Review

Overall Rating

Excellent features and interface with Microsoft Office apps and Outlook

Service is absolutely appalling

As Communications Manager for our company in Australia, I spent a lot of time reviewing a solution for our highly mobile MD who lives on his mobile. His old 6210 was slowly dying. The Nokia 9210i was a great solution for someone who hates SMSing (it has a full keyboard) and for centralizing appointments and emails. He was able to do away with his Palm Pilot as a result. However, within 2 weeks of the purchase one of the interfaces failed to load. I called our dealer who asked us to return the phone for repairs. I was a bit put out by that as we had loaded all the necessary data into his phone and asked if they could simply replace it. Their Nokia rep was present when I spoke with them and they refused to do anything other than follow their policy. As our MD was leaving for an international meeting, we thought it best for him to continue using the phone without the interface which he agreed to. Upon his return, the phone had developed worse problems - no longer would it ring, the interface to change the settings wouldn't load and his call register had died. The phone had no scratches or marks on it and he assured me it had not been dropped or harmed in any way. I relented and sent the phone off for repairs while our MD was forced to use his wife's mobile. After a week I called NOKIA again and asked where the phone was having been quoted a 3 day turnaround. I finally spoke with a very polite call centre "manager" in India. She assured me she would look into this and get back to me the following day. Three days later I called only to find she was off sick and spoke with another "manager" who assured me he would find out where the phone was. Three days after that I again called and spoke with the original "manager" who admitted she had totally forgotten about me as had her replacement. She did get back to me that day only to advise me the phone had had to be sent to ANOTHER service centre for the techs to analyze the problem before replacing it. I wrote a letter to the Regional Manager expressing my disappointment with their replacement policy and the fact that it received priority over their customers convenience. I received a replacement phone 3 WEEKS after sending ours off for repair with the technicians stating it was a faulty product.

Not having had any response from the Regional Manager, I wrote directly to the General Manager Alexander Lambeek explaining the whole situation and my disappointment in getting any satisfaction from the NOKIA care people or their after-sales service.

I did receive a response from the Regional Manager (or someone writing on his behlaf) expressing their concern but recommending to call their Care line.

Alexander also graced me with a signed standard letter apologizing for the inconvenience and to call the CARE centre should I have any further problems.

It was obvious from both responses that:
A) they had not read my letter
or
B) didn't care.

As a result, I now avoid all NOKIA phones needing something more reliable having had the same experience with two other NOKIAs that were less than twelve months old previous to this one.

Great products - pity about the lack of customer focus.