Phone warranty claim not honoured - worth complaining?

Oh, and one important little detail, it's over 6 months but less than a year old.

The repair company are saying there’s damage on the hinge, so they won’t fix it under warranty. If there is, it’s likely from stuff in my pocket

I think you've answered your own question there!
Modern phones are pretty much fully functioning PC's, and are quite fragile. Add to the mix a new tech like a foldable screen and youv'e got something very fragile..you can't be throwing them around like a Nokia 3310.

I had a z flip 3, 11 months in the screen went on the fold.

Three allowed me to cancel contract with no penalty.

Don't get it fixed under warranty. Get it fixed under the Consumer Rights Act. Assuming that it's on a contract, it's reasonable to expect that a phone would last for the length of the contract.

Get onto O2.

Samsung keep sniping at Apple over their failure to bring out a folding iPhone. I think this shows clearly why Apple haven’t done one yet.

And are unlikely to, until there’s a way of folding a robust, transparent material with attached electronics to form a display that won’t subsequently deform, deteriorate and fail at the fold.

Personally, I don’t think it’s possible, and I fail to see the point anyway. I pull my phone out of my pocket, and the screen lights up and I can see everything on the Home Screen straight away, without having to unfold the device.

Assuming that it’s on a contract, it’s reasonable to expect that a phone would last for the length of the contract.

That doesn't hold for damage caused by the customer. Other wise keep it for 11.5 months, drop it, and get a new phone?

The repair company are saying there’s damage on the hinge, so they won’t fix it under warranty. If there is, it’s likely from stuff in my pocket

OP creates impression they don't actually know if there is damage and the repair company may be trying it on, but if we go past that and accept that it is damaged then no, that's not a warranty issue. You might argue potentially on robustness and whether it should be expected that a phone should stand up to being kept in your pocket with other things (coins, keys??) but as per the extreme example above, that would be hard to successfully argue IMHO.

To the OP - do you have house insurance covering accidental damage? Might cost the excess but i suspect a bendy Samsung is way more than that. And then compare cost of repairing something that you *may* have damaged against that as well.

I'd be pushing the consumer protection 'not fit for purpose' angle and wanting a NEW one or something else.  It is utterly predictable that you'd put it in your pocket.

To O2 assuming you got it from them as part of a package deal.

Also in parallel I'd go onto faceache / ****ter / instabolox and where ever they (o2 and Samsung) are advertising the device or similar, do lots of noisy shouting in comments to say how shit the product is AND customer service is being fobbed off etc.   I've found that making enough nuisance and bad vibes get them around to being reasonable in many cases (inc an utterly shiiite experience we've just had with John Lewis customer dis-service after buying 2x new Samsung tablets)..

Funny how that works...

That doesn’t hold for damage caused by the customer. Other wise keep it for 11.5 months, drop it, and get a new phone?

Perhaps not, but it would be difficult to argue "I put my phone in my pocket" as misuse. That seems a reasonable thing to do given that a folding phone's very USP is that you can fold it up to stash it somewhere convenient, no?

If being in a pocket were a genuine concern then I'd expect it to be listed somewhere between "do not submerge in water" and "do not stick up a cat's arse" in the no doubt extensive T&Cs.

It's not damage caused simply by being in a pocket, which I'd agree is to be expected (being put in a pocket I mean) - the OP said, and I quoted, it is damage caused by 'stuff in my pocket' which I'd speculate as being some potentially harmful item such as coins or keys, rather than other typical pocket contents such as a tissue, or a receipt (based on the audit of the jeans I took off)

As I said, you might try to argue a phone should be robust enough to withstand being put in your pocket with any other foreseeable typical pocket contents but I wouldn't support that. If I scratched or broke my phone screen by putting it into my pocket along with my bunch of keys I'd say it's not a warranty issue, that's me being stupid.

I take your point, but again,

What's the purpose of an expensive foldable phone if it's not "so you can stick it in your pocket"?

If you scratched or broke a conventional phone screen by putting it into your pocket along with a bunch of keys then it may well be you being stupid. (Who puts a phone and a bunch of keys in the same pocket, are you Andre the Giant?) But if you scratched or broke a phone screen which by design folds in to protect itself then that's a design fault.

I'd get over it and just pay the excess. If you were uninsured and looking at a very expensive paperweight then it would be worth pushing/complaining

At more than 6 months old the onus is on you to prove it was a manufacturing fault which will be both difficult to do and possibly expensive.  I'd argue with the company but not invest too much time and energy into it as your odds of winning would be low and an engineers report might be hard to get

I'd say you may as well keep pursuing it but with out pictures it's hard to make any other judgement. If the hinge damage is minor like a scratch on the external side then it's totally unreasonable for them to deny a warranty claim to the screen, however if the hinge is cracked/mangled and that damage appears to extend to the inside area of the hinge then I can see why they'd deny it.

I was using my non folding screen phone as an example. In the op's case the hinge has been damaged, presumably by contact with other (speculate, hard) stuff in his pocket and presumably it's a hinge that has electronics running in it.

Your argument has some merit, if the point is to protect the screen but is that the case? Modern phones don't need that with the use of gorilla glass and overlays (unless you're daft enough to put it in with your keys) isn't it rather to enable a big screen in a small overall design?

which by design folds in to protect itself then that’s a design fault.

I don’t pay much attention to new phone tech BS but I don’t recall seeing that as being pushed as a benefit? Could be wrong. Blatant gimmick, with far more downsides than positives, to drive sales in mature product.

These companies are masters at brushing off design flaw, not fit for purpose type claims. You are probably right but the hours an energy to argue that are unlikely to be worth just coughing up the excess and moving on.

Thanks for everyone's input. Just to respond to some of the points in the conversation...

I'm definitely sure there isn't significant damage to the hinge, nothing obvious to a casual glance but if you were looking to avoid a no-cost repair, then sure there's probably something to find from keys or such.

I’d argue with the company but not invest too much time and energy into it as your odds of winning would be low and an engineers report might be hard to get

I think this is the approach to take, along with not fit for purpose and see what I can get from O2, (yes it's a contract phone)

Then I reckon I'll flog it and get something a bit less fragile. Off to the what compact Android thread for me!

which one is it - I googled a bit and seems like they changed the design from the 3 to the 4 and that has resulted in quite a lot more issues with the hinge / hinge robustness, so much that someone said they are going back to the 3 design hinge on the 5.

It might be worth a bit of research to go in armed with some evidence to back up a claim that this is a defective design, then even if the damage has been caused by you / contact with something in your pocket I reckon you're better positioned to say 'yes, but it should be robust enough to stand day to day handling including going in pockets with other pocketey things'

You're on a bit of a no lose, other than a few mins of research time and saving a few webpages as reference.

But if you scratched or broke a phone screen which by design folds in to protect itself then that’s a design fault.

You’ve only got to Google to see how incredibly fragile these hinges are… they’ve basically introduced a huge new mode of failure that other phones simply don’t have. Yes it should still last a reasonable length of time but it’s pretty obvious you’re going to need to be massively more careful with these things than a “normal” phone!

It's a Flip 3. That's the strong one? Wow.

Screen is definitely defective. There's a permanent green band a few pixels wide running from the fold to the top and a black blob of leaked screen magic spreading out of the bottom of it.

^ exactly what happened with me. Be firm, Three were excellent and did not argue, it's a clear design fault.

I have a<span style="font-size: 0.8rem;">n s22 ultra now which is better in every way.</span>

“do not stick up a cat’s arse”

Ahhh, that'll be catcalling