Palm Gets Sued, But It's Not About Patents
from the i-should-have-gone-to-law-school dept
With patent lawsuits a constant concern in the mobile device market, the headline “Palm being sued over Treo” might make you wonder what IP hoarder is looking for a handout this week. Fortunately for Palm, that’s not the case. Unfortunately for Palm, they’re being sued because some people allege the Treo, well, sucks. The class-action suit highlights a number of complaints about the devices, and says Palm’s done an inadequate job of taking care of the issues, and wants Palm to pay out restitution, replace peoples’ devices and pay out damages. Oh yeah, and also the fees of the lawyers — the inevitable winners here.
Comments on “Palm Gets Sued, But It's Not About Patents”
I hope palm loses
I have setup numerous Treos. They all have the same problems and installing virtually any third party apps crashes them. Firmware update doesn’t fix most problems and creates a few more.
Neither Palm or Verizon seem to have as much knowledge as those of us who have figured out the quirks.
Also, they should be sued for not having any 64bit support.
Re: I hope palm loses
And I suppose you own one of these? Palm should fix the problems but there is little binding them to do so; and nothing binds the customer to buy a faulty product. And as for 64 bit support, why don’t you start your own hand-held-device business and show us all how easy and cheep it is to implement a device like that and has no ‘quirks’ you need to work around. I’m sure you can manage the millions of customer complaints and offer up the best firmware releases which don’t cause bigger problems when the problem exists in the circuitry 30thousand nodes deep. Or maybe you can mine through their hundreds of blue-prints and find that bug and offer up your own firmware solution.
Re: Re: I hope palm loses
Well, you don’t really know it’s a faulty product or how faulty until some time after you buy it, as an average consumer, and by then you are well out of any return policy and even you are not switching and dealing with the down time can create a considerable burden.
The Treo 600 has a shocking, truly shocking, lack of over quality, particularly in regards to the screen and camera. I went through probable 8 or so of them before my provider upgraded me to the 650 for free (once they finally came out, and having gone through nearly a year of constantly having to get new phones). It was simple impossible to get a 600 that didn’t have a horrible messed up screen…yet all the one’s in the stores where fine certainly creating a reasonable expectation that they are out there (FYI if your demo looks one way and package has something very different that is grounds for a lawsuit and criminal action). The 650 has been better but still has it’s issues. As a consumer I don’t have any problem requiring the my expensive ass phone actually work as advertised and demoed and think that this lawsuit is actually pretty appropriate. When everything clicks, they are nice phones, but palm simple cut a ridiculous amount of corners and ultimately released substandard products that are plagued with problems that they totally could have prevented. Sounds like a lawsuit to me.
Re: Re: Re: I Like my Treo
I have a 600 – it has worked fine for me for about a year and a half. Sure, there are some applications that will give it a reset, but just don’t run those apps. Yes, I can believe that there were problems early on with the Treo 600 – my friend got one a year before me, and he had to have it replaced. But by last year, they had ironed out the bugs.
Re: Re: Re:2 I Like my Treo
I’m with Chris O on this one – I love my Treo. I bought a USED Treo 600 off of ebay for a very reasonable price back in January. The earpiece speaker did not work (a commonly reported problem with the Treo) and so I tried to use my cell insurance to cover the repair. When I took it into the store to be tested, they told me it was still under warranty and they covered the cost of replacing my phone with a brand new one (possibly refurbished, but there wasn’t a mark on it or a label to indicate so) at no cost to me.
My Treo is actived through Sprint, and I know the Sprint Treos have a different ROM than most of the other carriers, so maybe it’s just the other carrier’s ROMs that are really the source of the problem?
Re: Re: I hope palm loses
Nope, I don’t own one of these in the complaint, actually, but I can point you to scores of people that got rid of theirs within the 14 day verizon grace period and numerous more that wish they did.
As for starting my own hand held business- no thanks- they opened their own can of worms. I started my own computer company and stand behind everything I sell, and if my customers had the problems that Palm’s customers are having, I would be the first to eat the cost and give them something that works.
No Subject Given
As for palm… We saw the same thing with Apple and their faulty batteries and graphics controllers. They had so many customer complaints and law-suits that they offered to replace the product in most cases. Although I would have thought it more prudent to issue a petition or even a classic boycott if its so bad.
Palm coming up short
What should be a premier product in both design and function, has instead produced an angry crowd of users who have to put up with problems a company the age and size of Palm should not be making.
Manufacturing defects that make phones buzz when you call, firmware that crashes if you switch cell sites, volume problems, stupid UI mistakes, etc.
The physical design is terrific, but the software engineering, testing, and quality control are sub-par to say the least.
And now, they are going to move to the MS smartphone OS.
I want to love my Treo, but with all the problems, I can’t quite get there.
It’s sad really…
Re: Palm coming up short
Even if the product completely bites and their support sucks, while it may be grounds for http://www.thetreosucksandihopepalmdieshorribly.com being purchased, it is not grounds for a lawsuit.
Re: Re: Palm coming up short
Actually, the fact that it sometimes takes 3 or more attempts at replacement to get a non defective product seems like it borders on the negligent side.
Keep in mind that each attempt is like decending into the depths of hades as you deal with either the phone carrier support or Palm itself.
Shipping costs, lost productivity, the sheer amount of time this can encompass is staggering – and try to immagine doing it with an executive breathing down your neck because he HAS to have a cell phone to conduct business.
Palm and the phone carriers don’t care though as their support depts. simply send you yet another bad unit…
(and yes I’ve been there done that too many times for my liking)
Palm needs to face the music for what may border on fraud, if not negligence, becuase they aren’t fixing it on their own.
Explainations
Sure the artical is all about the new 650 (and I have heard many a-problems about them) but how to they explain the piece of crap that I would like to call the 600?
Shame I can sue for false advertisement, I mean if you have used the 600, you know that the name “Treo” is a bold face like.
It’s more like 2.5
No Subject Given
I think i am facing the same problem as Palm Treo 650 is not a very stable phone…that is a unlocked treo 650…it reset without reason and anytime you need to be careful while using it…cost this has been my 2nd replacement and you know what? they never wanted to reply my email anymore after this replacement…really what a DAMN customer service that palm have.
i am in Asia and our country do not have class action sue, if not i think i am going to sue them too. as the problem that i am facing is the messaging problem that i always need to delete and delete when it is getting more message or it may end up error and you will have to erase everything.
another problem is the speaker volume is so low, plus their customer support are really bad! only able you to contact for 90 days then you will have to pay for it, what kind of company is that? if your products is really that good then why scare people “bothering” you too much and ask for solution?
i think palm is getting bad right now, soon i hope they are going to pay for the price when make their customer so unhappy with their products and supports. I really dont’ think i am going to get any palm products especially phone related in th future when this company is like that…as i am a palm supporter for long years, i think those Palm IIIc time palm are really doing well, NOT like this right now and this company are so iresponsible on their supports and warranty too 🙁