Phone warranties are provided by the manufacturer, and cover 12 months from the date of purchase. The phone store does not provide any warranty. Warranties are very confusing, but the simple way to understand them is that they cover only manufacturing faults. These include faulty components and faulty workmanship. To verify a fault the phone needs to be returned to an approved repair centre. Most of these repairers are located in capital cities, thus your phone will need to be sent away. Repair times vary between 2 to 8 weeks.

There are many exclusions to the warranty, with the most common being;

Cracked screens. This is deemed as physical damage. The LCD screen in a phone does not spontaneously crack or discolour. If you insist the phone be sent to a repair centre to verify this, the manufacturer will charge you a quote fee upon rejection. Some customers deny the damage was their fault despite the screen being visibly smashed.

The warranty does not cover moisture damage. Living in tropical areas with high humidity, mobile phones regularly fail due to moisture. This is not covered by warranty. The phone does not need to be submerged in the pool to lose warranty. One drop of sweat in the wrong place will void your warranty. Avoid putting the phone in your pocket and sweating through your clothing.

Customers deny damaging their phone despite evidence to the contrary. I have opened a phone which had been submerged at sea causing extensive corrosion, and the customer wholeheartedly claimed it had never been in water! The warranty is offered by the manufacturer not the store, so it is ironic that the phone store receives the abuse.

People tend to forget that their phone is a fragile electronic device and needs to be treated as such. It is definitely not unbreakable nor even close to water resistant.