Palm Pre Glue Problem

[mike626]

TL;DR: There is glue melting on my phone, does anyone else have this problem? Photo links at bottom.

I bought my Pre on opening day, and love it. It's possibly the best phone I have ever owned.

The build quality of my unit has been perfect. No 'oreoing' no dead pixels, no fading screen, no light bleed around the ball, but about 2 weeks ago there was a weird little imperfection on the screen.

More specifically, it wasn't on the screen--it was between the bezel and the LCD. It looked like a small series of cracks, but the bezel was still smooth and the LCD untouched, so I talked myself into thinking that they were always there.

Over time it got worse, so that the tiny 'cracks arched out from the bezel frame by about 5mm. I knew something was up at this point, and took the Pre to the Sprint store nearby. The sales person there said, "Okay, it looks like you have some de-lamination. Let me get this back to a tech--it will take about 20 minutes. 20 minutes later, he came out and informed me that he had bad news and good news.

The bad news was that the glue between the bezel and the LCD had melted, and that the tech said it looked as though I had left the pre on my dashboard or in direct sunlight. The good news was, that "as a one time courtesy," Sprint would replace the phone for free, "even though they are under no obligation to do so."

I thanked him, but informed him that there is no way the Pre had been exposed to excessive heat of any kind. I park in a garage at home, and in an underground garage at work. In any case, the phone is never out in the open in my car. It is always in my shirt pocket, on a table, or on the Touchstone. The only heat that the phone has been exposed to is my body heat and the heat from the touchstone. Both of which, the Pre should be desigened to withstand.

I'm hot, but I'm not that hot!

Anyway, he said that really didn't matter as they were replacing the phone for free, and he also stated that the reason the tech probably said that it was a case of excessive heat is that this is the only phone that they had seen with this problem.

When I left, I tried to find people with similar problems, but there was no mention of it in any forums that I could find.

So, how about it? Has anyone else had this problem? Photos below.

dl.getdropbox.com/u/1192285/preglueprob1.jpg
dl.getdropbox.com/u/1192285/preglueprob2.jpg
dl.getdropbox.com/u/1192285/preglueprob3.jpg

[enynite]

if its true that no one else has seen this, its cool of the rep to replace it for you without question.

Glad you got a new one. Enjoy!

[ABBlockhead]

Wow, this is the first story I've heard of a customer service rep willingly replacing a Pre, against the "advice" of a technician. Usually, the formula is the technician says, "You must have done ______ with it," even though you didn't, and then the CSR says, "I can't override the technician's expertise. We can't replace your phone." Congrats on not having had to go through that. It's nice to know that not every Sprint customer service story is negative. I only wish I (and countless others) had been so lucky.

Out of curiosity, was this before or after your first 30 days?

[wingerdinger]

^^ He said he got it on launch day so i am assuming out of the 30 day period.

I had the exact same problem. I had a "launch day" pre, with not one issue besides this, which had just started happening 2 or 3 weeks prior to me bringing it in. The technician in the back said that it was overheating on mine as well, and on my first try they said they couldnt do anything for me because it was "cosmetic damage." however after leaving and coming back an hour later, I was able to find a rep that replaced it for me.

Its good to hear you got it replaced. here is a picture of what mine looked like.

My defective palm pre.

[VCI_Cell]

I have had the same problem for a few months. Also bought mine on launch day - no problems at all with the unit's hardware at that time, but over the weeks a slowly-spreading blob of (what I now assume to be) glue started eking out from the upper-left corner of the screen, under the plastic.

Because my Pre has no other problems, and because I understand that "restoring" from the Palm Profile to a new Pre involves a lot of work (re-linking contacts, etc.), I'm living with it for now. But I don't like it at all.

[Brain_ReCall]

I've seen this before. The two sheets of glass holding the liquid crystal are starting to separate, which creates that interesting pattern. This is probably a symptom of the same problem that is causing the cracked screens: an improper installation of the screen that is causing it to be under constant stress. In the case of the cracked screens, the glass fails catastrophically, usually from another force (such as excessive heat, or frame flexing from pushing the center button or sliding the slider). In your case it failed slowly, peeling the two layers of glass apart. Rumor has it that phones built after 7/27 solve this problem.

[mike626]

Originally Posted by ABBlockhead

Wow, this is the first story I've heard of a customer service rep willingly replacing a Pre, against the "advice" of a technician. Usually, the formula is the technician says, "You must have done ______ with it," even though you didn't, and then the CSR says, "I can't override the technician's expertise. We can't replace your phone." Congrats on not having had to go through that. It's nice to know that not every Sprint customer service story is negative. I only wish I (and countless others) had been so lucky.

Out of curiosity, was this before or after your first 30 days?

This was well after the 30 days. I bought the phone on the release day, and went in on 8/13. Though, I have the $7 a month insurance, so that might have helped.

[mike626]

Originally Posted by wingerdinger

<snip>

Its good to hear you got it replaced. here is a picture of what mine looked like.

Yes. I am glad to see that at least one other person had this problem. I started to doubt myself, and thought maybe it was exposed to some heat...

In any case, I ended up with a refurb unit which was manufactured about 2 weeks after release. Meh. It's fine, a little loosebut otherwise no flaws.