My N1 was purchased on the day they were released. It was never quite right and had a pink tinge in the camera and seemed to be very slow doing wireless Internet. But since it was hard to replace I put up with it.

Before I left for the US I arranged for a RMA from HTC and a replacement unit was waiting for me when I got here. It seemed to be fine so I sent my one back. To my chagrin this refurbished phone began to randomly reboot, lose the network requiring either a reboot or a battery removal and other strange behaviour. It would boot up with no SD card showing or go into a reboot loop.

So I called HTC again and arranged for another swap!  This one arrived in 3 days and after I reloaded all the apps on it, configured it etc. I thought it was good to go and I sent the first replacement back.

Too fast!  Out of interest I popped in a ATT SIM card into this phone I had spare (I had been using T-Mobile SIM) and it said no SIM present. So I put my T-Mobile one back and to my chagrin, the same message appeared. I tried removing and cleaning the SIM but to no avail. But the T-Mobile SIM worked fine in another phone. So my friend and I headed out to a local T-Mobile reseller (Radio Shack) to see if they could do anything. All the salesman could do was to put his T-Mobile SIM in my phone and see the same problem and put my SIM in his phone (a Samsung Galaxy) and note that it worked. So it looks like my N1 is faulty, again.

I don't have time for another replacement before I leave so while I will call HTC and have this unit repaired this time (previous times they had sent me a replacement and put a hold on my CC and released the hold when I sent the faulty phone back and it was checked). As an aside the service in doing returns is good. They send me a phone via FEDEX Next Day Air and e-mail me a pre-paid shipping label for next day air which I just print off, stick onto a box and drop off at a Fedex mailbox or depot.

When the unit is repaired my friend will send it to me back home. He uses a Samsung Galaxy S on AT&T and that hasn't given him any problems.  I can understand why Google has chosen to use Samsung for the Nexus  - HTC QA is just rubbish.

My main disappointment (apart from all the hassles) is that I will be at CES tomorrow and will have to use a  clunky Windows Mobile phone rather than an Android smartphone. I might just stop by the HTC stand and complain to them!