If you buy something you deal with a transaction. You are in debt, and you (immediately) pay off your debt after which get a receipt, and you get some standard rights defined by government and you might sign a contract.

However, in EU you have with every purchase, even Internet purchase, 14 days to change your mind and revoke the transaction and get your money back. The salesman might offer you a coupon or a replacement product but you don't have to accept this. There are a few minor exceptions to this related to hygiene (e.g. underwear).

I'm not a EU fanboy, but I'm happy with this kind of government protection.

(Are you referring to the government taking over debt of banks? That is something I haven't heard of in a long, long time...)

You got it totally backwards.

EU law forces corporations to give 3 years (manufacturer) warranty on technical devices, and 1 year from the salesman.

If you get an 'end solution' (one corporation selling hardware + software + service package) from an American corporation this is sometimes problematic because [some] American corporations apparently believe they don't have to adapt to local laws. Apple, Dell, and such corporations refuse to give these 3 years in Europe, and are getting sued for this by consumer right organisations (IIRC Dell lost their case already). What they try to do instead, is slapping you with some kind of 'protection plan' which means you pay for... essentially something you already paid for.

There are however examples (non-end solution) If you buy a hard disk drive in the USA you get 1 year warranty. If you buy one in EU you get 3 years warranty.

The only advantage in America is that the price is lower than in Europe and the people in stores are usually more friendly than Europeans (minus Great Britain). On telephone I find customer service equal... and I'm sure I'm contributing to that myself *g*

If your smart in America you buy Seagates with a 5 yr warranty.

The last two I returned were 4yr old 300's and were replaced with 400's.

People are quick to bash the OP, but the post makes it quite clear he had a specific reason to believe that the battery and/or cards didn't work right. While sending in the card was probably not a wise move ( I think they would have some for testing ) the battery was legitimate.

10 day turnaround is not atrocious, but it is poor in my personal opinion. Most computer hardware I have used needed repair or replacement on has turned around in no more than 4 business days, often in less then 2 ( The local Apple store does repairs ).

As people are quick to point out this is SOP for Nokia's support and that alone should tell people that the process if flawed and needs to be reformed. This is double true now that they are positioning their next Maemo device to be very consumer-oriented.

To the OP. This is a public form and is not generally trafficked my anyone at Nokia that can do anything. Please don't take out your frustrations with Nokia on us.

You are joking right? Where are you from if american warranties are good? I mean the warantee here in the UK is a year, but if something goes major wrong in 18 months, I can still get it replaced for free if I push it because of the sale of goods act. The warranty is in addition to your rights, not instead of it.

I only buy Western Digital brand hard drives. Most of their drives have a 5-year warranty also.

You've obviously had MUCH better success with WD than I have.

I'll take Hitachi anytime, followed by Seagate.

I have two fujitsu drives from 1990/1991 still spinning.. which they have been doing 24/7 since then! (they did have higher mtbf's back then though)
I've had good experiences with new fujitsu drives too.

I went for Samsung Spinpointers because at the time I purchased mine, the T1 166 500 MB had the best price/performance/energy_efficiency. The F1 had some trouble in beginning, but now with latest firmware, these are OK too.

I replace my HDDs every 2-3 years anyway, but I admit 5 years warranty is nice.

It also depends how nice you are to your HDDs. Mine are properly cooled at 30C to 35C (40C in summer).

And, if its important data, you always need at least 1 offsite backup IMO. HDDs are relatively cheap nowadays so there is little reason not to do so.

I also still have many old PATA and SCSI disks being sweet to me.