It gets more.....complicated
I had a very long chat with Charles on skype.
It turns out that he's sent the softare update to painbreak, he's finished some installation instructions for the update so that's the good news.
The bad news is the definition of "customer service".
As you know I had no sound with the unit with the long cable and when I tried with the short cable it worked, so it's definitely a cable problem, either a short circuit, a bad wiring, it can happen and I'm not willing to scream murder.
I sent a mail to Charles about this problem and got no reply, after 5 days I started a Paypal complain ang got a reply within 1 hour, now we have moved along the complain and I finally sent a message to szenco this morning through the paypal system to leave a trace saying that I had narrowed down the problem to the cable, that they shoild send me a new cable and once I have it I would immediatly cancel my complain.
the conversation with Charles was going smoothly up to the moment when he told me that I had to cancel the complain BEFORE he would send the cable, and since the ONLY way for me to get their attention and a reply was to use the paypal complain I am not ready to give up this weapon yet, I cannot imagine what would happen now if I haid paid with Western Union as Charles insisted I did upon purchase.
I tried explaining to him that :
1) I paid for the long cable
2) It was dead on arrival
3) They should have checked it before sending it
But he kept on telling me that "his boss" (whomever that might be) demanded that I cancel the complain before they send me the cable, I told him politely that it was HIS fault if the cable was dead and that since I had paid for a working system (with the cable) i would cancel my complain when I had a working system, I explained to him that I put his in writing on the paypal site so that there would be a trace of that in case i didn't cancel my complain after having received the cable.
His final reply was to tell me to send the COMPLETE unit back to China (at my expense) and that they would refund my money afterwards.
I don't want to get impolite but you can all imagine how I can feel about such business behaviour, they sent me a defective system, I find the dead component for them and yet they want me to take a $70 charge (shipping) and a $650 risk by cancelling the only weapon I have because they don't want to send me a $20 cable.
So in any case that's where we are now, the unit can be rooted thanks to everybody's efforts, I have sound but "the boss" in china is not ready to send me a $20 replacement cable.
The bottom line for me is as follows.
1) Now that it is rooted it will be a great device
2) These people can ABSOLUTELY NOT be trusted
3) Use paypal to buy and use the complain system, it is the ONLY way to get their attention
I told Charles I would explain the situation there as I feel that transparency is the most efficient way to deal with his boss and hopefully before buying anything from them people will ask the relevant questions.
I knew since the beggining that there would be no warranty on this unit but I expected at least to get a WORKING system, apparently they are not able to provide that, OK, it can happen, anybody can have a bad wiring, but their refusal to admit it and solve the problem by sending a $20 (I don't even want to speculate on how much it actually costs them) part is really annoying, I am not really confident that if the screen breaks down in 6 months during the warranty period they will fulfill their after sales obligations....
I will keep you guys informed on the follow up and we'll see what happens...for those interested I have the complete log of the skype conversation...