About the repairability and sustainability of the Teracube

Teracube 2e
#1

So I bought a T-2e a couple years ago because of the repair warranty and replaceable battery. I checked the website, and it’s still marketing the phone as being repairable and sustainable. So when I dropped my phone recently in a parking lot and the screen cracked, I didn’t freak out.

What I found out though is that apparently Teracubes are not repaired. Instead, a replacement phone is offered up, and the old phone is sent back at the user’s leisure. While this certainly offers the convenience of not being without a phone, unfortunately Google’s backup protocol for installed apps makes switching phones a huge headache (because it doesn’t actually back up each app’s configuration, and still requires manual configuration of each individual app). In fact, the main reason for buying a Teracube in the first place was to put off having to switch phones for as long as possible.

It took about 12 hours of my time to replicate the setup of my old T-2e on my new T-2e. Back when I had a rooted HTC G1 running Android v2, it was possible to backup the entire image of the internal memory to an SD card and then restore the image on demand. Is there any way a similar process could be done with the Teracube, so that the time involved in switching phones could be brought down to less than 30 minutes? If not, is it really fair to describe the Teracube as having a “repair warranty”?

I apologize if I’ve misunderstood policies or procedures, and welcome any corrections. The above describes my experience over the past 6 weeks with Teracube support.

#2

I join in the question.

Hello vedicaudio,

as far as “repair” in general is concerned, this Repair offer seems to apply. However, things are very ambiguous when it comes to the screen glass. But also regarding the replacement of exchangeable components, for example. Someone reported here that he replaced the screen glass himself and a component broke in the process, which seems to be a problem with the delivery of individual components.

There is a tutorial about the screen glass repair and a screen glass is offered for sale in the store. However, the tutorial (images / video) only shows the disassembly of the Teracube 2e and not the replacement of the screen glass including assembly.

So, because i have similar questions about this matter, i had tell few questions in this discussion, but i have not become an answer.

(My) Questions:

edit: OK, yet i understand what is mean with “mid-frame”. Its the (on the screen glas) glued main-chassis?

#3

Yes, it’s possible to root your Teracube and utilize Titanium Backup or other backup solutions to simplify transfers. There’s directions on how to get that sorted out.

#4

Hi @vedicaudio - replacing phones has multiple advantages:

  1. The repair/replacement cycle is much faster than waiting for the repair of the same phone.
  2. It is cost-effective for us to repair phones in bulk.

Regarding software, we suggest using Google backup and restore as of now. You are correct that it can take some time. However, that is the same if you were to experience any software issues and reset the phone yourself. In addition, backup and reset every 6 to 12 months has the potential to improve performance with the removal of all old cache and stale files.

#5

Hi @Sharad,

You sort of acknowledged my concern without answering the question. The question was "Is there any way a similar process could be done with the Teracube, so that the time involved in switching phones could be brought down to less than 30 minutes? If not, is it really fair to describe the Teracube as having a “repair warranty”?

I acknowledge the advantages of express exchange vs. a same-device repair for both Teracube and its customers, absolutely. But I contend that without a user-friendly way of restoring the entire contents of a phone, marketing a “repair warranty” is misleading. Your statement that a reset has “potential” to improve performance doesn’t negate that. I’ve been using Android since the G1, and I have never just done a completely wipe and reset as there are other methods for wiping cache (like the wipe cache partition in recovery mode) and removing files that are much faster.

Google has had 10 years to come up with a backup & restore that restores individual app settings and they haven’t done it, so clearly it isn’t a priority for them and we should have no expectation that Google will solve this problem. If Teracube is going to say the phone can be repaired, there needs to be a method for doing so that doesn’t take hours or days to manually restore each app’s settings.

#6

Also, I’d like to see you comment in these threads which both touch on a trend of the replacement phones being delivered with malware that can allow SMS verification codes to be hijacked. This is obviously a bigger problem then the backup/restore issue when considering whether to “repair” (i.e. exchange) an older Teracube that is not infected with malware.

#7

See my updated comment on the other thread. I finally had enough and it’s obvious they aren’t going to do anything about it. I’m switching back over to my emergency/backup device, and looking for a good 5G/4G replacement (one that comes with an operating system that isn’t 3 years old and actually gets security fixes and all the stuff works on it).

#8

We factory wipe each repaired unit before it ships out. I’ll double-check the process with the team once again.

#9

Thank you to everyone that shared their experience with ‘screen broke repair’. my biodegradable case just biodegraded into pieces earlier this year. I just had the bad experience of broken screen. has fallen before and not cracked- but this time it cracked. I see I may have to worry about possible problems with possible replacement. I believe mine may be zirconia running on android 11 and security update october 5 2021.

#10

Unfortunately replacing the phone under warranty carries a risk of getting a hacked phone. Sharad never followed up with a response to this, so it’s time to move on from Teracube. A cracked screen is far better than a hacked phone.