I purchased an Odroid N2 Direct from HardKernel Shop back in April 2019.
I received it on the 15th April 2019 and was using it right up until the 1st of August 2019 when the board failed.
I must say the N2 was the best hardware i’d owned running CoreELEC when it was running. (I Updated to Vim3 Pro and never looked back)
It is a great product but buying direct from HardKernel turned out to be a disappointment when the board failed outside their 4 week warranty period.
I bring to everyone’s attention that HarKernel has a very limited junk warranty on their hardware and anyone considering purchasing their products should be made aware that you may end up in the same situation as myself.
I paid $101.00 USD plus $20.00 return shipping for my 2gb N2 and have nothing but a Power Supply and Plastic case to show for my hard earned cash.
HardKernel’s reply after i sent the board back to them ;
We’ve received your parcel well. According to engineer, your board has HDMI_TX0_P, HDMI_TX0_N signal values issue. Since CPU cannot be replaced, we cannot repair your board.
We will keep your board for a month. If you want to receive your board, please let us know your PayPal account and delivery information. We will send you an invoice for return shipping fee. ($23.00)
They wanted me to pay a return shipping fee for a board that is not fixable.
I replied with my complete dissatisfaction of their warranty and the product failure within an unreasonable time frame.
No reply after nearly 1 week from them.
Please compare Khadas warranty before making a decision on your purchases.
A 4 week warranty for a new product anywhere on the Planet is unheard of.
But it is is in their FAQ, therefore the opportunity to see the warranty in advance gives the prospective purchaser fair warning.
I can only suggest speaking to your payment provider to see what protection they can offer.
Incidentally, I was looking for documents that give risk advice for UK businesses in Korea and there was a statement that probably says quite a lot.
“This report looks at the intellectual property, organized crime, human rights, bribery and corruption and terrorism risks that UK businesses may face when operating in South Korea.”
So basically it seems that trade is like the wild west over there, so wherever you live, you may well have little in the way of a leg to stand on in the event of warranties, save for the suppliers own business ethics.
If this is a typical example though, and if word gets around then it could ultimately damage Hardkernels business.
That is no joke I see. Everybody need definitely reconsider the purchase from this company direct. In eU distributor (for example : Pollin de) make it more better. Pollin.de warranty (German)
§ 9 Warranty / Liability (1) The statutory warranty provisions (§§ 434 ff. BGB and, if the customer is a consumer, additionally §§ 474 ff. BGB) apply. The warranty period is two years, for used goods one year, in each case from the statutory limitation period. Any claims for damages are due to the customer within the statutory limitation period. Any guarantee of durability or durability granted by the manufacturer shall remain unaffected. The legal rights of the customer are not limited by any guarantees of the manufacturer.
Buying from a foreign supply in the far east is always going to be a risk as collecting on any warranty even if it exists is going to be expensive and probably futile (regardless of what they say). there is no arbitration mechanism to call on so its always going to be purely discretionary.
This is why the same product packaged up as a media player by a European or American seller will cost you twice as much if not more. So ultimately are you prepared to occasionally take the hit on products with failure rates measured in the few percentage points ?
No, in the EU it is the seller that gives the warranty.
So for me buying within the EU gets over this warranty problem … 2 years guarantee, or in places maybe 1 year.
This is why I’m happy buying cheap stuff from the other side of the world - if it fails it’s not a big deal. If I’m spending £100 on a media player it’ll be locally (uk / eu). The price difference with the N2 isn’t huge anyway.
odroid.co.uk seem to limit the warranty to 3 months if I am reading their terms correctly:
“Prototyping items including but not limited to the ODroid range, Raspberry Pi range, Orange Pi range, Up Board range, and any product listed on our websites as an “SKD” part are requiring of specialist technical knowledge and owing to their scope of use carry a limited warranty of 3 months.”
They can write whatever they want but it doesn’t trump statutory rights.
Any goods sold have to be fit for purpose and last a reasonable amount of time. Nobody buys a raspberry pi expecting it to last 3 months.
Having said that any company that posts terms like that is not one I’d choose to use (if there’s an alternative).
Buy a pi from Farnell and you get a 12 month warranty - and it’s cheaper than from odroid.co.uk
What I said was I’d choose a different company if there’s an alternative. I mentioned the pi4 as it’s one of the boards mentioned in their t&c’s (and in the post I quoted), it’s widely sold and the price / terms can be compared.
I don’t like hardware with no warranty - unless it’s throwaway cheap. And any company trying to offer a 4 month warranty on a £100 media player is taking the p*ss.
I am wondering, how this fault could happen so fast. Could it be because 4.9 kernel? I know C2 is supported from HK 3.14, dunno their supported OS version in case N2.
Anyway, thanks for sharing this and I am sorry to hear that
The poor warranty offered by HK was one of the reasons i went with the vim3 instead, along with better processor, smaller size, built in WiFi+Bluetooth+emmc and smaller form
Factor and imo much better looks with the vim case, It also worked out cheaper for me to buy the vim3 pro than what I’ve seen a lot of people have been charged for the N2 with shipping and fees and Especially by the time you’ve Specced it anywhere close to the VIM3. Seems like a no brainier to me. The main argument thrown forward was that the N2 had better cooling but with just the heatsink and no fan my VIM3 pro has never exceeded 60• peak and it’s on 24/7, I’m sure once the fan arrives I can expect to never exceed 50/55• peak temp.
Plus of course it comes with a 1 year warranty
Thats my board done the same thing, it boots coreelec logo goes black then tv gets no signal.I can watch in tv settings when it goes black screen fit on auto, or on or off turns grey and then no signal.Odroid UK very sad to hear about it then reminded me of the 3 month warranty on prototype boards.Absolutely superb
They are not prototype boards, even though they claim that the Pi4 also falls into the same category, which is also false because purchasing the Pi4 from any other EU retailer automatically comes with the standard warranty associated with most products that you purchase.
Write/mail them to say that they are in breach of EU rules regarding warranties and if they don’t comply you will take the matter direct to trading standards, who will uphold your complaint.
