My on-contract mobile died the other week and I had to consider my options. I’ve been using a Nokia 6265i with Telus for the past two years. It was pretty good phone, if not way too bulky. Then it started doing strange things. The phone would reboot for no reason, drop calls for no reason and it would forget the theme it was supposed to use. Then it started to take longer to boot up. That problem grew exponentially worse until one day on a trip to the US the phone stopped working completely. Apparently this a common problem with the phone; it just decides to drop dead on a whim.
Telus told me that, because I was already on contract and out-of-warranty, I would have to pay $250 for a “software fix”. I was also welcomed to pay the unsubsidized price (about $350+ for anything from this century) for a new phone, plus a $10 new activation/transfer fee. I understand that Telus is a business and needs to make money, but since I’ve been a customer for several years, and have three lines on my account, I figure they could have offered me something a little nicer. Tough luck.